For the last 3 weeks I have been yelled at by a elderly man for being a Christian Pastor. The first time he walked up to the table I sat at with some friends and yelled, You should pray for yourselves. I smiled and thanked him. Our offense, he saw we had Bibles and we were praying quietly in a public place. Last week he started yelling at me, You should do something about all the killing in Iraq. We engaged in a conversation and I told him about some of the work we do with trafficking victims and the homeless, and I invited him to come along. Yesterday he looked at me and said, Why dont you go back to your church where you belong? You shouldnt be out in public! I smiled and told him that I wasnt leaving the place we were meeting. We werent being loud and we had the same right to be there. Then he really got angry. We plan on still meeting there, and loving this man through his angry exterior, even if he never changes. Last week I was in a public place drinking a cup of coffee. A 50 year old woman told me I should stop helping the homeless. She said they brought down property values. Worse yet she said the city that we live in could make things very very hard for us. I told her we followed Jesus and we were called to love others. She told me she stopped going to church because they talked about Jesus too much and said some angry hurtful things. I engaged her for about 30 minutes and she never relented. She became less hostile but she never relented. I am a pretty gregarious person but in neither of these cases did I approach either of these people first. It was them that sought me out to share their opinion on Jesus and those of us that love Him. It is times like this that I remember that when they curse us they curse Jesus. When they dislike us, its because they dislike Jesus.It is times like this that I pray for Jesus to come soon, but in the same breath I ask but please wait a little longer there are so many that need to hear about Jesus. In America we do not face death for our faith like Pastor Saeed in Iran or like believers in Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Afghanistan, or Somalia. We are not treated as second class citizens. But that doesnt mean that a stranglehold isnt being applied. It doesnt mean that those things will never happen here. What it means is we must persist in loving those who hate us. Just like Jesus.
Posted on: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 14:44:32 +0000
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