Bumper Cars

Our neighbor is playing in a 7 – 8 years old basketball league for boys. They play six – minute quarters and fouls are seldom called, if fouls were called the games would last all day. There is a lot of shooting but generally not much scoring. We went to a game a week ago in which our young friend’s team did not score a single point in one quarter. 

I’m not sure if pinball or bumper cars best describes the game. Not only does the basketball bounce around the court, but the kids bounce off each other – I’m surprised they don’t wear football gear. 

Some kids get the ball and freeze, not knowing what to do with it. Most get the ball and shoot. They shoot whether they are under the basket, at the three-point line, or at half-court, they shoot whether there is a defender in front of them or not, whether there are three defenders in front of them or not, they shoot if the defender is a foot taller or not…they shoot, shoot, shoot. The only consistency in the shooting is that the ball will eventually come back to earth, whether it will come down in the court or out-of-bounds is, of course, another matter. 

If there are any assist leaders, it is purely accidental. Passing the ball to a teammate is a sign of weakness. 

The kids play hard, and they play tough, and generally they play good naturedly. There is pushing and banging and holding and falling on the floor, on the ball, and on one another. But they keep going. Controlled chaos. Bumper cars. 

Is it possible we are all playing in this league and don’t know it? Is it conceivable that we’re all in bumper cars, banging into each other, sometimes intentionally, most times (let us hope) in ignorance?

Is it possible that we just aren’t as smart as we think we are, and that we’ve been relationally stupid at times, really, really dumb? Is it likely we have shot the ball too much, not passed it enough, and knocked others down in our confusion and disorientation? 

In my own season of life, I have looked back, by God’s grace (though it doesn’t always feel like grace!) and seen myself in certain times and thought, “O my, I didn’t see that. I didn’t understand. I could have been more thoughtful. How selfish I was. How immature.” 

I also see others with more mercy and grace and forgiveness, for as I have been blind, others have been blind. We’ve all played bumper cars, We’ve all, at least I think all, have played in the 7 – 8 years old basketball league. 

I once met a former pastor who had been ill treated by a church – not an unusual occurrence. He and his wife had been through hell, also not an unusual occurrence. He said to me, “If they (the congregation) had realized what they were doing, they wouldn’t have done it.” 

That observation has stayed with me and I have remembered it when ill has been done to me, but also when I have “seen” the times I have harmed others. I have done things without realizing what I was doing, to my shame. 

A few weeks ago one of my neighbors was complaining about another neighbor who he felt had been rude to him, and he told me, “I’m through with him.” 

Now these guys have known each other for years. They can both be abrupt, but that’s just the way they are. It’s just bumper cars. To allow one or two bangs from a bumper car to upset a relationship is not too bright, we can learn from the boys’ basketball league. We all have our flat spots, we all have our blind spots – and it can be a relief to realize that and get on with life. 

I don’t care how long you park your new car away from other cars in the shopping center parking lot, eventually it will have a scratch or mark – either caused by someone else or self-inflicted. Even if others don’t see it, you’ll know it’s there. 

When I watch our young friend’s basketball games, I think, “Yep, this is life. If only we could learn from them. We’re all in bumper cars, if only we could learn to have fun at it, be forgiving, and play the game.”

“Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32). 

Doctors Without Borders and Judgment Day

 Doctors Without Borders and Judgement Day

When I was a lad, I was taught that one of God’s attributes is omniscience, that He is all knowing. Let us hope it isn’t true and let us at least hope that He is unaware of Doctors Without Borders. 

In Matthew 12:41 – 42 Jesus says that at the Judgment the people of Nineveh and the Queen of the South will condemn the people of Jesus’ time and place because they responded to the lesser lights of Jonah and Solomon, while the people who heard and saw Jesus rejected the Light of all lights. 

Doctors Without Borders, encompassing doctors, nurses, and other volunteers from a multitude of nations, go wherever a medical need is, often risking their lives, sometimes suffering casualties and death, enduring privations and seemingly impossible working conditions, not seeing borders or barriers between nations and peoples, but rather seeing suffering humanity. 

Yet the professing Church of Jesus Christ has not only built borders and barriers within nations, with traditions and denominations and congregations sealing themselves off from one another, but it has built national and political borders and become the servant of political, economic, and national agendas. Rather than rendering to Caesar what is Caesar's, the professing Church is rendering to Caesar what is God’s.

How can we speak of sending missionaries and engaging in short-term mission trips, when we will not serve the many peoples who have come to the United States to escape the horrors of war, crime, famine, oppression, and deprivation? Is it not incongruous to speak of building schools or sending clothes or food or medical supplies to other lands if, when the people of those lands are in our own communities, we do not know them and will not get to know them and extend ourselves to them with the love of Jesus Christ?

Jesus brings the nations to us, and we reject the nations. Many of these people are our brothers and sisters in Christ, all of these people are made in the image of God. Many of these people are already members of the Body Christ, all of these people are part of our family of humanity, the family made in the image of God (Ephesians 3:15). 

Of course, our behavior should not surprise us, for within the United States there are social and economic and racial and ethnic barriers and borders within society and within the professing Church – so in one sense we are simply treating “outsiders” as we already treat those within our national borders. 

What will historians say about us?  

Will they say that God sent the people of the nations to the United States, and that the United States rejected them? More importantly, will they say that God sent people to the Church in America, and that the Church told God to take them back? 

Are we not the essence of “Not in my backyard”?

More importantly what will God say? 

This is a question easily answered. “I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me…Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me” (see Matthew 25:31 – 46). 

Well, let us hope that God is not omniscient. 

Let us hope that Doctors Without Border does not appear at the Judgment to accuse us, for we will have no defense. 

Levi Davenport and the Only Question That Matters

I was too stupid to know it at the time, but I was in the presence of greatness. This is often the case with me. Yet, I didn’t miss the significance of what he asked, it is still as if I heard it yesterday. I understood the greatness of the question, but I missed the greatness of the man. As I write this, the greatness of the man humbles me, Christ in the man humbles me.

It was during lunch in a restaurant in Pittsfield, Massachusetts that I heard the only question that matters. A group of pastors of the denomination I was associated with was having a lunch meeting with a denominational official. Since I was the newest pastor at the table I listened. Listening is often safe, plus I’m reminded of the teaching of Proverbs that even a fool, if he holds his tongue, is thought to be a man of wisdom. I was less interested in being perceived a man of wisdom, than I was in not being perceived as a fool. 

Levi Davenport was the oldest pastor at the table, and he mostly listened. In his case, he listened because he was wise. As I look back on my association with Levi, I don’t recall one stupid word ever coming from his mouth. As I consider that Jesus says that we’ll be held accountable for every word we speak, I have an image of Levi spending less time before our dear Lord on this matter than me. Why can’t I have a Rose Mary Woods erasing tapes for me? 

We had finished our meal, the round table had been cleared, and we continued to talk. Levi was seated a couple of chairs to my right, his hands folded over his Santa Claus tummy, his eyes peering over his reading glasses perched at the end of his nose. 

We talked, and we talked. I have no recollection of what we talked about. 

Finally Levi spoke in his heavy Massachusetts accent, with light in his eyes, with kindness in his voice, and with a smile on his face, he looked around the table at each of us, including the denominational official, and asked, “But what about Jesus? But what about Jesus?”

Levi’s question brought me back to my senses, it cleared the religious and ecclesiastical atmosphere, it opened the windows, allowing the fresh air of the Holy Spirit into the room. It was like Glenda waking Dorothy and friends up in the poppy field so they could continue their journey to Oz. 

Jesus Himself asks, “But who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15). 

This is not only the most important question, it is the only question, it is the only question that matters. It is the only question that ever matters. 

Are we asking this question? 

This morning? 

Throughout the day?

Is this question our center of gravity? 

In Hebrews 11:4 we read concerning Abel, “Though he is dead he still speaks.” 

While Levi went to be with Jesus quite a few years ago, he is more alive to me today that he has ever been. 

I hear his voice right now asking, “But what about Jesus? But what about Jesus?”