As you may know, a presidential candidate’s visit to Greenwood (S.C.) was the subject of a recent front-page article in The Wall Street Journal (9-27-07).
I initially thought this might be a good thing. The Greenwood area could use some positive press after the national media sleaze-a-thon we suffered through last year during the teacher-cheerleader-National Guardsmen scandal in Ware Shoals.
But when I read the Wall Street Journal article about the candidate’s visit here, I was sorely disappointed and frankly, ticked off. Greenwood came off looking about appealing as Chernobyl.
The WSJ reporter described our city as an “out-of-the-way town…scarred by shuttered textile factories and empty storefronts… .” The candidate said Greenwood is “…an hour and a half from anywhere.”
I don’t think so.
We may not have a dizzying array of fancy-schmancy stores and restaurants, but it’s not like we’re living in Outer Mongolia. Gee whiz, Mr. Candidate, we even have indoor plumbin’ and ’lectric lights. I can’t recall the last time I hauled my laundry down to the “crick” to beat it clean on a rock.
After blowing in and out of town for reportedly less than an hour, this candidate and reporter apparently ignored, or simply didn’t comment on, all the many, many things that make this a great place to live. They didn’t take the time to see who and what we truly are.
It may have added drama to cast Greenwood as a stereotypical, boarded-up, desolate, depressed and depressing little Southern town, “an hour and a half from anywhere,” but it simply isn’t true.
Why did this rile me so? Because I feel like Greenwood was rashly and superficially misjudged, and it makes me angry when that happens to me, or to anyone or anything I care about. I then usually end up harshly judging the “judges”…and am forced to see the hypocritical darkness in my own heart and admit how very unlike Jesus Christ I sometimes think and act. I hate that.
No one has ever been more misjudged than Jesus. People questioned His origin, His divinity, His motives, His methods, and His mission. (They still do.) But even as He was being misunderstood, misrepresented, and mistreated, Jesus continued to love, teach, heal, and save. (He still does.)
He sinlessly, and often silently, endured intense injustice and rejection.
How did Jesus do that? How could He stand to be so misunderstood? Perhaps one answer can be found in John 6:38, where Jesus says, “For I have come down from heaven not to do My will but to do the will of Him who sent Me.”
Jesus could endure the rejection of men because He lived for an audience of One—His heavenly Father. Pleasing Him was what mattered to Jesus, no matter what anyone else thought. On those occasions when Jesus responded to His accusers, His words were perfectly wise and truthful.
I’m ashamed to admit that too often, I’m not like that. It ticks me off when I’m misjudged, and shames me when realize I turn around do the same thing to others.
Everyone can expect to be misunderstood and criticized sometimes, even on those rare occasions when we don’t actually deserve it. And sometimes it can get a lot more personal and painful than the unfortunate comments about our community that appeared in the Wall Street Journal article.
Lord, help us to respond in love, speaking the truth, but always seasoned generously and consistently with grace, and to live for one purpose–to please You.