What Are You Rejoicing In?

What Are You Rejoicing In?

Dr. Rick Mandl - July 9, 2020

Man Rescues Police Officer From Burning Car

Man Rescues Police Officer From Burning Car
Tuesday July 7, 2020

 

If you want to know what Love is, I can’t think of any better place to look than the way that the Bible defines it in 1 Corinthians 13:4-6. If defines love with these words... ”Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.”

 

I wonder, how loving are you, when you measure your love by those words? The particular phrase I’d like to zero in on today is the one that is there at the end of verse 5, where it says, “Love keeps no record of being wronged.” Or as other versions translate it, “Love does not take into account a wrong suffered.”

 

Did you see the story in the news recently about Daylan Mclee? The report that I read said... There was a boom, then the house shook. Daylan McLee thought for a minute it might have been a small earthquake, until a relative came running inside to say there had been a car crash involving a police cruiser outside the apartment in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, about 45 miles south of Pittsburgh. McLee ran outside and pulled an officer from the mangled patrol car as flames began to spread into the cabin. Police officials and others have credited McLee with saving the officer’s life after the Sunday evening crash. McLee said, “I don’t know what came across me, but I ripped the door open and just pulled him to safety across the street.”

 

Protests over police brutality following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis that have gripped our nation for weeks and have laid bare tensions between police and the communities they serve, exposing grave mistrust by civilians, and frustration by law enforcement officers who say they are being painted with too broad a brush. But for McLee, the issue broke through the larger questions on race and policing; it was about saving a life. What made Daylan McLee’s bravery especially unusual, is that he has been the victim of injustice in the past.

 

McLee, who is Black, spent a year in jail after an incident in March 2016, before a jury acquitted him of all charges after reviewing security video. That year spent in jail was a year away from his children. It was a year away from his mother, who was ill at the time and passed away last year. The 31-year-old said it wasn’t a complicated decision to help another human being. But even some of his close friends wondered whether he might have hesitated because of his previous interactions with a few law enforcement officers. “No.” He said. “There is value in every human life. We are all children of God and I can’t imagine just watching anyone burn.” He said, “No matter what other people have done to me, or other officers, I thought, ‘this guy deserves to make it home safely to his family.’”

 

After saving Officer Hanley’s life, McLee said, “We need to work on our humanity . . . that’s the main problem of this world. We’re stuck on how to get up ,or to get even, and that is not how I was raised to be. You learn, you live, you move on and I was always taught to forgive big,” he said. “You can’t base every day of your life off of one interaction you have with one individual.”

 

As I read Daylan McLee’s story I thought, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better example of 1 Corinthians 13:5 and love not taking into account a wrong suffered. May his example challenge you and me to show that same kind of love in our relationships with others.

 

 

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