I love parties, parties of all types. My favorites are parties with food. Wedding receptions, for example, or banquets, yum! Who we invite to these soirees speaks loudly as to who we are. It is interesting to me that Jesus’ “parties” usually included the “bad” people as well as the “good” people. As a matter of fact, in some of his parables his instructions were to ‘seek out the bad and bring them to the table’ (Matt 22:10). Now being a “good” person myself it is difficult to understand who would intentionally seek out “bad” people other than the police. They have few manners and are always putting their fingers in the dip. Ugh!

But a larger truth lingers below the surface: chiefly that people generally do not come in such clearly-defined packages. We are used to seeing the movies of old, the good guy wears the white hat and rides the white horse and the bad guy the black. To Jesus, there are no “good” people just as there are no “bad” ones; there are just …. well …. people. The Bible speaks expressly that all without exception have failed God in some way and are in need of His redemption, so there go the “good” people. The Bible also states with equal emphasis that no one is immune from God’s love and that His kindness is a part of all, so there go the “bad” people. So, who is left? Well I guess the “Bood” people or maybe the “Gad” people. The reality of humanity is that the best of us are sometimes guilty of bad things, even horrible things, and the worst of us are sometimes guilty of great acts of kindness and generosity. Our hats are neither white nor black, but instead divergent shades of gray.

Life is so much easier for us when we have cleanly defined categories of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and so we gravitate towards those definitions, often at the expense of those categorized, but ‘easier’ was not part of God’s design. Individuals are far too dynamic, resilient, fragile, and complex all in the same moment to categorize. People are a long way from simple or easy and elude any attempt at ‘one size fits all’ thinking. Any librarian will tell you that a book’s cover is a poor way to judge its contents. It is certain that below the cover of every individual is a unique story playing itself out.

I bring this up because it is so easy to surround ourselves with those whom we like and are like us. This is not a bad thing per se but it does tend to exclude those who might bring precious gifts into our lives, gifts not wrapped in ways we recognize as gifts at all. I shudder to think what my life would be like without Karen. Karen was a homeless troubled soul wondering the streets of Manchester yelling at cars on Elm Street. Karen was my friend for over 5 precious years spanning a time in which she worked in clothing ministries in Manchester when I first met her, through her years of severe mental illness and finally her death. I miss her still, not only for how we at Main Street Mission were helped by her and were able to help her, but also for the gifts she gave me personally: gifts of courage, tenacity, and compassion. She lived well outside of my comfort zone and I am grateful God gave me the courage to travel there.

The world is full of Karens and the world is full of the polished, millennial up-and-comers. Whether the right wing or left wing, all are stories playing themselves out on an individual stage, all infinitely complex, all of value, all broken, all the objects of God’s love and attention. He is the King of do-overs, the Lord of second chances. The Bible states that “His mercies are new every morning”: now that is what I call the “breakfast of champions.” These mercies belong to those who commit the sin of pride in thinking they do not need them and those who commit the sin of underestimating their depth in releasing someone from a tortured past.  There are neither white hats nor black hats; we are all broken, and we are all loved.

For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

Romans 5:7-8