Wally World And The Messiah

I was in Wally world the other day and, as my habit is, I was people watching. After my time in Iraq I have found that being around large numbers of people tend to make me nervous, so my eyes are always moving and my head is always in motion as I try to keep an eye on everything that is going on around me. On this particular day though, for some reason, I found myself really looking at the people that were there. It was busy and there was every type of person that you could imagine there. Young couples carrying babies, older folks shuffling along, rather rotund farmers, biker types and old hippies. It’s not that this is an unusual experience to see such a variety of people; it was that for once I found myself making judgment calls based on appearances. Usually I see people as just being people, but for some reason, I was actually basing my opinion of total strangers on nothing more than their appearance. This is so wrong and it’s not like I am some sort of stud monkey. I’m toothless, tattooed and  bald, not to mention somewhat rotund, as some of those that I was judging.

I wonder what would happen if we started treating others, not based on appearance, but as if they were the embodiment of the Messiah. Instead of looking at the dirt and grime, clothing ,tattoos, all things external, we actually started treating people  the way the actually deserve , rather than what we judge that they deserve, I wonder how different things might be.

Maybe that thought is a bit too utopian for the reality of the world we live in today, yet it seems to me that the goal, of both Jews and Christians, is to help usher in the Messianic age, to bring about a time of universal worship of G-D and an end to all suffering. Jesus told his followers that they were to Love G-D with all their heart, mind soul and strength, and to love their neighbors as themselves. Jewish teaching says that it is not enough to just wait for the Messianic age or the Messiah, but that we must act to make this world a better place, to bring about the age of the Messiah and of universal peace.

How do we do that? Treat everyone as if they were the Messiah.  If you believed that the person sitting next to you on the bus, passed out from too much booze, or the tattooed bald headed guy smelling of grease and dirt was the potential Messiah or that the Messiah lived in them, how would you treat them? With disdain and hatred?  No you would treat them with love and compassion and never even consider the outward appearance. So if you treat all people that way , no matter who they are, with love and compassion, you are, by default, making the world, even just your part of it, better and you are helping to usher in the Messianic age.