Taxi!!!

I read about this experiment that they did once testing the honesty of cab drivers in New York.  So they set up someone to seem like a tourist.  They spoke broken English and clearly didn't know where they were.  So the person hailed a cab and gave the cabbie the address.  And guess what happened next?  In most cases, the cabbie took them to their destination by the shortest route possible.  There were some cabbies that explained that they really didn't need a cab, as it was walking distance.  They then took the time to give direction and point them the right way.  Out of the dozens of cabbies that they tested, only one took advantage of of our tourist.

I don't know about you, but stories like this make me feel a little better about the world.  

I am not really a world traveler, but I have been on a few trips.  The summer after I graduated from college I took a job at a Camp Cooper, a Boy Scout summer camp in Oregon.  This trip really could have gone badly.  I was jumping into the great unknown.   I knew no one, I was 2500 miles from home and I had committed to work there for two months.  

But it did not go badly.  It was a beautify camp in the coastal mountain range set among the towering douglas firs and among other things featured an 80 foot water fall.  Beautiful.  But what really made the experience was the people that I worked with.  They could have treated me like an outsider, but in stead they welcomed me in.  It turned out to be a great experience and many of the people I met that summer are still my friends.

In life we will meet sojourners every day.  Some times these are people who are on a literal vacation and are out of place.  Sometimes they are people who just pass through your life for a short time.  The Bible tells us to not wrong a sojourner.  It is easy to understand why we need to treat those around us every day well, there are long term consequences.  But we also need to do our best for those who we meet this once and then never again.

It's like tipping at a restaurant.  In a small town there are only a few restaurants.  If you don't tip, the wait staff will know it.  But when you are out of town?  The meal is over,  The server is done serving you.  You will likely never see them again.  Leaving a decent tip in this case is where character comes in.  The waitress is a sojourner through your life and as Christians we are called to not wrong her.  As Christians we are called to treat people well even when there is no particular benefit in our doing so.  

Watch this video from Pastor Chris.

Do not wrong a sojourner.  Treating people around you with dignity is not something that we can turn on and off.  It is something that we do by habit.  And it really isn't a Christian thing, it's a human thing.  It's just as Christians, we really should be good at it.