God's Yellow Pages

With apologies to the bishop for co-opting his main theme from Sunday's sermon, I will use his "yellow pages" idea to hunt for my unsung hero/ine topic. The best thing the bishop said, in my opinion, was that our God is too big for those very same yellow pages. Even NYC yellow pages.
A suggestion followed by many people is to look for Christians in the yellow pages when you need services. Several groups publish lists of proclaimed Christians who practice medicine, surgery, dental care, and so on, and these groups encourage their members to look in the Christian yellow pages for finding suitable professionals. Some of those listed may be very competent and wonderful, and, probably, many are. But to suggest that this is where God would want us to search (among those chosen to believe) and NO WHERE ELSE, is simply silly. We are in God's Good Hands NO MATTER WHAT! Even nonbelievers are in God's good hands, and Jews, and Muslims, etc. To self select to be with those proclaimers is just another form of bigotry no matter how we argue otherwise. And to fail to understand what Christ teaches us when Christ himself ate with taxmen and harlots and all sorts of "unclean" "unchosen" people, well then somehow, we are aligning ourselves , actually boxing in ourselves, to a place where I don't believe we want to be.
Jesus Christ was and is our Messiah. Jesus, however, was not a Christian. The unsung hero we are looking for this time is the hero/ine not yet called. Not yet in the "yellow pages". Not in the community's pipeline. The unsung hero/ine hasn't even heard the call. But, by eating with the tax collectors and welcoming the children (those who have not learned about the salvation found in Christ), Mark 10:14-16, we may become a light for some believer not yet found. It is easy and pleasant to hang around with people like ourselves and to validate our beliefs by hearing no others. Some believers take this pretty far.
The people of Christ's day were hearing with new ears and softened hearts. Soften yours today by loving even your nonChristian neighbor. It's a commandment, and after loving God, the only one that really counts.