"So, what's that have to do with the price of tea in China?"
It's about making connections. Years ago, that comment was someone's not-too-subtle way of telling me to get to the point. A challenge, really. Asking me to wrap things up in a way that makes sense, to be relevant. It's the demand of an impatient and skeptical audience. Over time, I have been on both sides of that sort of exasperation. Meandering is not well-tolerated in this age that variously prides itself on toleration and at the same time, prescribes what's tolerable.
I haven't posted here for five months. Pragmatically, that's because I'm no longer pastoring the people of a local church family and, therefore, I'm no longer writing to and for them. As pastor, I may not have always been the "go to" person, but I did feel the responsibility of being the "turned to" one. It took a while for that experience to wind down. And for my response mechanisms to relax. I enter conversations differently when I can choose to join them voluntarily rather than automatically as pastor. In this different role where I'm not necessarily expected to lead, I follow further back.
But, leader or not, I've discovered that my spirit only tolerates so much meandering. Still, as surely as the fellow at the next table in the coffee shop checks the stock prices in the local paper each morning, with similar regularity and vested interest, I find myself asking this question about whatever I encounter, "What's that have to do with being a Christian?" With "much-grace"?
Come with me.
Some pastors meet for lunch and, over steaming bowl of the soup of the day, one adamantly claims that being on-staff at a large church like his is much harder work than being a solo pastor at a small church -- like the rest of us. WTHTDWBAC?
I tear open the envelope and read my mail as I'm walking in from the mailbox. The major realty firm in whose hands I've placed my parent's home for sale is promoting a new program to help buyers. They're asking sellers to absorb a discount equal to 3% of the sale price to be applied to closing costs. Sounds like a patriotic choice in these tough times. Sounds like a gesture of good faith. Sounds like a smart choice to make the property more salable. They do not point out, however, that on top of the seller's loss, the buyer still has to come up with the full sale price at bank mortgage rates while the Realtor and the Bank sacrifice no income and have the added PR benefit of getting credit for being compassionate. Even wanting to sell, can I participate in deception like this? WTHTDWBAC?
For a long time the church has viewed itself as counter-cultural. But today, after thinking further, after considering the price, I am dropping that term from my lexicon. Rather, I'm switching around my assumptions, understanding society as counter-faith. God's will and ways are reality and other ways and wills are counterfeit, often very good imitations passed off as sensible, but having very little to do with being a Christian.
We need to compare what we hear each day to what we know of our Lord. To engage the world with "much-grace" doesn't mean accepting everything. I need to work out daily what grace requires of me, what words, what choices, what facial expression, what motives.
Granted, Jesus didn't say, "So, what's that have to do with the price of tea in China?" But we do read that "Jesus replied, 'Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?'"
(Mark 12:24). Same thing.
However, Jesus wraps up the debate that afternoon with this reminder, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength'... 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' (vv. 30-31).
SH
