When I Was At School, There Were Roughly Speaking ...

When I was at school, there were roughly speaking two groups of people as far as I could see.

One group was the in-crowd. And the in-crowd contained the ’lads’. It contained the beautiful people. It contained those people who were popular, people you really wanted to spend time with. It contained the ones who might get into a fight every so often - most days in fact. It contained the ’cool’ people. But most importantly, this group contained people who you wanted to be seen with. If you were with this crowd, you had maximum ’street-cred’. You had respect. You were proud to be with such people, or you really wanted to be with such people. Perhaps you have in your minds eye one such person, or a group, from your school days.

And then there was another group. And I seem to remember that I was in this other group - but please, no sympathy - that is not the point. This other group contained people who might be rather embarrassing to be seen with. They had no fashion sense. They listened to weird music. They said really weird things. They were the kind of people your Mum might want to invite round for tea, and your face would just go purple in embarrassment. This lot had not much going for them. We were the really embarrassing ones.

Now in all seriousness, my purpose is not to trample upon those of us who were trodden on at school. And if I have just stirred up some memories, or some current realities which are really painful, then please, ask Jesus to heal those memories. Ask a Christian friend to pray with you.

My point is this: The way of Jesus is not the way of the world. But the way of the world is this:

We want to spend time with some people. We do not want to spend time with others. Some of our friends we are proud to be seen with. But there are times in our lives when there are certain people we are embarrassed to be seen with.

Into which category do we put Jesus? Are we ashamed of Jesus?