|
|
|
A week ago Tuesday I was in Florida visiting my daughter, Jenny, at Florida Southern College. She and her boyfriend, Aaron, took me to Busch Gardens where we rode the monster roller coaster, MONTU. While we were waiting the 10 minutes in line Jenny told me stories of long lines where people would wait up to two hours for a three minute ride! She also has witnessed Christian youth groups exit the ride and immediately cut in line with a friend so they could ride again. When you are in line how does it feel when someone cuts in front of you? It happens, doesn’t it? A VIP, or a rich person who’s paid more money or something, or someone who knows someone else, gets to go to the front of the line, bypassing all the other schmucks who’ve been waiting with reasonable patience for their turn. Let me share with you a pet peeve of mine. I’m driving on a two lane street approaching a red light. I’m in the right lane and wanting to make a right turn on red, right? There’s a driver in front of me in the right lane. Instead of moving to the left lane so I can make my right turn, he stops at the light in the right lane. I’ve had my right turn signal on for half a mile, but does he see it? No! He just sits there while the pastor behind him enjoys another opportunity to be patient! On many of our nation’s toll roads, rather than stopping at a toll-booth to toss some change in a hopper, you can now purchase a transponder, sometimes called an EZ-Pass, and zip through in the left lanes without even slowing down to the acceptable speed limit. Instead of cash, tickets and paper receipts, it’s a microchip tag placed on your windshield containing pertinent data which eases your way. Your data is quickly read by a tollbooth electronic antenna as your car zooms on through. It automatically deducts your appropriate toll tax. This computerized collection system then sends a monthly statement to your home with tallies of times and places for your records. EZ-Pass is like a debit card for your car, only quicker. No more stopping at the tollgate, the narrow gate. Jesus says, I am the narrow gate. There’s no quick way in. There’s no shortcut. If he wasn’t the Christ himself already, he’d be the perfect patron saint of tollgates. Sometimes it seems that everybody wants the easy way to the front of the line, a quick way to glory and fast track to success. Including James and John, the brothers Zebedee, who want front-row seats numbering two and three. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment and see if you can identify with their self-centeredness. These guys gave up everything to follow Jesus. They followed Jesus when nobody knew him. They followed Jesus before his miracles. Now that he was popular, James and John were feeling the swell of fame. After all, they were Jesus’ best friends, his disciples! So we can understand why two of them came to Jesus with their request. They have been listening to Jesus for three years now; they hear what he is saying about the kingdom, and they want to zoom to the front of the line ahead of the rest. They don’t want to be caught in fender-to-bumper apostolic traffic with the balance of their buddies trying to squeeze through the tollbooth into the promised land. They want to be first through, while the remnants remain jammed up on the other side. So they go alone to the man. They tell him in whispers what they want. Jesus hears them out and then loudly replies, Listen, boys, I’m not in the business of handing out favors and EZ-Passes. You two guys will just have to wait in line with everybody else. No favorites here, no top guys. When the other 10 hear that James and John want their own special and private EZ-Pass into the coming kingdom, they get pretty ticked off. They’re sitting there, stuck in spiritual traffic on the wrong side of the narrow gate, and they don’t think it’s right that the brothers should ever have even asked for a pass or a place of honor. Jesus the Christ, from his eye-in-the-sky higher view of the entire traffic backup, the whole city of humanity, calls a group meeting. He says, you have it backward. You’re all jammed up on the wrong side of the idea. In heaven there are no special passes or places. And if there were, I couldn’t hand them out. I work for God. I’m just a servant. I’m not in charge there. There aren’t any EZ privileges for getting anybody through the tollgate today, or ever. On earth there may be such a thing, but earth’s not heaven. Heaven has different rules. Wherever Jesus went he turned things upside down. He would quote the Law and then offer a new teaching. He challenged the status quo all the time. He taught and we need to learn that to be a part of God’s kingdom is to understand that the rules are different from the world’s kingdom. I love the movie, Shrek, not only for its computerized animation, but the story. The lesson of Shrek is the great inversion; "He who is last, shall be first". Think about how the rules are turned upside down in this story. What are the rules by which your life is lived? Are they more in line with the rules of the world’s kingdom? Or the kingdom of God? Does your life need some turning upside down in order to be more in line with Jesus? Basically Jesus said to his disciples, "You’ve got it all wrong if you think that the first will be first, and the last will be last. The last shall be first, and the first shall be last. You all know that in this world, the kings, the dictators, the despots, the autocrats and the totalitarians behave like tyrants. But among you it’s got to be something quite different. Do you know about The Tenderloin district in San Francisco? It is a part of the city that is #1 in homicides, aggravated assaults, drug use and incidence of HIV, not to mention the prevalence of prostitution and drug dealing. A computer center is located in the middle of a six-block area dubbed "The Kill Zone," due to the high incidence of homicides. One day a man collapsed on the sidewalk in front of the office. Two computer center workers went outside to check on him. He was a middle-aged Hispanic man with cuts and sores over his eyes and on his hands. It was clear that he was high on something, and not able to pull himself together. One worker bent down and began talking to him. She asked him his name and whether they could help him. His eyes began to water as tears formed. Despite the fog of the drugs, something inside this man recognized that someone cared enough not only to offer help but to ask him his name. He ultimately got up and stumbled his way down the sidewalk. Did this experience change this man’s life? Probably not. Was this a moment of true grace? Absolutely. The Tenderloin is also a dangerous place to bring your Bible. Verses that may have sounded poetic and profound suddenly become immediate and personal. For example, "The first shall be last and the last shall be first." The homeless man I step over today may just be stepping through heaven’s door ahead of me tomorrow. Do you know of a "Tenderloin" place where God may be calling you to turn the rules upside down? Servants of God are people who understand what it means to be last. And if that means that someone else is empowered to be first, they have their reward. They are people who do not use people to get the work done, but use work to help people grow. Being a servant isn’t easy, but it is necessary — it is absolutely essential. Look at me, says Jesus, I didn’t come to lead, I came to serve. I serve God. I serve you by ransoming my life for your sake. I’m your best example, and my secret is service. I’m a father of three teenagers. Please pray for me! One of my job duties is to teach my kids the concept they love to hate: responsibility! When I remind them of their chores, their homework, or something else they were supposed to do, I don’t always get a servant attitude. But I have a dream! In my dream I tell my teenagers to do something and they simply respond, "Okay, Dad." "Okay, Dad." How I yearn to hear those words once in awhile from my children. Guess what? Those are the words God desires to hear from us. "Child, I want you to be last this week." Can we say, "Okay, Dad?" "Child, I want you to live by my upside-down rules." Can we say, "Okay, Dad?" "Child, I want you to be a servant to me and to the poor? Can we say, "Okay, Dad?" The truth is that there are no EZ-Passes to the front of the line. In church. At home. On the highway and at the tollgate. We are challenged to lead by learning to serve, through Christ — the narrow gate. |
The St. John Web Site needs your input! Click here to leave feedback Copyright © 1998-2004 Jon S. Dawson. Last modified: February 01, 2009
|
10.19.03 - EZ-Pass (Mark 10: 35-45)
