I've Got Enough Skeletons in My Closet to Make a Zombie Army

Our friend George Dunn joined us on Thursday morning for our free store conversation and was warmly welcomed as we eagerly took the boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts from his hands.  As we went to work on the donuts George said that we were going to continue our discussion of Matthew 7 that we had started last week.  In this chapter Jesus says in effect, "Don't label, don't judge, and don't condemn."  Someone said that he hadn't done very well with the "not judging" thing over the past week which made us laugh.  Our friend went on to say that this was a very high standard of accepting other people.

We thought it was interesting when someone mentioned how in this same chapter where Jesus said that we shouldn't label people that he then went on to label some people as "hypocrites."  George said that maybe we should use the word "posers" instead because "its got a softer edge" which made us laugh.  So we talked a bit about how even though we might at times see the "ugly truth" about people that we shouldn't make ultimate judgments about their worth or value.

At this point George brought our attention to Jesus saying about not casting pearls before swine.  None of us knew much about hogs (or pearls for that matter) except someone said that where he grew up in PA the hog farms stank the worst of all the farms which made us laugh.  George said that hogs can be very nasty and he told us of a saying popular in his hometown in MI, "I ain't had this much fun since the hogs ate my sister" which made us laugh even harder.  George told us that he thought the point of the saying is that "you have to be careful about what you share with people" because you can get hurt by talking to the wrong people about certain things.

As the conversation progressed we talked a bit about how people won't want to talk with you about important things in their lives if you are a judgmental and critical person.  George said that Jesus told his friends not to label and judge others because he wanted them to have deep relationships with people and they couldn't do that if they were critical and judgmental.  At this George told us about sitting in a Panera Bread shop bawling like a baby after a friend asked him to talk about his mom since she had passed away recently.  He said he must have seemed pathetic as he weeped in the middle of the restaurant and that he cried so much that "I almost got my sandwich wet" which made us laugh.  George also said, "I've got enough skeletons in my closet to make a zombie army" which made us laugh even harder.

At this point we talked about how Jesus encouraged his friends to ask for what they needed and to trust thatGod would listen to their prayers and help them.  Jesus asked his friends to imagine the irony of a child that asked a parent for bread and was given a stone instead.  George said it would be like "if Donald asked for a donut and we gave him a bug instead."  At the mention of his name Donald said loudly, "Belt, belt, belt" and although we weren't sure exactly what he meant it did make us laugh.

As the conversation moved to a conclusion one of our friends said that when Jesus told his friends to "ask" "seek" and "knock" that he was encouraging them to take effective action to change their lives.  He said that instead of taking responsible action that at times "we just sit on our asses and don't do what we know we should" which is neither active nor effective.  At this Donald shared a memory he had of his grandmother telling him when he was very little that he should always go to church and believe in God.  He said that he always goes to church on Sunday and its "all about God" as he pointed in the direction of the church that he regularly attends.  Our friend Donna said that as she listened she was thinking that if you "sow bad seed" that you would "reap a bad harvest."