“Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus,“is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:28-31
Sam Shoemaker is known by many as a co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, along with his good friend, Bill Wilson. Sam Shoemaker’s poetic essay, “So I stay near the door”, contains this compassionate counsel:
I stay near the door. I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out; the door is the most important door in the world—it is the door through which men walk when they find God. There’s no use my going way inside and staying there, when so many are still outside, and they, as much as I, crave to know where the door is. And all that so many ever find is only the wall where a door ought to be. They creep along the wall like blind men. With outstretched, groping hands, feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door; yet they never find it…so I stay near the door.
I admire the people who go way in. But I wish they would not forget how it was before they got in. Then they would be able to help the people who have not even found the door, or the people who want to run away from God. You can go in too deeply, and stay in too long, and forget the people outside the door. As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place, near enough to God to hear Him and know He is there, but not so far from men as not to hear them, and remember they are there too. Where? Outside the door.
“I stay near the door.” Unashamedly in the world, undeniably not of it. The challenge is keeping our head and heart and hands turned to God AND others. This is no small thing. This is the really important thing. Jesus said there are no commandments greater than these! We are wrongly turned when we face God with our back toward others.
There is a story told about a time when a sinner, a really bad sinner, a disgusting with a capital D sinner, fell into a pit. Though he wanted to get out, he couldn’t. A pharisaic fundamentalist came along and smugly said, “You deserve your pit.” A psychologist came along and said, “Accept your pit and be happy.” His family members came by and took turns saying, “When you climb out of this pit, you can come home” or “It’s your mother, father, brother, sister, spouse, etc.’s fault that you’re in the pit.” Respectable people from many respectable churches came along and said, “We’re sorry, but we don’t associate with pit dwellers.” But Jesus, seeing the man, loved him, and reaching into the pit, put his arms around the man and pulled him out.
May we, with Jesus, stay near the door. May we stay near Jesus, who is the door.
Dennis Lynn
