( © Rev. William H. Anderson, December 6, 2002 )

As I sit and ponder some of my surroundings I notice a coffee cup on a railing of the apartment complex next to us. The cup is now covered in snow. It has not moved or been touched in over six-months. The people who had lived there previously had left the cup there when they were moving. Apparently forgotten in the confusion of moving.

The landlord and his crew remodeled the apartment for a new tenant and no one touched the cup. Then the new tenants moved in and they didn’t touch the cup. The cup has now become a matter of curiosity to me. It brings up some questions.

Why didn’t the people who moved out return for the cup? It’s only a plastic travel cup, which most of us have three or four of, and they probably thought it was lost while moving and didn’t consider it worth the effort of searching for.

Did the landlord and his crew think the cup belonged to someone they were working with? Most people are honest and will not touch another person’s property.

The new people, in the apartment, moved in and still the cup remained where it was. Maybe they thought that one of them had left it on the rail and would return to claim it. But, I now find that logic to be wanting. After four months, surely they would have realized that the cup didn’t belong to them.

The cup appears to have become part of the large culture we find in America today. Good intentions turned to acceptance and acceptance turned to complacency. The honesty in people kept them from taking something that did not belong to them. They accepted it as just waiting for the real owner to return and retrieve it. When that failed to happen, they had become so used to seeing it sitting there that they no longer actively saw it. So, there wasn’t anything they felt they could or should do. They may see the cup momentarily and think they should at least pick it up and throw it away. But, that thought dissipates before any action is taken.

So, the cup just continues to sit and wait for someone with enough unction, and maybe compassion, to remove it from it’s perilous position of sitting on that railing, 15 feet above a concrete driveway.

Who do you have around you that may be in the same situation? Do you even see them anymore? When crowds surrounded Jesus He would be bumped and pushed by the people as they tried to reach Him for healings and blessings. He became used to the crush, yet He did not let complacency lure Him into forgetting would he needed to do. He called Zacchaeus down from the tree, healed a rich man’s servant’s son, and knew when a woman had touched the hem of his garment in complete Faith. Jesus never let the press of everyday needs or complacency interfere with what He needed to do.

We, unlike Jesus, do have the failing of becoming complacent and uncaring. Let us look around once more with our eyes and hearts reopened. Let us pray that God will allow us to see and care for those we have become used to and fail to see as we go on our way. 

John 4:35 - Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. (KJV)

1 Corinthians 16:11 - Let no man therefore despise him: but conduct him forth in peace, that he may come unto me: for I look for him with the brethren.  (KJV)

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