Ordinary Time

Scripture Reading:
1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’—1 Corinthians 1:26-31

I was having a sleepover with a good friend when I was in the fifth grade. After dinner, my friend and I were supposed to be doing homework sitting on the floor in her family’s living room while her mother was cleaning up the dishes. A boy had been placed in our class that week who came to our town to live with a foster family. He and his brother had apparently not attended school for a while. After the school staff reviewed the records on the boys and visited with them, the principal determined that the younger one, who was 15 needed to be placed in the fifth grade. He was already six feet tall and could barely sit behind a fifth-grade desk.

While working on our homework, my friend and I started calling him dumb and laughing about how he dressed. Suddenly my friend’s mother appeared in the doorway, still drying a frying pan in her hands, and said, “ I want you girls to stop making fun of the new boy in your class. You aren’t any better than he is.” And she turned back into the kitchen. Just as quickly, she reappeared and said, “And nobody is better than you.” That was one of the most powerful lessons I have ever learned, and it still has a powerful impact on me to this day.

Prayer: Help us accept each other as Christ accepted us;
teach us as sister, brother, each person to embrace.
Be present, Lord, among us and bring us to believe
we are ourselves accepted and meant to love and live*. Amen

First verse of the hymn Help us Accept Each Other by Fred Kaan, See at http://www.pateys.nf.ca/cgi-bin/lyrics.pl?hymnnumber=632

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.