And the Winner is!...

A few years ago at the Seattle Special Olympics, nine contestants, all physically mentally disabled, assembled at the Start Line for the 100 yard dash. At the gun they all started, not exactly in a dash, but with an obvious relish to run the race and win! All…that is…except for one boy who stumbled on the asphalt, tumbled over a couple times, and began to cry. The other eight heard the boy. They slowed down and looked back. They all turned around and went back. Every one of them went back. One girl with Down’s Syndrome bent over and kissed him and said, “This will make it better.” All nine linked arms and walked across the finish line together. Everyone in the stadium stood, and the cheering went on for several minutes. People who were there are still telling the story. Why? Because deep down we know that what matters in this life is more than winning for ourselves. What truly matters in this life is helping others win, even if it means slowing down and changing our own course.

This was Jesus’ point when he answered the lawyer who asked, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.

And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” RSV Matthew 22:36-39

It means helping in small matters and large. It means helping when it’s easy, but also when it’s difficult. It means helping, even when our human nature is to take revenge: when someone commits a wrong doing, Jesus reminds us although we do not condone the wrong, at the same time we do not turn our back on the wrong doer, but we help. Consider when the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him the woman caught in the act of adultery: ”Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?” …Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, ‘Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.’… But when they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus looked up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again.’ " RSV John 8:3-11

“BRETHREN, IF a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Look to yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” RSV Galatians 6:1-2

When someone falls in the rat race of this life, do you stop and help? It makes the difference, for you and for them.

Blessings Always In All Ways,
Steve