Character not Color

 

People usually respond first to another person's appearance since we generally see people before we hear them speak. What we see bounces off our prejudices and experiences. If we have a predisposition against someone who is a very large and round person because of some experience in our past, any person who has that physical characteristic will be judged more critically than someone who does not. If we have been brought up to believe left-handed people are that way because of evil influences (as was believed by many for centuries), then any left-handed person is not easily given the benefit of the doubt.

These are just two of an innumerable list of reasons why people react to trivial differences in other people and judge them based on those trivial differences. It could be what a person wears, how the person wears what they wear, the color of their hair, the way they keep their hair, the way they walk, the way they gesture, the color of their skin or a zillion other things.

This way of judging people is not limited to one group of people – ALL people have different triggers which cause them to have negative or positive feelings about another person or group based solely on the trivial things they see. No person or group of people is immune from this fault.

As Christians, we are called to look beyond the surface of a person and look at their heart. Jesus always did. He was not afraid to be with known sinners and tax collectors (who were considered even worse than ordinary sinners in first century Judea) because He knew their hearts were yearning for Him despite their sins.

More importantly, Jesus did not look at anyone and do anything differently because they were tall, short, stocky, thin, man, woman, darker, lighter, or any other physical characteristic. He saved, He healed, He ministered to all centered on what they needed, not some pre-determined formula based on the person’s outward appearances.

Do not misunderstand, we rightly judge others every day in this world. Anyone who says they do not judge is lying to themselves. We can never judge salvation – that is God’s responsibility – but we would be foolish to entrust a very vital task to someone who is untrustworthy. Likewise, we judge whether a person is the right person to be on a team based on their demonstrated abilities versus the needs of the team. The list of how we rightly judge, like the trivial triggers above, is endless.

Martin Luther King, Jr. wonderfully paraphrased how the Bible teaches us to treat others when he famously said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

It is far easier to just write off a person, or think they are wonderful, for some trivial, outward characteristic but that is wrong. Instead, we are to look deeper; look at their heart, their actions (which show their heart) and be led by the Holy Spirit. This is harder and it takes effort, but it is the right thing to do.