Today's Scripture Reading (November 15, 2020): Matthew 10
The Greek fabulist Aesop argued that "If
you choose bad companions, no one will believe that you are anything but bad
yourself." Of course, we already knew that; our mothers have been trying
to teach us that since our early childhood, not that we ever believed them.
Every time we started to hang around with questionable companions, mom would
immediately raise the warning flag. The problem is that she knew what we should
have understood; we would be judged to be of the same type of person as those
with whom we associate. I am colored by the people who I welcome into my
presence.
I am also colored by those who I
follow and those from whom I choose to learn. And this was one of the issues
that I tried to give some attention to in graduate school. For the most part, I
had a wonderful group of professors from whom I was very willing to learn. I
may not have agreed with everything that they believed, but I felt that they would
welcome our disagreements, and, even then, the learning could continue. But these
disagreements were in belief and not a question of character. When I felt that a
character problem was present, I tried to avoid the professor, even if our ideas
agreed.
There were a couple of professors
that I actively avoided (I had one class with each of them) in graduate school.
And the reality was that I was not comfortable in their presence. And it was
not a discomfort with what they were teaching or what they knew. My uneasiness was
because of who they were. Neither were they the kind of person that I ever
wanted to emulate. And I did not want to be colored with the same crayon that had
colored them.
This is the problem with anyone,
from any walk of life, we choose to support with our voices or our presence. It
is true of our teachers, our politicians, and our pastors. We need to be
careful with where we place our support and under whose banner we place our
being. We will be associated with that person, for good or bad. If we support a
liar, no one will trust us with the truth. If we laud the character of a bigot,
then we will be identified as racists. Aesop was right; "If
you choose bad companions, no one will believe that you are anything but bad
yourself."
It was this point that Jesus was trying to
drive through to his disciples. The student will be judged to be the same as
the teacher, and even the servant will be colored with the same crayon as the
one he serves. So be careful about who it is that you give the privilege of
coloring you. It is not that you can avoid the process. Someone is going to
shade how the world sees you. But you can choose to whom you give the privilege
of wielding the crayon.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Mark 6
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