When I was a kid, there was one thing you had to have in order to be accepted by all the other kids…the right clothes. I don’t know whoever thought up the stupid ritual where kids gravitate toward fashion (while having no fashion sense) and then judge others based on some arbitrary standard. Case in point, when I was in elementary school and junior high, my mom swore by the jeans, made by the Sears Roebuck Company, called Toughskins (you can look at an ad for them here - if you are so inclined). They were the poor man’s Levis…and we were poor so they were my Levis. 

Granted, Toughskins had an ambitious marketing campaign--there is even one ad featuring the unstoppable Chuck Norris doing a high karate kick. If Chuck Norris can’t sell Toughskins to the masses, then no one can. Toughskins had large X’s sewn on the back pockets to proudly display the cancellation of dirt, grime, and holes that young boys so often got into. Unfortunately, the X’s also signaled the cancellation of “cool” status when other kids saw them. As a matter of fact, the X actually signaled an invitation to be made fun of…which happened to me on occasion. 

This phenomenon is an odd thing, the need to mock and belittle someone who you deem as less fortunate than you are. Why is it that we naturally pick on the most vulnerable instead of defending the most vulnerable? I was talking to a schoolteacher friend of mine this week, and she spoke about this young boy (3^rd grade) who was living in the homeless shelter with his family. If you don’t already know this, the homeless shelter doesn’t have the best internet. As a result, this young man’s internet feed was glitching while trying to do class work with other children…and instantly, he started to be made fun of for having slow internet. “What’s wrong, your parents can’t get better internet?” The answer to that is “NO, I LIVE IN THE HOMELESS SHELTER.” These are nine and ten year-old kids we’re talking about, and they are able to hone in on a difference and exploit it. 

When Jesus speaks to people who think they are very religious, but really live very self-centered lives, He calls them out on it. We see Jesus say in Matthew 25:44-45 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. We tend to think the ‘least of these’ are people we have never encountered; they certainly are not those we would make fun of--and yet we all have. 

There is a hypocrisy, deep within our bones, that stems from unrealized and unacknowledged sin. No one is exempt--no one. Today if you watch the riots that break out over racial and societal injustice, oftentimes the crowd’s rage will turn against the vulnerable and not their oppressors. There are videos of singled-out shopkeepers, lone people walking down the street, and random people in cars who are attacked for no reason other than they are vulnerable and can’t stand against the mob. A protest that came together for justice can easily become a force for injustice, because human hearts are in the mix.

Yet on the other side, there are many who watch this hypocrisy and do not see it in themselves when they ignore the cry of the why behind the protests in the first place. Too many look at the incongruous actions of the protestors and use that as an excuse to write off everything that the movement is proclaiming. Our deep-rooted sin that makes us seek our own comfort, naturally wants to turn down the volume of what we perceive as Toughskins and not Levis, so to speak. Our sin nature makes us want to see people who either don’t agree with us, or don’t look like us, as the “other.”

And quite honestly, left to our own devices, this would never end. 

Some people have seen many of the problems in an honest way--not using the division for power or politics--and have come to a place of despair. Vox had a recent article detailing the 12 things most likely to destroy humanity, and most of them were brought about by humanity. Harvard scientist Abraham Avi’ Loeb believes that humanity will destroy itself long before the sun burns out. Dan Wells writes, “Humanity will destroy itself, body and soul, before it will learn a simple lesson.” If I could be so bold, I would say humanity already has destroyed itself in what we refer to in the Scriptures as “the Fall.” The greater question becomes then, “Why are we still here?”

And the answer is grace.  

Too often we think the answer to the human dilemma is our Levis (or our faster internet)--some sort of homogenous mass where everyone looks and likes the same thing. We are told that if we all just agreed that the problem is privilege, climate change, or something else, we would all get along, but that is untrue. Humanity, in its fallen state, will always find ways to make some people less than others. This is why we should stop solely advocating our favorite authors or causes without speaking the truth of the Gospel. So many dismiss our human condition while sitting in a pool of it, and that just makes no sense to me. The bad news is that humanity is destroying itself; the good news is that God has come to rescue us. 

In 2 Corinthians 5:21 the Apostle Paul (who once killed those who disagreed with him before coming to trust Jesus with his life) says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Paul doesn’t say, “God made Jesus sinful,” he says, “God made him sin…” What that means is on the cross, God laid all of humanity’s sin on Jesus, and Jesus willingly took that upon Himself to rescue us. For us, the beauty of God’s good news is that all of the evil within us was poured onto Jesus…and that becomes the beginning of our story. Paul says that message of grace was what changed him; it is this same message that offers us any possibility of meaningful, lasting change. 

The only way we will ever be able to look at others through a lens that sets our own Levi’s aside is to see the world as God does…and that only comes through a life surrendered to Jesus Himself. The answer is not humanity; humanity is the problem, but by the grace of God, we can truly become one people. The process is mysterious in that it is both instantaneous and slow. In trusting Jesus, we are immediately saved from ourselves and the wrath we deserve. At the same time, God also does His long work of molding and changing us to better reflect Him to the world. There’s a Greek proverb that says, “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” It’s a beautiful image that speaks to a love that can only come from God, a love compassionate enough to care for those whom we would never meet—and some we would surely disagree with. We must plant trees of the Gospel that grow beyond ourselves, slowly but surely, if we are to live the diversity that is Toughskins and Levis…noticeably different, but cut from the same cloth.