Superiority Complex vs The Love of Christ

Call me crazy, but all these years I have thought that Christ's love and message started with loving the people around you. That doesn't just mean the people next door, or down the street, or at achool and work, or even in your state- it means everywhere. It means the person who cuts you off after a long day of work, it means the grumpy cashier that you try to avoid every time you are at the grocery store, and it most definitely means the people in this world that you never lay eyes on.


Not even as Christians, but as morally compassed human beings, we should know that superioristic attitudes are naive and judgmental and have the potential to cause some serious damage.

So you can imagine my surprise when, after purchasing an Easter Lily from the grocery store today, my grandmother picked up a handout that was functioning as not-so-subtle nationalist propaganda. The message was not simple "pro-America" (which, with proper insight isn't necessarily a bad thing), but also "anti-Japan." Seriously, America? Is this how we celebrate the resurrection of the son of God? We put out pamphlets braggin about the superior quality of American Easter Lillies of Japanese Easter Lillies and then trash their economy because we are "the greatest country in the world"?

And it is when I see things like this, in big cities or small towns, that make me embarassed to call myself a Christian - not because I am ashamed of my God or my beliefs but because I am somtimes ashamed of the people who may follow my God but don't love like my God.

This is not to say that I am always or even most of the time the best example of what it means to be the ultimate lover in Christ - but it baffles me how anybody of any cultural and religious background can read something like that and have the reaction of "Oh, cool, that sounds like something I should want to believe."

One of the biggest reasons why this upset me so much is that upon reading something that seemed so blatantly insensitive and ignorant, I realized that whoever wrote this didn't see the harm they were doing - and I have those moments, too. I have those moments when I call someone a name I shouldn't. I have those moments when I think less of someone because they disagree with me and I refuse to see that I could be WRONG. We all do. I have those moments when I read something offensive and instinctively judge those who wrote and read - and ,maybe the thing I need to realize is that the people that can be close-minded need as much as love as those they try so hard to exclude.

When Christ walked through Jericho, he called to a man named Zaccheus who was up in a tree. He wanted to visit Zaccheus' house. Zaccheus was hated by many people because he was a tax collector but despite the fact that many people who followed and loved Christ hated this man, Jesus extended grace and love towards this man. We are called to love the Zaccheus' of this world - and this can include other Christians. Sometimes, we are Zaccheus - doing what we have to in order to survive, doing something we don't necessarily see as wrong, and still seeking God. Never deny the possibility of love for you or for someone else.

I am Zaccheus.
You are Zaccheus.
We are called to love every Zaccheus - every single person on this planet.
The only one with any power to judge our actions is God, and, thank goodness, none of us are God.