Let me tell you a little story that happened to me this morning. Some road work on the highway meant that the right lane was closed as I drove to exercise at the YMCA. Instead of listening to music in the car, I'd decided to do some spiritual thinking. My mind roamed around, and then lit on something I've been memorizing on and off for several years: the I Corinthians passage on LOVE. I began to mumble the list off to myself and realized I couldn't remember one item on the "love list." Traffic slowed as the right lane closed. Road work signs and trucks littered the side of the highway. I slowed and then stopped, part of a long line of cars waiting for the light to change. Bothered that I couldn't remember one phrase from Paul's love passage, I looked it up on my phone as I waited in line. Love doesn't dishonor others ... isn't easily angered ... ah! There it is! Love is not self-seeking!
At that very moment a hulking Chevy Tahoe shoved its nose into the not-big-enough-for-a-VW-bug space in front of me. Oh my goodness! How RUDE! Cutting in line, breaking the rules, being selfish. Ugh. I hate people who do that! I would never do that! Paul's love chapter lying on the phone in my lap, I nudged forward, trying to prevent her from horning in. She'd have none of it. I honked! I growled. I did not give her the bird, although it did occur to me. After I honked, she rolled down her window and waved at me, as if to say, "Tah ever so." I am reminded of the scene in Fried Green Tomatoes where the young girls holler to the older woman, "We're younger and faster!"
I was so very irritated, even mad. I wrote down her license plate number, whoever you are PLK 1208. I hugged her bumper and made gagging motions with my mouth and finger to show her exactly how repulsive people like her are to the rest of the population who do not do such obnoxious, selfish things. After we'd all cleared through the light and were curving on two lanes again onto the bigger highway, she yanked into the right lane, powered ahead of 5 cars and a truck loaded with asphalt, and whipped away out of sight, far exceeding the speed limit.
By the time I'd gotten to the YMCA and was swimming laps under the unrelenting sun, I began to ponder the connection of these events -- and primarily my own behavior -- with the Scripture passage I'd been so diligently trying to remember. How many of Paul's instructions about the nature of Love had I broken against that woman, in a matter of seconds? I was impatient, unkind, proud, dishonored her, was self-seeking and easily angered, and already was keeping a record of her wrongs.
I was full of hate. I was unloving.
The woman and her Tahoe were sent to me at that moment, I think, by God, to show me that my Christian life is not only about memorizing words and trying hard to remind myself to be loving with those I know and love, with those I plan to see at church or home. My Christian life is all about being loving in the moment when unexpectedly unloving things are done to me, even by strangers.
What did Jesus say? It's no big deal to love those who love you. Everybody does that. The real challenge is to love those who hate you. (my paraphrase) Loving in the face of hate and cruelty to oneself is the defining characteristic of what Jesus teaches.
As I swam I asked for God's forgiveness and knew it was given.
No comments:
Post a Comment