Why do people make a rush for coffee on a hot day? I arrive at the Daily Grind to a line out the door and every chair taken. It had to be 65° already and couldn’t yet be 8:45 in the morning. It was freezing last week and probably will be again next. California is a strange place.
I’m meeting Mark this morning. I don’t really know Mark. We met through a mutual friend who thought that we would hit it off and secretly hoped that I could help him with some hard times he’s come on. That is the curse of being a Pastor; few friendships ever develop for the sake of friendship. I recall a conversation I was having right here with a friend. He asked me if it was hard to switch between friend and Pastor in one conversation. No, it’s not difficult, because for some people I am always both. Folks seem to have a hard time seeing past the title to the human. I’ll never stop searching for the perfect balance.
Mark knows that I am a Pastor, which is partially why he wants to speak with me, but we have had no experience together in that context. That’s one of the reasons for meeting here at the coffee shop. It’s not my office. I don’t have a big desk here. My ridiculously large library is not rising up behind me like wall of expertise creating a gapping professional barrier. Here, it’s just me and Mark, or so I pray.
Mark’s not here yet. We’re not meeting till 9:00; he’s got a few minutes.
My table opens while I’m waiting so I walk back and throw my stuff down to stake my claim and get back in line.
I’ve had so many conversations here about so many things. How many times have I begun conversations like this over the last 15 plus years at this same table or one just like it? This is who I am. I talk to people. God created me to have conversations over coffee. That is my calling.
The lady baristas are flying behind the counter. My tea’s ready by the time my turn comes. I just have to hand ‘em my prepaid punch card.
Sitting down next to Kim {Kim works here but was just enjoying coffee and a book today} I notice that she’s reading Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which I love. So I lean over to say, “It was inevitable: The scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love,” the books brilliant opening line. She stares blankly back at me for moment until it sinks in.
“Are you enjoying the book?” I ask.
“I love it. After reading A Hundred Years of Solitude I just had to read everything he’s written.”
“Out of everyone I know who’s read it, only the men seem to like it. I know one woman who enjoyed it and she’s European. I was beginning to wonder if there was some pattern going on. You’ve ruined my hypothesis.”
“I like being different.” She says as she stands to go. After saying goodbye to her boyfriend, who also works here, she’s out the door. I turn to my cup of tea.
Mark walks in so I get up to buy his coffee. He’s about 5 foot 10, I’m guessing. I think there is dark hair under his cap and from the back of the room I thought he was wearing long sleeves, but that’s permanent ink from wrist to shoulder.
I really have no idea what he wants to talk about and honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to do anything for him. I know he’s hurting and that’s enough for me to take the time to meet together.
I’m at a point in my life where I have no need to act as if I’ve got all the answers and I’ve lived a public life long enough for it be obvious to all that I don’t have it all together. I do know that God does something amazing in the hearts of two people when the walk a road of faith together. That’s what I can offer Mark with a little push and instruction because I’ve been on the road longer than he has. If it helps or not is between him and God.
Mark: You don’t need to buy my coffee, I feel like you’re doing me a favor by talking to me.
Robert: Let’s get that idea out of the way right now. If the help you want is therapy I can refer you to someone. If you want to talk, I’m here. Anyway, this is my place, I’d feel like you were coming into my home and I made you buy coffee.
Mark: Thanks.
{Sitting down at my table in the back it rocks a bit because none of the tables are ever steady here. My tea spills over and onto the floor. Talk about making an already awkward beginning a little messier!}
Robert: I should have warned you about these tables. What a mess.
Mark: You talking about me or the spill?
Robert: Well, I was talking about the spill. Not one to beat around the bush huh?
{I loved this about Mark immediately. My fears were thrown out so quickly. We weren’t here to impress each other. I can be real with this guy. He’s not looking for a professional.}
Mark: I gave up on hinting when my Dad left my Mom and me. Implying never gets me what I’m after and I’m tired of being disappointed.
Robert: I can’t promise not to disappoint you. In fact, I’m sure that I will. But how much will depend on what you expect from me.
Mark: I don’t really know.
Robert: Then were doomed… I’m good with that. You?
Mark: I know David told you that life wasn’t going well for me. That’s probably more his version of things than mine. I can’t really lay out a list of things that have gone wrong.If I did, you’d probably laugh that I thought it was hard. I’m not happy though. I am not where I want to be. I’m not doing what I want to be doing. It’s like, I can be okay with who I am, but that’s about it. Do you know what I’m taking about? Do you ever feel that way?
Robert: Mark, I do, I can’t tell you how much I do. {It was only out of fear sounding exaggerated that I didn’t say, “every day!”} I fight, just like you do, to live today in spite of the fact that my dreams are still so far off.
Mark: Anything help?
Robert: I live in the present moment by knowing my past and knowing my future. My past conversion pushes me and my future eternity with God draws me. I constantly live in between those two things in a magnificent moment, this one right now with you.
Mark: Do you mean that or is this a way to get me to talk about my lost soul?
Robert: I don’t do that. This is who I am, you asked about me. If you want to talk about principles for dealing with depression, I’m trained to do that. But that‘s not what you said.
Mark: No, no I want to talk. But to be honest, I have a hard time believing that this is not a ploy. I’ve been manipulated so many times by Christians that you’ll have to forgive my skepticism.
Robert: Forgive it? I encourage it. How do you want to proceed?
Mark: Talk a little bit. Tell me about your own conversion. Tell me the story. Let me listen and learn something about you.
Robert: Alright. So that we’re not hiding anything, you should know upfront that I want you to have what I have in my relationship with Jesus.
Mark: I assumed that, that’s part of what it means to be a Christian isn’t it?
Robert: Yes it is. And if you know that already, we are starting on very good footing.
Okay, I live today, in this present moment, by faith in the gospel, the essence of being a follower of Jesus.
My conversion didn’t begin with information, but things didn’t come together until someone laid out the gospel for me.
I knew I was jacked up, that was never in question. At the time in my life we are speaking of…
Mark: Which is?
Robert: First year of college. I was trying to find myself, you know what I mean. Unfortunately, I didn’t like myself very much. I know I’m not alone there. But I had never thought of myself in terms of guilt.
The Christian gospel makes a grand assumption about me and you. We’ve done wrong. I don’t have to argue this – every honest person will admit it. We all find ourselves doing and acting according to what the Bible calls sin. That is the Bible’s assumption. We do regularly, those things that the Bible directly forbids.
Mark: That’s kind of what I’m talking about too, but my problem is what I don’t do.
Robert: So, you know what I’m talking about. About that time I read in the Bible that everything someone who doesn’t have faith in Jesus does is sin.
Here is where I had to transition from being guilty of doing certain things to having to confront the ugliness of who I am.
Mark: Everything? You had to do good things now and then.
Robert: I’m not saying I was Charles Manson. I’m not trying to tell a story of how I was this wretched sinner before Jesus saved me, Hallelujah!
Paul’s words forced me to admit that everything that I do apart from faith is sin and makes me guilty before God. That includes good moral things. I can help an old lady across the street and it could be sin. If I rescue a child from a burning house, it is a heroic virtuous act, but if I have no faith in Christ then it is still ugly before God. They may be “good” in a moral sense but they still are done in rebellion against God You see, God is concerned about the heart, before the action.
Mark: How did coming to that conclusion help you?
Robert: I did not come to that conclusion but I did have to accept that it was God’s conclusion of me. And it didn’t help me at all. It made me miserable. It took away all my hope. I felt like I was justified in hating myself.
Mark: What helped at that point?
Robert: An analogy someone gave me helped put it all together for me. It went something like this:
Sin is like a heart disease. The symptoms may be slow in coming but the sickness is there, the tumor is growing. You may see some of the symptoms start to show – trouble breathing, anxiety, shortness of breath long before you have a diagnosis.
This is my disease and yours. We like diagnosis, but not the Biblical diagnosis. I would much rather have a syndrome than be a sinner.
Mark: I don’t like the word guilt. Guilt makes me feel ashamed and afraid of being punished.
Justice demands that guilty people be punished, this is morality 101. How many murders do I have to commit to be a murderer? Just 1, right? How many old ladies, to use your example, do I have to help across the street before I stop being a murderer? There is no number of good deeds that can erase my guilt of murder.
If I am guilty then I should be punished. When I think of God, I think of love, not punishment.
Robert: You’re right, but you’re getting ahead of me.
The New Testament agrees with what you just said about my story. You’ve heard it, For the wages of sin is death. The guilty should be punished. This is justice.
Mark: This is not making me feel better.
Robert: You wanted my story. There’s more between then and now.
Mark: Okay, so somewhere, somehow you went from hopelessly guilty to… well, functioning.
Robert: I was in the same place as you just said. God loves and God is just. If he is just, how can God forgive me?
Mark, God himself designed a way to forgive us. The way of the cross. The same Bible passage that condemned me freed me
For the wages of sin is death, BUT the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rom 6:23
{I know that these verses have been canned for “evangelistic” use. Mark asked for my story and canned evangelism is one significant strand of the story that brought me to faith in Christ. Besides, misuse of the truth doesn’t make it untrue, it makes the people who misused it jerks. That’s a topic for another day.}
The word “but” is my favorite biblical word. Yes, it is very much true that I have earned death by my faithful labor to do wrong. BUT God is not giving me what I deserve; He is giving me a gift.
Jesus offers His own death as a substitute for my own. Mark, I was so moved that He would willingly take the punishment so I could go free. This is the Christian gospel, this is the good news. This is the key that opens the door between misery and hope.
Mark: Hope? I don’t even believe in hope anymore. Robert, most of the people I know don’t even consider the possibility of things improving for them.
Robert: I’d be right there with you. I have no hope, or even a category for hope, in my life apart from Jesus. As A Christian, I have lived through times in my life where I lost everything that mattered to me. That was when I had to look around and recognize, oh crap, I’ve got nothing left but Jesus. Is that good enough for me?” Honestly, there were many, many days where I didn’t think so, but I came back again and here I stand.
Mark: Somewhere this became good news for you?
Robert: I was converted. There is a reason the old time preachers used that word. It means something beautiful. To be converted is to be changed from one thing to another. That’s what happened to me.
Mark: You changed from a depressed college student to a happy all the time goofball and joined the campus Christian club.
Robert: Exactly! No, I changed from guilty to forgiven. I changed from looking forward to death to hoping for life. Learning to live with that change continues to be a challenge, but it’s who I am now.
Mark: I think that being okay with myself is part of my problem. I have no problem with being lazy, honestly, I am lazy. I have no problem being self-centered. Listen to me, I can say this, but I feel no shame for wanting my friends, and you, to stop everything and be concerned about me.
But, here’s my trouble. I don’t have a good job and no likelihood of one anytime soon. I have no one who is committed to me either a lady or just a friend.
I can’t deny a direct link here, Robert. I don’t have a career because I haven’t worked for one. I have no stable relationships because I want it to be all about me. This is where I’m ashamed. I feel like a failure.
Robert: Can I talk about that for a minute? {Mark nods, his head is down.}
I hear you saying that you’re ashamed of the results of your actions, but not of how you got there. Is that right?
Mark: That feels right. But I’m not saying I’ve thought this out.
Robert: Forgive me if I step on your shame or don’t give it enough notice. I want you to know that I hear you.
Mark, this is why guilt is so important. To put it bluntly, you are guilty of being lazy, actually the Bible is brutal on the lazy.
A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come on you like a bandit.
Sounds like what you said, doesn’t it? You are guilty of being self-centered and failing to love others more than yourself.
It is so absolutely necessary that you admit where you are wrong. Let it all hang out. Why would you ever want to pretend to be something you are not? Stop hiding that you are a sinner, stop hiding that you screw up. I’m not saying that you should go out and flaunt it, like “hey, I kill puppies for fun.” No, but don’t be false about it.
Mark: I don’t want to lie. I mean, I’m telling you. But I can’t get beyond the feeling that weighs on me. I am a failure. Now, you’re telling me that I’m guilty too. I don’t want to hear that.
Robert: You don’t have to hear me. But you do have to listen to God. I’m just going off your own admission to being lazy and self-centered.
Something needs to be done about this problem. Not the problem of what you do, but the problem of who you are. You, not just the wrong things you have done, deserve to be punished. Something needs to be done; some punishment is needed.
We all need to understand this before we can repent and turn to Christ.
Mark: You’re not quite the picture of a fiery preacher, but you just told me I need to repent. You’re just sitting there drinking tea. Not very threatening.
Robert: I’ll take that as a compliment.
Mark: I think of Christianity as believing something, in a sort of mythical, fairytale sort of way. Like saying, “I believe in hobbits,” or “I believe in the tooth fairy,” or “I believe in Santa Claus.” It’s a leap of faith.
Robert: Sure, it is about faith, but not quiet so airy. It’s about believing some very specific things about Jesus. However, information is never enough, information does not make one a Christian.
Mark: Let me ask this question. Can I believe in Jesus and not change any of the beliefs or practices that I had before? Can I believe in Jesus and still be lazy and selfish? Can I believe in Jesus and still be sport the tattoo of Ganesh on my leg?
Robert: I don’t know how you’d get rid of a tattoo that size. But what do you think? Does that sound inconsistent? God, in the Bible, calls for a total change from the life of unbelief to a life of faith and trust in Christ. I’ve already said that sin is a condition; it is a state of our hearts. If we are to come to a place of right relation with God then our heart must be changed. If our heart remains the same, then what claim do we have to belong to God?
Mark: I’m okay with inconsistency. I prefer to be the one to decide how I will live and what I’ll believe.
Robert: Christianity doesn’t work that way.
Mark, I could help you a lot if I just said, “stop being lazy, get to work and in a year of two things can be going well.” But the laziness is deeper than that. It’s in your heart.
You ought to feel uncomfortable being lazy. Adults should not feel good about being childish. If I invite you over my house for dinner and you throw out the utensils and eat with your hands like a child, there would be something wrong with that. It is ok for my two-year-old to mess her diapers, it would be disgusting for a ten year old.
Mark: That’s sick, man. Is it possible for a Christian to live like everyone else?
Robert: You don’t know how badly I want to say no to that question, but I cannot. Yes it’s possible. But something is seriously wrong in that person’s life.
When I drive down my street there are two beautiful lemon trees that are full of yellow lemons. In my yard, I have a similar tree, but all my lemons are green. By looking at the two I understand that it is time for the tree to be bearing fruit. So when I look back at mine, I have to ask, “What is wrong?”
Mark: Where is the positive here? I feel like I’m going to suffer a loss if I repent. I’d have to give up things that are treasures to me.
Robert: Faith is the positive part.If repentance is turning away from what held you, faith is turning to Christ specifically.
That sense of loss only lasts until you get a glimpse of your savior. Then you realize that it was really no sacrifice at all. Turning to Christ from sin is like a groom on his wedding day. He stands at the altar breathless, terrified that he has not made a good decision, unsure about choosing this one woman over all others. How quickly that concern vanishes the moment the doors open and he sees her veiled face from down the isle. At that time forsaking all others is a joy. He knows that there is no one and nothing else that could capture his heart like that woman and so he pledges to her, “till death do us part.”
It is not just information in the gospel, it is Jesus we are after and this is where He is found. Faith trusts the one who made the promise of the gospel.
Mark: That’s what happened to you? When you were converted? You trusted Jesus?
Robert: Biblical faith includes faith for today. It says, “I believe you,” not “I have believed you,” Not just, “I believed you about your death,” but, “I believe you about everything because of who you are.” I will need Jesus as much tomorrow as I do today. I need his instruction on how to live and to love. I need the revelation of God that informs me with divine wisdom on how to be a child, a parent, a husband, a wife, a friend. It is an impossible belief that says, “I believe that God became a human person born as a child and that when he was killed that somehow paid the price for my wrongdoing. However, I don’t believe that this same God knows how to tell me the best way to live.”
Mark: That’s the rules part?
I have a Christian friend who’s been really into this book about dating. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Robert: There are several and I haven’t read them actually, but I know about ‘em.
Mark: He won’t even be alone with a lady and you would think that kissing her would cause him to fall right into hell.
Robert: The idea, from what I understand, is to set a guard in our lives to protect us from sin. This is a great idea. I will keep from sin by taking another pathway to dating and marriage. I saw a lot of what you saw coming from it too. If two people are dating, then they have sinned. I don’t think that was the author’s intention at all.
The trouble here is that we are adding to what God has laid down for right relationship to Himself. Additions to the gospel or to Christian behavior always bring bondage. The things that we set up as safeguards to keep us from sin now become sin in themselves. We are not free to call sin what is not called such in the Bible. Every time this is done we only rebel further. When rules govern there is no place to go but rebellion and if those rules are associated with God then it is Him we rebel against in our hearts.
By following rules we create for ourselves a false sense of purity. These new rules that we do or don’t do serve as evaluating tools. I am clean, I am acceptable to God because I don’t date the way everyone else does. This is defamation of Christ and all that He has done.The Bible already has enough instructions, most of which we do not keep.
Mark: Be honest and keep the distinction between what is required and what is just helpful.
Robert: Right, you can’t accept a gospel that adds rules. That is very dangerous. Wherever there is a little bit of Christianity added to a little something else, there is great danger.
Mark: One more question?
Robert: Sure, I’m enjoying this.
Mark: What’s up with the Born Agains?
Robert: Get more specific for me, most Christians I know would refer to themselves as being born again because that’s the way Jesus describes being converted.
Mark: I went to church with a friend. It was a Saturday night and the place was nuts. I don’t mean busy, I mean nuts. You know I’m good with people believing and doing their own thing but I was freaked out. The preacher was screaming, I mean, my ears were hurting, everyone was talking at once. Then they started falling down. What is up with that?
Robert: I don’t know the people or the church. It may have been all good as far as I know. There are some people who put a lot of emphasis on experiences because they think that it’s a sign of God being there. It becomes a problem, a really big problem, when you’re told that you have to do what they do or experience what they experience.
Mark: They were calling people to come to the front to do it with ‘em. I wouldn’t have gone up if they had pointed to me.
Robert: I’m sorry that happen to you. I don’t agree with that. We have powerful experiences. I can recount the story of several in my own life that prove to be influential to this day. I remember the moments, the places, the words, the feeling and I am a different man because of them. They are power, they are influential, but we must not use them for evaluating our relationship to God. Most of these things are really negotiable matters.
Mark: So I don’t have to do that to be a Christian?
Robert: Nowhere in Bible – especially epistles – are we admonished to have any experience beyond conversion. I have always thought that this should be given more credence than it is. We have twenty-one of twenty-seven books of the New Testament which are hand written to directly instruct the churches on what to do and how to live. Not one time are we told to have a secondary experience to be right with God. Christ’s death is enough on day two, three and four of your Christian life just as it was on day one.
Mark: So Christianity is the Gospel.
Robert: And all the rest is commentary.
Mark: I don’t know what to think of you. You say what I’d expect you to say most of the time. But sometimes you throw me a bit. Thanks for talking about you, thanks for trusting me with your story.
Robert: You’re part of my story now. Ask me a year from now and I’ll be different for having known you and you’ll be different for having known me. But this is who I am. If we keep talking, I’ll always come from a place of faith.
Mark: I’d like to talk more. Maybe get more specific about Christianity, religion, whatever you want to call it.
Robert: Sure, next time maybe we can talk about how much you know. It’s not fair to be critical of something you don’t know about. So, what do you know and what do you think you need to know to be informed enough to accept reject or even to pick and chose as you like to do. I truly believe that this is the best way and the only thing I can offer to help your hurt beyond my friendship, if you’ll accept that.
Mark: I think that’s what I’m after too.
Robert: Next time we talk about you.
We changed the subject to talk about more general things to get to know each other. He was in his 20′s, I was in my 30′s. He was single, I was married. He has no formal education; I spent most of my adult life in a classroom. He was artistic and free, living a life of few restrictions; I was creative once before a self-centered “friend” destroyed my sense of creativity in order to promote how wonderful his work was. He grew up with frequent church and Christian encounters, I had only one and it was radically offensive. He was open, I am cynical. He ….
All the while we talked and talked. I sat with this feeling in the pit of my stomach. Did I go too far? Did I push the gospel idea more than he was comfortable with? But he asked!
{Christian living is living the Gospel, all the rest is commentary. Learn well this message and live consistently with it. Continue to preach the gospel to yourself on a day to day basis and you will become less dangerous. Your immaturity will become godly character as your ignorance is replaced with divine knowledge.
Be careful here. The moment you begin to add to the gospel, your confidence comes more from what you do than in whom you believe. And I say to hell with your self-confidence! If your confidence is in yourself, then you will be damned.
Whatever you try to substitute for the gospel, don’t do it! The gospel is the power of God for salvation, because in it we rely on Christ’s death alone.}
