"I had a little tea party

this afternoon at three. T'was very small, three guests in all, just I,

myself and me. Myself ate up the sandwiches, while I drank up the tea.

T'was also I who ate the pie and passed the cake to me." (Author

unknown to me).

That little rhyme is cute but

it is so true in today's world. It is a tragic way to live when self is

the center of our lives. There is probably no surer guarantee of personal

wretchedness.

During the recent discussions

and, yes, even arguments about the Hooters restaurant, I was anonymously

identified as a police chaplain by one of the feature writers a man for

whom I have great respect. I began to wonder what was happening in the

local church scene as I read the letters to the editor.

Are we, the local church, just

too comfortable sitting next to the person in the pew that we turn our

heads and hearts away from others? I am reminded that Jesus included Matthew

among His disciples not a promising candidate in the minds of the religious

purists. He was a tax collector representing a hated regime; he was legally

impure, socially outcast. He was the victim of established prejudice.

How could Jesus be a reputable

religious leader and keep company with the likes of Matthew? Jesus turned

the criticism back on His critics: "People who are in good health

do not need a doctor; sick people do" (Matt. 9:12).

When I was a police chaplain

in the city of Atlanta, I worked in Zone 3, in an area filled with porno

parlors, strip joints, cheap bars, fleabag hotels and hundreds of pimps,

hookers, criminals, ex-cons, derelicts, and drug and alcohol addicts.

It was human drama that I had never seen and most people never experience

first-hand.

I found, while trying to disentangle

the good from the evil, the worthy from the unworthy, that I had a kinship

with these people in that I am a sinner as well, looking for the mercy

of God.

When talking to these people,

I understood that my life stood in sharp contrast to theirs. I heard expressions

of cynicism, fatalism and despair. In the final analysis life meant nothing

at all to these people.

I came to understand that it

is

easy to think that way if life is totally based on the present scene.

They lived every day in poverty of spirit, incurable disease, social humiliation,

and, yes, even religious persecution. They were some of the loneliest

people in Atlanta and yet there were people all around them.

I learned that the greatest

gift to be given to people is the gift of kindness which brings expectancy

and hope into their lives. That is exactly what Jesus did in His ministry.

He reached out to people regardless of the circumstances of their lives.

He did not isolate Himself from people because they were different, because

they were thought to be sinners.

Jesus seemed to have an affinity

for ordinary people. In fact, his first two disciples were very ordinary

one whose name is not even mentioned in the Gospel of John. The other

was Andrew.

I love the way the gospels

portray Andrew. He was not a genius or a giant in the early church. He

was not a brilliant theologian or eloquent preacher as far as we know.

He never wrote a line in sacred Scripture or preached a sermon that is

recorded. He was a fisherman, just a very plain and probably uneducated

person. Yet Jesus called him to be His first disciple.

He didn't become part of the

inner circle of the apostles like Peter, James and John, yet one was his

brother, the others his fishing partners. It wasn't Andrew who witnessed

the raising of the dead child nor was he present at the Transfiguration.

Why? We don't know. But there was simply no room in Andrews' heart for

petty jealousy, resentment or self-centeredness.

But you know, everytime Andrew

is mentioned in the Scriptures he is doing something, personally bringing

people to Christ. This was Andrew, always doing the simple but significant

things with extraordinary spirit. He had the courage to just be himself

and do his own work in his own special way.

The great qualities of human

life are always in short supply. There is never enough love or courage

or unselfishness. These things cannot be bought or sold. They just don't

happen. They are built within our hearts and within reach of all of us.

The message is simple: we don't

have to remain mean, lazy, indifferent, selfish or greedy. We can reach

out to others with friendship, kindness, empathy and compassion. We can

lovingly accept into our presence those who have been ostracized and rejected.