Tuesday, February 12, 2013

The Nightstick in Your Own Eye

We went to church on Saturday night on an uncharacteristically rainy night in San Antonio.

I noticed an orange vest draped across the back of the chair in front of me. I quickly concluded that the gentleman seated there was one of the church's many parking attendant volunteers. I'm Macgyver-like in this way. Anyway, we settled into our seats and it was quiet, time for the service to begin when a cell phone in the purse of the woman sitting behind me started to ring. She simply forgot to silence it. But before she had a chance to shut it off Mr. Parking Attendant Volunteer turned all the way around in his seat and gave her the look. I felt for her. An innocent mistake and she was being shamed for it. But as she was attempting to silence it, it rang another time and Mr. Parking gave her yet another look that didn't say anything close to sorry about that.

So the phone silenced and the service carried on and it was time for communion. People were quieting as we prepared to receive the bread and the wine. When all of a sudden out of nowhere Mr. Parking turns all the way around in his seat and starts waving his orange baton in the air over his head. Because nothing says reverence and respect like waving a giant nightstick over your head during the Lord's supper. We quickly noted that he was flagging down a friend for whom he'd saved a seat. She came to the seat and the two immediately began chit-chatting away like they were at Starbucks. Hmm.

The whole thing just struck me as ironic. He didn't have any problem displaying his obvious distaste and judgement toward someone else who'd simply forgotten to take care of something that might be a disruption to others. Yet there he was waving a ginormous orange glow stick in front of my face when I'm pondering the night on which Jesus was betrayed. I know there's a lesson to be learned here. Pretty sure there's a Bible verse about taking the nightstick out of your own eye before plucking out someone else's ringing cell phone. Hope I learned it. We all mess up sometimes. May we lavish grace onto others just as it was lavished onto us.

2 Comments so far - Add yours!

  1. NO WAY did you witness this in church! Wow! I don't know what else to say...

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  2. YOU are so gracious my friend. Hope you were able to enjoy a bit of the service. :)

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