Wit and Wisdom: Losers Need Not Apply

Memphis, Tennessee. 1989.

I was approaching my fourth decade of life and had decided to go back to school and get a Master’s Degree in Social Work so I could start a career as a licensed therapist.

The University of Tennessee at Memphis, located one block from the park where the infamous statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest astride his horse proudly sat, became my frequent destination as I commuted the two-hour-one-way journey.

One day I strolled the downtown area, looking for a place to eat lunch. McDonald’s had been my frequent haunt until two things happened: one, I was approached by a male prostitute in the bathroom, and two, someone came in one day and shot and killed an employee.

Time to find someplace else to eat, I told myself.

As I passed a mom-and-pop pizza place, I saw a HELP WANTED sign in the window. In the margin of the sign, the owner had used a magic marker and written, “Losers need not apply!”

I now wish I had gone in and asked the owner what kind of people he called “losers.”

Nowadays, people tend to classify these kinds of folks as losers:

• Drug addicts
• Alcoholics
• The homeless
• Lazy people
• People who live in public housing
• Poor people who rely on food stamps
• People who are shabbily dressed
• Panhandlers
• People who smell bad and need a haircut
• Illegal immigrants
• Prostitutes
• Felons

Nobody wants anything to do with those kinds of people.

They’re shunned and shoved to the side, left to their own devices or vices.

They’re judged based on what we think we know about them, without us ever having had a sit-down conversation with them, a conversation with the purpose of getting to know them. It’s easier that way; less messy.

How far away is the word loser from the word lost?

And how far away is a loser from being lost?

If someone has gotten lost in the world and is trying to find their way, how would a sign that said “Losers Need Not Apply” feel?

I’ll tell you how it would feel. It would feel like a slap in the face, a punch in the gut, a kick in the ribs. No one would dare open a door with that kind of sign in it.

Look at how Jesus turned the world upside down. When he began his ministry, one of his messages was “Losers are welcome,” the same message that got him crucified.

He made it a point to:

• touch a leper
• eat with a tax collector
• have a conversation with a woman who had multiple husbands
• forgive a prostitute
• feed those who had no food
• heal those who couldn’t be healed

“Losers” felt like he genuinely cared and that he understood them. He treated them with a kind of respect they’d never been given. And they loved him for it.

A lot of times churches have a sign hanging outside their building that reads: Losers Need Not Apply. I don’t mean a literal sign. No church would be foolish and brash enough to openly post that truth, mainly because they would deny it’s true.

Yet, it is true.

It’s true when no one from that church has ever sat with a loser and tried to get to know them.

When no one ever:

• housed a homeless person
• fed a hungry person
• bought new clothes for someone
• shared the gospel with someone who lives in public housing
• tried to help someone find a job or given them a job
• tried mentoring someone who has no life skills
• visited someone in jail

From the pulpit and in its social media a church may profess to encourage people to “come as you are,” but that message rings hollow if none of its members live that message.

Everyone wants the world to change. But before the world can change, you and I have to change. We must imitate Christ in how we treat “losers” because when we do that, they will be eager to hear The Message. And then, then the world will change, one person at a time.

* Taken from The Wit and Wisdom of David Johnson, Volume III: A Harrowing Halloween Tale