Dead Squirrels

A few weeks or so ago I was introduced to a pretty great video via my friend's Facebook sharing. I laughed until I almost peed myself and then called my husband to come watch.

A little note of warning- after watching it a few times, there's a part that the mom might have whispered an expletive or two.

I'm guessing from the responses I got on Facebook that not everyone thought this was as hilarious as me. Some people were downright grossed out. And with all just cause.

With my twisted way of seeing things, a video with a preschool girl running around in her underwear rubbing a dead squirrel all over her body (spoiler alert if you didn't watch the video) made me think of Jesus. I know. This "taking weird things in life and making spiritual object lessons out of them" thing might have gone too far.

But don't give up on me yet. I was thinking about the religious climate in Jesus' days. I was thinking about the Jews. The law followers. The hand washers. The Torah reciters. The rejecters of the imperfect. The broken. The dirty. The disgusting.

Can you imagine the reaction of the Jews when Jesus hung out with the sinners? The tax collectors? The harlots? The dirty fishermen? I'm pretty sure that's the Biblical equivalent to rubbing a rabies infested dead squirrel all over your body.

I'm also pretty sure that Jesus was setting an example for us when he spent his time and gave his love to the unlovable. What dead squirrels are we ignoring? As the Body of Christ? In our personal lives?

I'm saddened to think that we've become a club; a members only circle of believers who don't want to get our hands dirty.

I understand how hard it is. In theory, it's great to talk about helping people. In reality, it kind of sucks. It's usually frustrating. You don't usually get the automatic results you crave.

Loving someone doesn't mean we always enjoy serving them. I don't get really excited every time my baby has a dirty diaper. I don't shout for joy that I have fourteen loads of clean clothes on my bed to fold before I can go to sleep. But I love my family, so I will serve them.

When we love, we look past the uncomeliness of people who are hurting. Who need to experience God's love. Because we too were (and probably still are at times) uncomely ourselves. We too were in the miry pit of sin, covered in the stench of death when Jesus reached down and rescued us.

So, I guess we can continue to sit in our comfortable churches and cower like the expletive-muttering mom.

But I choose to be the girl in her underpants.