Just Like Me
Let me tell you about Mr. Kay. He was a former investor in the company I work for. He passed away last week from cancer. Mr. Kay was very talkative. He was, by all appearances and rumors, a very wealthy man. And he was as atheist as they come. He was nice enough to converse with, though he would dominate most conversations, letting me know what business ventures were doing well, etc.
I cannot say that I had much affection for Mr. Kay, as our world views were polar opposites, as were, seemingly, our priorities. He also saw my ministry as a great potential to make money. As he put it: "there is a lot of money to be made in religion" because it exploited people's unreasonable fears. As I said, we were pretty opposite. I personally find it difficult to get the warm and fuzzies for anyone who holds making money in such high regard, even to the point of exploiting people's "unreasonable fears" to make some. Definitely not my kind of guy.
Shame on me. I formed my opinion of Mr. Kay based on how he related to me (or how he didn't relate to me). I placed him very neatly in the "atheist jerk" category of my mind, along with countless other people I have known, and aside from the occasional prayer for him and then regular prayer once he got sick, I very effectively dismissed him as unimportant. Irrelevant to me. Did I do that intentionally? No. He and people like him apparently don't warrant any intentionality on my part.
Then I heard his friends and family talk about him at his funeral last week. As I heard teary-eyed men describe a hard-working and honest man that always had a funny joke to cheer them up, who always put his family first, and who really enjoyed the thrill of the business deal way more than the money, I wondered who they were talking about. As I heard my boss talk about his dealings with Mr. Kay and how he made sure the people he cared about always knew how he felt, I felt a twinge of embarrassment as I started to realize my assessment of the man may have been a bit off-target.
Then Mr. Kay's daughter got up. She spoke of a man that loved his grandkids above all else. She spoke of a man that enjoyed life in all its facets. And she spoke of a man who loved her so much that he used to say to her "I would travel around the world twice to spend five minutes with you." As her voice cracked at those words, and tears began to flow from her eyes, tears began to flow from mine as the pain of the people in that room over the loss of a father/grandfather/husband/friend became palpable.
As it turns out, Mr. Kay was what not what I believed him to be. He was an atheist, to be sure, but what mattered to the people in that room was that he was a good husband, a loving father, a valued friend, a generous giver, an encourager, and a mentor.
He was a man who had dreams, a man who experienced joy and sorrow, a man who had success and disappointment, a man who had doubts and fears, a man who had hopes, and a man who felt pain.
He was a man just like me.
I am sorry that I did not get to know Mr. Kay better, because I am now willing to bet that if I could have intentionally looked past our differences, I would have learned of common hopes, common pain, common fears, and common joys. I had no right to file the man away as unimportant. Rather than look past him, I should have looked past those things that didn't make him "my kind of guy" and seen the man for who he was.
That's what Jesus would have done. People who have glaring faults, people who have screwed up priorities, people who dominate conversations and focus on themselves - in other words, people just like me - we are Jesus' kind of guys. We are who He came for, who He died for, and whose glaring faults He looks past. Guys just like me are important enough to Him for Him to do that.
My prayer is that this lesson will not be soon forgotten by me. And I pray that Mr. Kay's family will come to know the comfort and peace of God as they mourn the loss of a man that, as it turns out, was just like me.
I cannot say that I had much affection for Mr. Kay, as our world views were polar opposites, as were, seemingly, our priorities. He also saw my ministry as a great potential to make money. As he put it: "there is a lot of money to be made in religion" because it exploited people's unreasonable fears. As I said, we were pretty opposite. I personally find it difficult to get the warm and fuzzies for anyone who holds making money in such high regard, even to the point of exploiting people's "unreasonable fears" to make some. Definitely not my kind of guy.
Shame on me. I formed my opinion of Mr. Kay based on how he related to me (or how he didn't relate to me). I placed him very neatly in the "atheist jerk" category of my mind, along with countless other people I have known, and aside from the occasional prayer for him and then regular prayer once he got sick, I very effectively dismissed him as unimportant. Irrelevant to me. Did I do that intentionally? No. He and people like him apparently don't warrant any intentionality on my part.
Then I heard his friends and family talk about him at his funeral last week. As I heard teary-eyed men describe a hard-working and honest man that always had a funny joke to cheer them up, who always put his family first, and who really enjoyed the thrill of the business deal way more than the money, I wondered who they were talking about. As I heard my boss talk about his dealings with Mr. Kay and how he made sure the people he cared about always knew how he felt, I felt a twinge of embarrassment as I started to realize my assessment of the man may have been a bit off-target.
Then Mr. Kay's daughter got up. She spoke of a man that loved his grandkids above all else. She spoke of a man that enjoyed life in all its facets. And she spoke of a man who loved her so much that he used to say to her "I would travel around the world twice to spend five minutes with you." As her voice cracked at those words, and tears began to flow from her eyes, tears began to flow from mine as the pain of the people in that room over the loss of a father/grandfather/husband/friend became palpable.
As it turns out, Mr. Kay was what not what I believed him to be. He was an atheist, to be sure, but what mattered to the people in that room was that he was a good husband, a loving father, a valued friend, a generous giver, an encourager, and a mentor.
He was a man who had dreams, a man who experienced joy and sorrow, a man who had success and disappointment, a man who had doubts and fears, a man who had hopes, and a man who felt pain.
He was a man just like me.
I am sorry that I did not get to know Mr. Kay better, because I am now willing to bet that if I could have intentionally looked past our differences, I would have learned of common hopes, common pain, common fears, and common joys. I had no right to file the man away as unimportant. Rather than look past him, I should have looked past those things that didn't make him "my kind of guy" and seen the man for who he was.
That's what Jesus would have done. People who have glaring faults, people who have screwed up priorities, people who dominate conversations and focus on themselves - in other words, people just like me - we are Jesus' kind of guys. We are who He came for, who He died for, and whose glaring faults He looks past. Guys just like me are important enough to Him for Him to do that.
My prayer is that this lesson will not be soon forgotten by me. And I pray that Mr. Kay's family will come to know the comfort and peace of God as they mourn the loss of a man that, as it turns out, was just like me.
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