Do Unto Others

My son, Owen, is a year and a half old, and sometime after he was born, my parents offered to keep him while my wife, Tera, and I went out. This was our first time out by ourselves since Owen was born. We had a great time and decided to meet my parents to retrieve our son after our night out. We picked a mile marker in between our two locations and met at the nearest exit. We were all unfamiliar with the area and as we drove to the gas station nearest that mile marker, it was evident we were in a rough part of town.

My parents arrived and we began to swap the car seat and Owen from my parents' car and into ours. As we were doing so, a man walked up to us holding a white styrofoam cup close to his chest. Before I even knew what he wanted or what he had to say, I pulled out my wallet and slapped a couple of dollars into the man's cup as he held it out. I thought I had done a good deed until I realized his cup was full of soda and he had no need for my money.

To this day, I have no idea what he wanted.

I have wrestled with this since then and have a dozen excuses as to why I did something obviously humiliated this man. And as I read Jesus' words saying, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," it has dawned on me that this message goes beyond our actions. At first glance I willingly offered a stranger money, much like a good Samaritan. But at a closer glance I allowed my judgment to be clouded by things such as race, social class, neighborhoods and so on, all the things that Jesus went out of his way to either ignore or overturn.

So this Christmas, as I think of Jesus being born to an unmarried woman, alongside farm animals and far away from home, I encourage you all to look at how Jesus' command to "do unto others as you would have them do to you" goes beyond our actions and convicts our hearts. May we be more charitable to the aliens, the outcasts, those with differing religious/political/social beliefs and learn to be Christ to all that we encounter.

- David Todd Harmon