The Gospel According to Horton

It sometimes amazes me what lessons can be learned from simple children's stories.

Recently I came across a short 1970 cartoon based off of Dr. Seuss's book "Horton Hears a Who!"  In which an elephant named Horton hears a cry for help from a speck of dust and comes to the realization that this speck is home to a city called Whoville occupied by microscopic people called Whos.

There are scoffers from both worlds.  All the other jungle animals think that Horton has "cracked", and the Whos down in Whoville think that the doctor with whom Horton communicates is well, is more than a little bit crazy.  Long story short, both worlds end up becoming fully aware of each other and the lesson learned is, "even though you can’t see or hear them at all, a person’s a person, no matter how small."

The gospel implications are pretty clear.  Everybody is valuable regardless of their status.  So often when we think about doing evangelism, we think primarily about talking with people who are very much like us.  If we as Christians were to break out of our usual circle of friends and talk to somebody with whom we wouldn't usually talk, we would probably be surprised as how much we would grow as individuals and how much we would grow as a church.