EQUALITY

I never really liked high school all that much. Just like the high school you attended, mine wasn’t just divided into freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors - there were all different kinds of sub-classes and you were categorized by whatever sub-class you were part of.

At one of the high schools I attended, the Italians ran the school. Since Kenosha is, at her roots, an Italian city, I know many Kenoshans would whole-heartedly approve of that. My wife is Italian.

More specifically, at my high school, the Italian jocks ran the school, because the athletes were on top and the Italian athletes were on top top. And that presented a problem for me - because I wasn’t Italian, and while I liked sports just fine, I was not naturally gifted as an athlete like some others. I was very tall - stretching up eventually to 6'5" but weighing something like 125 in high school. So that worked really well for me. Not. I had these really long, skinny sticks most people call legs that went on forever, so the track and field coach thought maybe he could make something out of me.

'So boy - how fast you think you can run the 50-yard dash, boy?'

'Umm ... well sir, I'm pretty sure I could run it under a minute, sir!'

I had my name on the 'number one' peg on the ping pong board long enough to make a legitimate claim that I was the champ of my school because I also had these long sticks most people call arms that also went on forever and I could easily cover the entire table left-to-right without even moving my feet - but for some reason, ping pong champions were way down the food chain at my high school.

So we had these very defined classes ... the athletes, the drama club, the music people, the loners, the stoners, the brainiacs, the nerds ... and years later it’s become clear to me that all through life people continue getting lumped into sub-classes.

And the unsavory little secret about me and the unsavory little secret about you is that we all keep unpublished lists in our minds of who the desirables and the undesirables are.

If we were asked to list God’s attributes, we would think about His holiness - His love - His omnipotence - His grace - His sovereignty, but there is one attribute of God that probably wouldn't make most people's Top Ten List - and that’s the impartiality of God - that God does not play favorites.

Jesus, all His life, was in the wrong crowd - He knew what it was to be excluded. It’s no accident that when Jesus came as a human, He was not born into a family of power, prestige or privilege. He left the magnificence of heaven and emptied Himself to show love to everyone, including those on the margins of society.

That's why being a believer who shows favoritism is a contradiction ... that any other mindset is inconsistent with the One who came to break down barriers of race, who came to break down barriers of class, who came to break down barriers of gender.

In fact, we are called to treat people with something even better than equality. James says: “Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” (James 2:12, 13)

Mercy means love in action. It doesn’t just say, ‘I’m concerned about you.‘ It says, ‘Let me come alongside you and show you how much I love you,‘ because MERCY TRIUMPHS.

So when you come in contact with someone you don’t understand or even like - they look different - they smell different - they dress different - they have different political views -- mercy triumphs - and that's way better than treating someone with mere equality.

And be blessed.