Don't Be A Jerk in the Car

Don't Be A Jerk in the Car--October 27, 2016

"I will make for you a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety." [Hosea 2:18]

Did you ever go on a long car trip and forget--maybe even for just a moment--your destination?

I don't just mean forgetting for a split second where you were going.  That kind of thing happens easily enough if you get engrossed in the song on the radio or the conversation with the person riding shotgun at your side. I mean forgetting even that you are going somewhere, and that the world is bigger than just the space inside the car.

 

Because sometimes, like on a really, really long car trip, you can almost even forget that there is a destination coming.  If you are on one of those all-day drives, or a trek spread out over several days, sometimes, in the monotony of seeing mile after mile of highway, you can almost forget that the journey isn't the end of things.  You can forget that there is an arrival you are awaiting.

And when that happens, you find yourself getting hung up on little, piddling, petty stuff about the ride.  You get possessive about the armrests or air vents.  You get snippy toward the voices in the back seat.  You sometimes can only think ahead as far as the next rest stop, or where you'll get off the road to eat dinner, or even just how long until you can stretch your legs.  You get combative over who controls the radio like it's some kind of contest. You can end up being possessive over the thermostat, or bossy on questions like "Where will we stop to eat?"  When you lose sight of the fact that the world is bigger than just "the car ride," you can end up being a real jerk to other people in the car ride.

But... on the other hand, when you remain mindful of the fact that the journey in the car ride is a narrow little piece of the whole, you can see things in the right perspective.  Control over the radio is not worth being a jerk about.  Power to regulate the strength of the air conditioner should not be the sum goal of your existence.  It is not worth causing lasting damage to a friendship or family relationship by "winning" the contest of listening to "Come On, Eileen" on one station or "I Want to Know What Love Is" on the next station.  If you "win" on those small, petty, trip-contained things but have made everybody else in the car mad at you and unwilling to talk to you when you all arrive at the end of the trip, it's a pretty meaningless victory. 

And on the other hand, if you remember the whole time that your goal in the car is get somewhere good, and to get somewhere together, you come to find that future promised destination has a way of changing the way you act toward the rest of your car-mates right now.

Sometimes I think we Christians--we religious folks--forget that there is a destination, a promised future, in our journey, which is meant to make us act and think differently toward everybody else in the car right now, and all along the way.  I don't mean that we ought to just say, "We're going to heaven when we die, so we aren't going to care about what happens to people in this life, since the 'afterlife' is all that matters."  Rather, it's almost the opposite: it's more like, "We have been promised this future at which we will all get out of the car and be with each other--so we had better be all the more gracious, all the more compassionate, all the more interested in the well-being of the 'other', because we realize that controlling the radio station or getting more square footage of the shared armrest is not all that important in the big scheme of things.

When you remember, while driving, that you are going to get to be with all those people in the car at whatever point you arrive together, you care a lot more about how you treat them now, because you realize the battle for control of the thermostat is not worth losing a friendship over.  The friendship should be real--the question of whether it is 71 degrees or 76 degrees inside the car is the non-issue by comparison.  When you remember what matters, what the point of the journey is, it becomes a lot clearer that it's not worth being a jerk on the drive.  And it's not worth being self-centered, either.

I mention all of this because the Bible has this way of holding out to us this grand promise--of life in which we no longer kill each other, in which we no longer imagine ourselves safer because we have more guns than the next person, in which creation's aches will be healed over, too.  And yet we, yes we religious people, have a way of living our lives still day by day as though all that mattered was the piddling contests of life inside the car: who controls the radio, getting to pick where we stop to eat, controlling the temperature the way you like it regardless of how the other people in the car feel.  We have a way of chasing after the momentary pleasures you can find while you are in the car--snagging the last M&M from the bag you are sharing with the person in the passenger seat, even though you already had an extra handful while they were dozing, lobbying the kids in the back seat to take your side in the question of whether to eat at Cracker Barrel or not, when you know that someone else in the car doesn't like going there, or pitching a fit about the music.  We have a way, we religious folks, of still playing the world's games of focusing on getting more money, complaining about our taxes, acting like the world will end if your party loses the election, chasing after our own interests, and leaving the work of caring for other people undone.  That happens, often, when we forget what is really real, and what is just a meaningless victory over the car thermostat for an hour.

Being a follower of Jesus means living in light of the promised future when grace heals the world, and taking our cues now to see what matters now.  See--it's not that this life, this car ride so to speak, is un-important.  That's the other error sometimes we Christians make when living in light of the promised future: we end up saying "This life doesn't matter at all, because we're going to heaven one day..."  That's not it.  Rather it's that the promised destination tells us what matters now, and what doesn't.  When you realize you are driving to a destination where you will get to have dinner provided in another fifteen minutes, you get less greedy with the Pringles now, because you know your needs will be provided for and you don't have to take from the kid in the back seat who is hungry and doesn't understand what "fifteen minutes" means.  When you realize that you are going to live with all the people who are in the car now still once you get out of the car, you treat them with greater care than if you could just walk away and burn the bridge.  You spend the time reading a book out loud to the kids in the car, or you spend the time talking with the elderly great-grandparent in the passenger seat, even if it is boring to you, because they matter more than your momentary entertainment.

Today, then, the question to ask is this: if God has promised, as God seems to have done here in Hosea chapter two, to heal all that is hurting in this world, to end violence, to protect not only the humans but the animals and birds of creation too, to provide enough for all--if that is the promised destination, then what things will matter in this day, this life, this car ride... and what things will not?  What things will it be worth pouring yourself into, like--as they say in the famous play about Alexander Hamilton--"you are running out of time," and what things will you realize were a waste that kept you from loving the people God had put in your path?

In the decade and change that I have been living and praying alongside people at all sorts of moments of their lives, and often in dying moments as people felt themselves arriving at that promised destination, I have never heard anyone say, "I wish I had gone to more cocktail parties."  I have never heard, "I wish I had more money to hold right now." I have never heard someone say, "I wish I had fought with my sister more over the inheritance."  And I have never heard someone say in their final breath, "I wish I had had more me time."

Somehow in those moments, there is often an awe-some clarity of what things we have spent our time and energy on well, and what things were wasted nights chatting up the good old days or misspent Saturday mornings, what things were beautifully given gifts to other people, and what are the regrettable moments of our selfishness.  Somehow, in the moments before the promised arrival home, we realize we have been fussing too much over getting "my share" of the snacks, or more space on the back seat bench, when those things become meaningless the moment you step out of the car. 

God has promised a day when the world will be healed and war will be done.  How will you live today in light of that destination?  And what things suddenly lose their appeal in light of that promise?

Lord God, give us today the clarity to live in light of your promised healing of the world... and to live differently now because of it.