Others.

If you’ve been around either the Calvary Chapel movement or the Salvation Army, you should know the story by now of the one-word telegram sent by General William Booth to his Salvation Army officers, to be read at a convention he was unable to attend. Because the cost of telegrams was computed by the number of words, he found that he could only afford one word, and as he thought about how he could encourage the men in their mission, the one word “Others” came to mind. That was the text of his telegram, to which he signed his name.

That telegram was legendary, and you sometimes see the word “Others.” appear by itself – just one word on a bumper sticker on the car in front of you. By that you know the driver of the car has been at a conference that featured Gayle Erwin, of Servant Quarters, a Calvary Chapel ministry. He always has those on hand wherever he speaks. We’ve had them on our cars, too, until the weathering from rain and sun causes them to peel off. Or, today, that would be snow.

The view from behind, of a car belonging to one of our daughters

Earlier, in my post about “Margie’s Proverbs,” I shared something I had written about “others,” and how my perspective on others gives you a hint about who is the center of my universe. A quick glance at this post will give you an idea of whether I am living in a state of egocentricity.

Also, the New Testament is full of Jesus’ “theology,” (Gayle calls it the “Jesus style”) such as where He told the rich young ruler who wanted to inherit eternal life that he was almost there, but he needed to sell all he had and give it to the poor. That was partly for himself, because his riches had come to be his god, but also, just think of all the poor who would have benefited by a little generosity!  Oh!  Maybe his riches weren’t meant for him to keep in the first place!

In another place, Jesus encountered a lawyer who already understood that the second great commandment was to love his neighbor as himself, but wanted to justify himself by finding a loophole: “But just who is my neighbor?” That’s when Jesus clarified by telling him the story of the Good Samaritan. Oh! You mean God wants me to love … them too?

Yes, in this case, Jesus wanted the Jewish lawyer to be like the Samaritan, to put aside class differences, to see a suffering, bleeding, destitute human being and commence picking him up, letting him ride on his own animal, taking him to place where he could spend the night, dressing his wounds, providing food and clothing, and checking up on him later. Sounds messy!

So this is familiar territory, for sure. We are not to live for ourselves, but for others. The question is usually “how,” but let’s just talk a bit about “why.”

Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but to Your name give glory, because of Your mercy, because of Your truth. ~Ps. 115:1

This is the verse that caught my eye this morning. It is notable for what it does not say. It does not say, “O Lord, give glory to Your Name because You are the Creator of the Universe,” or “ … because You are so huge and powerful,” or “ … because You are Perfect and Pure and Holy,” or even “ … because You are the Ultimate Just Judge and King of all that has ever been and ever will be …”

No. It says that we don’t deserve any of the glory, God gets it all, because of His mercy and because of His truth.

It is mercy that defines our God.

Just after this verse, Psalm 115 talks about the dumb idols made by men’s hands, who have physical features of men but can’t do anything. They just sit there. Compare that to our compassionate God, who is all of the above, but is defined by Mercy. 

“Why should the Gentiles say, ‘So where is their God?’

But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases.

Their idols are silver and gold, The work of men's hands.

They have mouths, but they do not speak; Eyes they have, but they do not see;

They have ears, but they do not hear; Noses they have, but they do not smell;

They have hands, but they do not handle; Feet they have, but they do not walk; Nor do they mutter through their throat.

Those who make them are like them; So is everyone who trusts in them.

~Psalm 115:2-8

We become like that which (or Whom) we worship.

When I took an ACT (or maybe it was the SAT) test to get into college, back in the 70s, there was a section on career assessment. So much of it had to do with how I viewed people. But back then, I felt a little hostile towards people. They had wronged me, hurt my feelings, said bad things about me, didn’t understand me. So when asked on this test what kind of situation I preferred, I always answered that I would rather not be with people. Unsurprisingly, really, that resulted in a graph that showed I was unfit for any job whatsoever. There are no jobs on the planet that require no interactions with other members of the human race. That was pretty sad, really!  So much potential, but no possibilities.

God had a lot of work to do to drag me away from the worship of Me, to the worship of Him. What’s more, to the believer in Jesus Christ, God is our Father. He is someone we want to be like. And just how can we be merciful like our Father, without others to whom we can show mercy?

Now here’s a trap I had fallen into, and I’m going to put up some cones around it so that others going down this path won’t fall in too.

It’s called “Percentile.” What happens in your head when you take a test and find out you have scored a 99th percentile in something? You know it means that 98% of all humans are not as smart as you are. It means that it’s easy to look at others and say, “I am SOOOooo much smarter than you are!” But why, oh Christian, did God give you those talents and abilities in the first place!? Think about it!

And the answer is: He gave you resources to help your fellow man. When you serve the God who defines Himself with Mercy, you should be using whatever He has given you to improve the lives of others, to lift them up, to encourage them, to bring them to The Father too. 

What’s more, if you’re paying attention, there may be something in others that can also enrich your own life. But if you spend all your time polishing your fingernails upon your chest, you will only be thinking of that 99th percentile stuff, and forgetting that all the rest of them are created in God’s image too. And you will miss out on what God wanted you to learn from them.

When I was in sixth grade, my teacher, Mrs. Clark, was exasperated because so many of my classmates weren’t applying themselves. She huffed and puffed about that one day. “Some of you in this class,” she said, “have great potential. There’s even one of you who has the IQ of a genius. But you’re not acting like it!” All heads turned to glance at me.

“And it’s not Margie!” she declared. Whereupon some sheepish young genius must’ve been ashamed of his or her laziness and maybe went on to greatness … I don’t really know. To me, well, that brought me down a notch for a while, and I blushed in my seat. 

The contrast in Psalm 115 between the God of Mercy, the true and living God – and the gods fashioned by men, cold, unloving, unfeeling, dead, and essentially useless – is a stark one. 

Here’s another passage where God reveals his full name. In context, it is just before God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses. The second time. After Moses had thrown down the first ones in a fit of rage directed at those stupid people and broken the stone tablets written by the finger of God.

“Now the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.

And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth,

keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation.”

~Exodus 34:5-7

Mercy and Truth. If I’m going to be like my Father, I need to be merciful. I believe, as our founding fathers said, that “All men are created equal.” But I need to keep examining myself to be sure I’m acting on that belief.

Now, back to that Good Samaritan story.  What did Jesus tell the lawyer in conclusion?  And what is He telling you and me?

“‘So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?’

And he said, ‘He who showed mercy on him.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’”

~Luke 10:36-37

“Dear Father in Heaven, I have failed so many times at being as merciful as You are! I am so glad You’ve given me several decades to get this right, or at least to do better. But I am in constant need of Your prompting, to remember that You are God and I am not.

“Remake us all into Your image, not just in the structure of our humanity, but in the tenderheartedness of Your Holy Spirit. Help us to be merciful to our fellow man.

“In the name of Jesus, Amen.”