Sit Next to Me

“After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.

And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” – Luke 5:27-32

I recently stumbled across a very interesting story.    

A fifth grade teacher’s weekly exercise with her class was discovered recently and shared with the entire school where she teaches.   For several years it has been her practice to ask her students who they would most like to sit by.  Each week she also asks them who they think has been the best student citizen for the week.

She keeps all of the answers confidential and assures the students that she will do everything she can to fulfill their requests.  However, she makes no promises that they will actually get to sit by the person they chose. What she is really doing is looking for students who one week are the most popular but next week no one wants to sit by.  In short, she is reading the tea leaves of the classroom to find out who is the most vulnerable and on the verge of falling through the cracks.

When the administrator asked her when she started this exercise she replied, “After Columbine.”

Jesus had an eye for the margins.

He saw what others didn’t or wouldn’t.

He moved to the edge of society:  harlots, tax collectors, sick and diseased, sinners - whoever.  He interacted with people as persons. 

Every human being was in his eyes…human.

The polling data is in.  People are engaged as a “bump-and-run” experience every day.  People look past people every day.  They are a means to our consumerism. 

We are around lots of people but we don’t really “know” one another.

I cringe every time I hear about an attempted suicide or a suicide in particular.  Who knew them….really?  Was there no one to talk to? 

As children and teens move deeper into the world of the surreal in its many forms psychiatrists across the country are sounding the same alarm:  they are concerned about the dehumanizing effect all of it is creating in the lives of our young people. 

What an anonymous teacher did is definitely a step in the right direction. 

I wonder what that would look like for churches?  What would it look like for our assemblies, small groups and “congregating” throughout the week in the streets of daily life? 

To help our ailing world we have to be able to do this among ourselves…first.  Do we need to reimagine church?  Great!  Let’s do it.  Do we need to prioritize human need and the primary aims of the gospel above our heritage and comfort zones?  Great!  Let’s do it. 

A school teacher knows that being in a room together a “great class doth not make.”  The same goes for churches.   Our society is screaming for the “re-humanization” of humankind.

And that’s what church does…I think. 

Father, give us eyes for the margins.  Soften our hearts and reacquaint us with the compassion we need to engage people as persons made in your image.  Help us to rediscover the experience of “table” as disciples of the One who spread the first table.  Give us the stamina we need to fight the onslaught of cynicism and consumerism that daily attempts to fill our hearts and seal us off from people who need to encounter the hope of the gospel.  Thank you for so loving us in this way.  May we live in the power of that legacy. 

Randy Daugherty

Stephenville, Texas