WHAT IF IT HAPPENED ON THE NORTHSIDE?

“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;” (Matthew 5:44)

If a born-again Christian is honest (and I hope most of them are) they’ll tell you that Matthew 5:44 is one of the hardest verses to fulfill- as important as it is.  This past Sunday morning at our church worship service we used this verse as a basis to pray for those who have recently vandalized our church building.

Last week, our building was vandalized in three ways:
FIRST, a window was smashed.  The damage gave every bit of indication that this was far more than an accident caused by a kid with a ball.  Glass shards were driven over eight feet into the building from the window, and in fact, small glass shards were EVERYWHERE.  I really did not “need” to find that last Tuesday, and it complicated my day.  I believe the smashed glass was an act of irresponsible violence (hate?) against our church.  I thank God that Silton Glass company was very responsive when I called them.  A young man came out and within a couple of hours, he had the glass replaced.  He did a first-class job.  I’ve heard some mixed reviews about Silton Glass, but I have to tell you, they’ve always done a GREAT job on our church building and I’d highly recommend them to any business owner or homeowner.
SECOND, I arrived at the church building on Friday morning to find a huge scrawling of (what I consider) gang graffiti.  It was on the parking lot side of the building.  I am glad I had plenty of extra yellow and brown paint, but this was another headache I didn’t need.  It involved at least  90 minutes of wasted time as I painted out the graffiti.
THIRD, this past Sunday morning, I arrived at the building to find that the “oil fill cap” on the building had been removed.  I thank God I DID find it in the parking lot, and I secured it on with a wrench.  (The oil delivery guys like to just give it a hand turn and not bother with a wrench so it makes things easier for them.  Sorry, Jamie Oil, but from now on your guys have got to use a wrench!) 

Admittedly the third incident was the least serious, although something like that always leaves you wondering if someone dropped dirt or marblesor something into your oil line.  I admit that’s unlikely- but it IS possible.

In the (almost) thirteen years we’ve owned this building we’ve probably experienced 80 acts of  serious vandalism and probably 400 acts of minor vandalism.  (For those who were wondering, items 1 and 2 above are serious vandalism and item 3 above is minor vandalism.)  The thing that surprised me is that we had 3 of them in one week!  THAT MANY in one week is kind of unusual.

A friend asked me if I thought such incidents would be taken more seriously if they happened in Framingham’s northside instead of deep in Framingham’s southside.  My experience is, I think the further north and further west a property is located in Framingham, the more seriously an incident of vandalism would be taken.  I’ve lived in Framingham for twenty years and we’ve had the church located in this deep southside neighborhood for thirteen years, and that attitude (“Well what do you EXPECT in the southside?”) is rampant.

In the interest of full disclosure:  When I was a 13-year-old 8th grader, my friend and I entered an open Episcopal church building (I guess it was open for prayer and reflection) and doodled on some of their record books in the office area.  It was what I’d call “minor vandalism”, but it WAS vandalism nonetheless, and it WAS wrong.  Should I apologize to Trinity Episcopal Church in Canton after all these years (39 years, to be exact)?  Maybe. 

On Sunday, the person who led us in prayer prayed that the perpetrator would find Christ as his Personal Savior and maybe even go into the ministry.  Well, considering what happened in my life, I know such a thing IS possible.