Rejection

I was in the fifth grade and emotionally and socially stunted (I know that comes as a shock to those who know me...). I wasn't yet talking to girls as, well, girls. Then she walked into the room, having transferred from, as far as i could tell, heaven.

Her skin was flawless. Her hair was brown and reserved for the work of silk worms. Her eyes were pools the likes of which I had never swam. Her smile lit up a room the way a lamp never could.

Her name was Brenda Mott, and from the moment she walked into the room in the fifth grade, I was smiten with her in the manner Romeo wanted to pop popcorn with Juliet.

I made it a week before I was crushed. It was in the cafeteria. I had managed in my athletic courage to move closer and closer to her table as the days went slowly by. I had rehearsed what I would say to her when that magic and unforgettable moment occurred that we were at the same table for the short amount of time we had for our lunch.

This particular day, a Friday as I recall (and time is absolutely destroying my memory so bear with me), I made it to her table, the table of the young female gods apparently. We sat together for a couple of moments (with the conversation going on between Brenda Mott and Beverly Goodsby and not between Brenda Mott and Billy Turner) before our table was called up to go through the line.

This day was a day in which eating ones entire lunch was a signal for celebration. In other words, if we ate our entire lunch, we would be rewarded with a popcycle. Let me tell you, I wanted a popcycle almost as much as I wanted to swim deeply in the pools that substituted for Brenda Mott's blue eyes. Unfortunately for me, there were sweet potatoes on the menu that day.

Sweet potatoes and hot dogs. I was more than okay with the hot dogs, being a complete conneseur of the dogs that are hot. But sweet potatoes? I had never had a moment alone with one and didn't care to. But I had to eat all the substances on my plate to get my popcycle. And I had to do it quickly in order to get a few words in with Brenda Mott. Ah, the complexities of life.

I came up with a plan. I put my sweet potatoes in the hot dog bun, figuring that if I couldn't see them, I wouldn't know they were there, I could eat them quickly and get on to the wonderful conversation I could see Brenda Mott and I having.

I was wrong.

As I munched a couple of times, my squeemishness took over and to my absolute horror, I threw up on my plate. Brenda Mott screamed. Beverly threw her hand over her mouth (which was a good thing to occur, thinking back). And me? Me?

The nurse I was sent to in school asked if I felt bad and reflecting upon how young love had been squished by squishy sweet potatoes, I surely did and said so. The nurse sent me home, which since I had been embarassed until the end of time seemed a good place to go.

My love had been rejected and the opportunity would never come again. Brenda and I never dated, never spent time together, graduated high school together without my ever telling her the story of the time I was sweet on her.

I'm preparing for Sunday's sermon and I notice this bit of Luke. It seems to have little substance when you compare it to all the incredibly important other things happening in Luke's gospel, but it strikes me that it tells us a lot about the character of God, through Jesus His Son.

Luke records it this way: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you where not willing.

This is a 32-33-year-old man talking about a city he had visited, visited but never lived in with such a passion it reminds me of someone whose love, deep abiding love, has been rejected.

You know the kind of love I'm talking about. The kind of eros love where you fell deeply into those pools and nearly drowned. The kind of agape love where you gave everything you had to a friendship and the friend stabbed you in the back over what would amount to nothing at all.

Jesus loved the city, but he loved the people so much more. He wanted them to hear his message and love him the way he loved them. So very few would, and most of them only came along after the cross, after the Holy Spirit informed them.

Some of us over time have had difficulty even loving, extending that which is ourselves, because we've been afraid of loving and, well, losing. Extending ourselves through love is dangerous if nothing else. If one never extends love, one never is hurt. So it takes a bit of a risky business to give love without fear of rejection. Sometimes we wait so long to tell someone how we feel, the moment passes in the midst of a sea of potatoes, so to speak.

It hurts me, it really does, when I think about how much and how often I've hurt Jesus. How I've sinned by looking at the wrong thing here or thinking or saying the wrong thing there. How much he loves me and yet I turn away from that love on occasion (and the occasion was about 20 years in my case).

We forget or ignore just how much that hurts him.

Rejected love hurts a God as much as it hurts a child. Never forget that. Never.