John K. Jenkins Sr - Why Can't We Just Get Along?

On the third Sunday in November, I will celebrate being the pastor of this church for 25 years. That 's a big deal because they said I wouldn’t make it; they said I wouldn’t be here today; they said I would never amount to anything. But I’m glad I can say I’m still on my way, and I’m going on in Jesus' name. Amen.

Twenty-five years ago, I became the pastor of my home church. I began to pastor people I grew up with, and I began to pastor people who taught me in Sunday school. One of the things I did early in my pastorate was decide to expose myself to things I had not been exposed to before, and that translated into me attending some conferences I had never attended before. I went to one particular conference that was held locally in this area, not too far from here. I attended this conference; the church was about 500 members at that time. It had some big — name speakers and some that were not as well-known. I went there, attended the conference, and it blessed my life. The ministers and people who spoke blessed me; it was a pastor’s conference.

One of those evenings, after the service was over, the host pastor invited me to dinner with some of the speakers and other pastors. I was honored because I got a chance to hang out with some well-known individuals. Amen. I went to the restaurant and was seated at the end of the table, which was the opposite end from where all the big names were sitting. Amen.

Now, I’m going to confess something to you all: I didn’t want to be on that end of the table! I wanted to be down on the other end with the big names. Come on, don' t act like you wouldn’t be in the same situation! So, I sat at that end with people I didn’t know. I didn’t know their names; they weren’t well-known individuals. I sat there and conversed with the person sitting directly across from me, who had been one of the speakers, and was there with his wife. But I must confess something while I was dialoguing with him: I began to do something that everyone here does. You may not want to admit it, but here’s the truth-I started sizing him up.

Now, you all know how it is; you size people up. You start figuring out who they are, where their church is, and in his case, he was pastoring a church somewhere in the six hundreds, and had about 300 members. I said to myself, «I have 500 members; my church is bigger than yours.» I was sizing him up, trying to figure out who he was, and I put him in a category in my mind. I didn’t say any of this out loud; I just thought it. You all know how you do when you size up people without saying a word.

You know you size people up based on the clothes they wear, the cars they drive, and where they live. You ask them where they live and make judgments about them based on that. Come on, now! You know how it is- whether they are Black, White, light-skinned, dark -skinned, long hair, short hair, or whatever; we size them up. You look at a person and the car they drive and put them into categories based simply on that. You don’t even know if that car is in their mother 's name, but you categorize them anyway.

Now I’m confessing to you that I was sizing him up. Many of you have done the same. Some of you don’t want to be around certain people if they don’t meet your criteria. You don’t want to talk to them; you don’t want to deal with them; you don’t want to be seen with them. You don’t want your friends to see you with certain types of people. Wow! If you all say «Amen» together, nobody will know I’m talking about you.

If a guy seems a little too effeminate, you’re not going to be close to him because you judge. Church people are famous for this. If a woman is a bit too masculine-looking, you size her up, make conclusions, and categorize them. I want to thank the five people who clapped at that point; we do it. You know we do!

Look at your neighbor and say, «You know you do it!» Some of you look at people and decide if you want to be their friend or even know them based on how attractive they are. Let me tell you something: some of the prettiest people I’ve met have been some of the nastiest.

Now look around. Hold up! Keep clapping-all the «ugly» people are clapping right now, while all the pretty people are not clapping. «Oh, that’s not true, Pastor!» All the pretty people aren 't like that!