How Jesus Viewed Those Who Were “Different”

I was caring for some of my young grandchildren when a squabble broke out between siblings. I don’t recall what I suggested to resolve the dispute, but my granddaughter was adamant in her reply: “Grandma, that’s not part of our culture.”

Her culture? She was seven years old! Her parents weren’t home for me to ask if they knew why their daughter was making a connection between my idea for conflict resolution and her concept of culture, but I decided it didn’t matter. Maybe her point of view was just different from mine.

The concept of culture isn’t usually a laughing matter. Since the early 1990s, we’ve even used the term culture wars in American society, a term coined by an author. But I’m not addressing political challenges or disagreements about what is or is not moral or biblical.

I’m talking about what we do or think when we meet or observe from afar people who don’t look like we do, who don’t act like we do, who don’t always play by (or know) the societal or religious rules we do, or who don’t necessarily make choices we would make because they live by a different set of “customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group.” Sometimes we judge them.

The tendency to judge people different from me, at least in some ways, lies just beneath the surface. But judging others for that reason makes them less-than in my eyes, as if Scripture doesn’t tell me, “In humility count others more significant than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3 ESV). It blinds me.

Jesus also said to “‘love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,’” and to “‘love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37–39 NIV). Judging others takes up space in me, space God created for love in both attitude and deed. It forms a barrier between me and them.

This Scripture alone alarms and convicts me.

Sorry, and Yet

In the middle of our conflict resolution discussion, this same granddaughter politely excused herself. A few minutes later she returned, dressed in an entirely different outfit from head to toe.

“Why did you change your clothes?” I asked.

“I like to look pretty when I apologize.”

Maybe we think we can pretty-up ourselves after judging the different with I’m sorry, spoken to God or even the person we’ve judged—even if we follow with, but I still don’t do different. That’s not applying pretty. That’s applying a stain. That’s applying inaction.

Different, and Yet

Jesus did different, and with story and example, he taught us well:

• He told the story of a Samaritan going out of his way to help an injured man, ignoring the fact that the man was a Jew (Luke 10:25–37). In those times, Jew was about as different from Samaritan as you could be.
• Jesus didn’t turn his back on an “unclean,” outcast woman who had the audacity to touch his robe, breaking a cultural norm to seek the healing she desperately needed (Matthew 9:20–22).
• A young ruler with an important question was rich. Jesus depended on others’ assistance to continue his ministry. Yet no jealous attitude caused him to refuse this man an answer (Mark 10:17–27).
• A woman caught in adultery was brought before him, the sinless Son of God. Yet he not only defended her against those who alluded to stoning her to death; but showed her compassion (John 8:1–11).
• Jesus told the story of a man whose son left home with the inheritance not yet due him, culturally shaming his father. When he returned, destitute and defeated, his father gladly restored him to the family. The son made himself different, but his father saw what was the same (Luke 15:11–32).
• Zacchaeus was a cheat, but Jesus said, “Hey, I’m coming to your house” (Luke 19:1–10).

Blinded, and Yet

We can let our aversion to different blind us to what Jesus taught, or we can see the light. He taught us not to turn our backs on people just because their background or culture is different. He taught us prevailing cultural norms or religious rules aren’t as important as grace. He taught us to respond to those not like us with compassion and respect, and that we are not ourselves without sin. He taught us forgiveness.

God’s Word doesn’t tell us to treat well only those who are like us, make us comfortable, or agree with us. It doesn’t teach us to avoid, reject, belittle, or harm in any way those who are different from us. And I’m glad it doesn’t, because, God knows, we’re all different.

Jean Kavich Bloom is a champion coffee drinker and a freelance editor and writer for Christian publishers and ministries. She doesn’t garden, bake, or knit, but insists playing Scrabble is exactly the same thing. Jean and her husband, Cal, live in central Indiana. They have three children (plus two who married in) and five grandchildren. She blogs at bloominwordstoo.blogspot.com.

Photograph © Oliver Sjöström, used with permission