What would it be like to be someone else?

When I was a kid, I loved watching the episode of Gilligan's Island when the crew got stuck in a mad scientist's castle, and their minds were transfered to other bodies. It was cool to watch Marianne act like Gilligan, etc.

In real life, it seems a lot harder to do. And yet it is a critical ability that we human beings must develop further. Our empathy - our most important trait - depends on us bettering ourselves in this area.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 5 that if someone forces us to walk a mile with them, we should go two miles. What I have always taken from this is not that Jesus is evoking a forced march as a prisoner - but the above and beyond that you take to respond to someone's inconvenient plea for help.

None of us likes to be made uncomfortable. I am a fairly shy person (my internet outgoingness notwithstanding) so I know how uneasy it can be to learn about someone else. But I have learned to make myself gregarious, for other peoples' sake. Because people need that sometimes. When you talk to an elderly person at a rest home, you may be the only meaningful contact that he or she has had in a long time. What if his or her children don't visit, for example? (Sadly, I rarely visited my father in law his last few weeks, and I will always feel badly about that.) When someone begs you for spare change, yes, there's a chance they will head to the liquor store - but what credit to you is your denial of them even if it were so?

Jesus quotes his future self telling the future righteous, "Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me."

To the hard-hearted - and we are all of us the hard-hearted in our worst moments - the hungry are "welfare mothers", the thirsty are "bums", the stranger is a "foreigner", the naked is the "degenerate", the sick are the "freeloaders", and those in prison should be locked up with the key thrown away. Do we have to literally become one of these to understand that compassion is not just for the model citizen in a bad run of luck, but in fact is meant for everyone?

Jesus tells us that God sends rain on the just and unjust alike - and each one of us has been just and unjust, so this is a very good thing! He adds, "For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?" (Matthew 5:56) If we allow our judgements to get in the way of our love, than truly there is no hope for us. For if we condemn by our judgements, how could we dare fall on our feet before our creator and ask to be excused from his condemnation? God has seen every hurtful thing that we have done, and yet is prepared to forgive it. But - at least in this respect, he expects us to follow his example.

If the urge hits you to scowl.. (and it does me - I can be particularly cranky at work, though I hide it well... type A personality traits suck!)

Where was I? Ah yes, if you have the urge to scowl at someone just because of who they are, and what that might represent to you - try to bite it back. If we need the unlimited mercy of the ever-loving Father, then it behooves us to take our part in that mercy as well.