Rev. Jim Jackson, Richmond Hill Presbyterian Church

It’s the way this world works: “Scratch my back, and I’ll scratch your’s”  Pay comes before favor. Reminds me so much of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’s friends.

Initially they actually shunned and scorned him, not letting him join in any reindeer games. It was only when his very different red nose benefited them that they decided he was worthy of their “love” and inclusion. How isolated, lonely and unloved Rudolph must have felt. Watching others is no fun when you’ve been pushed to the sidelines by those who are enveloped in their small group of look-alikes and think-a-likes. “Do something nice for me and I’ll throw you a few scraps of favor, maybe even invite you over for bridge.” Is that really the way love is?

We better hope that’s not the way love is shared.

What joy is ours when the Scriptures declare: “But God commended his love toward us, in that, while were were yet sinners. Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Rudolph’s friends and it wrong: Paul had it right.

But we run along life’s pathway made lonely by our own narrow vision and cheap compassion, trying to pass it off as true love. I just imagine our Lord is disappointed with such a “fakie” kind of compassion. God didn’t hold back until we got it right before sending his Redeemer Son.

And Jesus didn’t circumvent the cross, waiting for us to come up with some homemade holiness. Excluding others from our life’s games only serves to short change ourselves. Alone nd saving our love only for our kind of race, language, and convictions, our vision is impaired; not Christ-like.

Paul’s world was anything but plain vanilla. Recall how he invited the despised gentiles to life in Christ. And it wasn’t until they got their theology right that he traipsed land and sea to introduce them to the One who took the first step toward their salvation. And Jesus didn’t linger for the Samaritan woman to clean up her life before he offered and gave her living water. And he didn’t wait for Zacchaeus to climb out of that tree before inviting himself to that scorned tax collector’s house for dinner.

Had those selfish, brown nosed reindeer included Rudolph in their games in the beginning, they would not have been playing dangerously in the dark until he came along. It’s the very nature of love to take the initiative and risks of inviting the ordinary and, yes, even the impaired, afflicted and unlovely to our games.