My son picks up a penny off the parking lot. “Dad! A penny!!!” He handed it to me and I quickly discarded it, flipping it back to the blacktop. Pennies are a nuisance. There is even talk that U.S. Treasury might discontinue them. It actually costs1.8 cents to produce a penny, almost twice as much as its face value. In 2013, taxpayers lost $105 million on the making of pennies and nickels.
My son picked the penny up again. “Can you even believe this is on the ground?! Should we look for the owner? Maybe they’re missing it. If we can’t find them, can I keep it?!” I saw the penny as insignificant. He saw it as a treasure. The Bible consistently lifts up three types of people who are the most insignificant in society .
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It’s time for the junior high dance. The whole school gathers in the gymnasium. The music begins to play. The boys line up on one side of the gym, single file, sheepishly staring at their shoes and mumbling to one another.
The girls are gathered on the other side of the gym in small huddles, giggling and glancing, asking “Is he looking at me?” But the boys aren’t looking at them. They’re looking at their shoes. The gym is segregated and no one will walk across the room. It’s as if there is an invisible barrier, an electric fence. And anyone who crosses the center line will be shocked. And so the music plays, but no one dares to walk across the room. Bill Hybels wrote a book a few years back titled Just Walk Across the Room. I’ve actually never read the book, but the analogy is compelling. In a world of immense division, it's incredibly difficult to walk across the room – to cross barriers and boundaries in order to engage those on the other side. |
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