I will make reference to a crude word in this brief article, because it is part of life for a couple veteran friends of mine at Church In The Park.
One friend is disabled and faithfully shows up every Sunday morning.
He sits in his car, and we always have meaningful conversations.
That definitely adds purpose to my showing up to sing and share Jesus.
We have another friend (Marine, 80 years old, with health issues) that I only met a few times, with deep, meaningful memories, along with his deep profanity.
The friend in the car has occasional contacts with the other, and tells me about their style of mutual vulgar interactions.
He refers to the other being an a_ _ hole—descriptive, but not derogatory.
I said, “Jesus loves a_ _ holes. Thank God !”
He agreed.
By the way, make a quick review of the people Jesus reached out to most graciously—those kind of people.
We should do the same, even to those who are not our kind of people.