My daughter is always one for a bargain and I have always admired her gift for finding things and making more out of them than what others may see. Sometimes she does things that we might even shake our head at, but at the same time, there is something in me that still thinks that she is the right one and I'm the "lazy" one.
She has returned to school for graduate study in Wales and found a chair in a consignment shop that would be perfect for her room. She convinced a classmate to help her carry the chair from the shop to her room to save the delivery charge It's not a long distance, but not just a couple of blocks either. It took 2 hours for them to get the chair to her room.
But, the reason it took so long was not the distance or because the two girls couldn't lug it very far without resting. She made it fun by taking a camera and some props along. They stopped along the way to take pictures of "the chair" in various locations along the way and with one or both of them sitting in it. Some people (mostly the young, she says) shook their head in disbelief, but others smiled. Some came over and offered to take the picture for them. One older lady even came up and asked them if they would let her sit in it for a picture. It became a focal point and a starting point for many conversations.
We sometimes miss the joy of life in everyday things. We sometimes are too proud and worried about what others might think. Sometimes we are too "efficient" and don't want to waste so much of our valuable time. We have a life to live and important things to do. It's worth it to just pay someone else to do it. But, is it really? In trying to fill our life with "being productive" could we be missing much of what life is supposed to be? And, we certainly are missing out on many opportunities for interaction with others. We may say that people come first, but in the end, does our schedule often overrule?
It also affects our sense of community. We have friends but those are chosen. We have coworkers, but that's our job and we tend to separate work from personal life. We attempt to make a community at church or in clubs but those are closed groups for "people like us." Most churches attract people with tastes and values in common. But, we don't often just sit and chat for more than a couple of sentences at church and most churches are large enough that people can attend and be anonymous if they want. We don't really know most of the people there. And for those who we do know, while we may be interested in asking how they are doing, we don't often go much beyond that. In the end, because the church has become our community, we have become insulated from the rest of the world and even this community can be pretty shallow.
More than anything, we are in too much of a hurry to have much time for frivolous things--sometimes even for the important things. Or, maybe we've lost touch with what really is important so that we we are stuck in a rut of doing the frivolous things that only seem important. We are too busy getting things done and trying to be efficient to realize that what we are doing might not be the most important or the most effective.
We'd rather pay the cost of delivery and avoid the drudgery and even embarrassment of carrying the chair ourselves. We've lost the sense of joy and play that can come from common things. And, we've lost the sense of community. Real communities are random, not chosen. They are natural, not artificially created. They are the people around us who may not be at all like us. We may not have much in common with them. But, they are people whom God has placed her near us and we may be their only real contact point with the Gospel. I don't mean that we should be giving the Four Spiritual Laws and trying to evangelize everyone we meet and I certainly don't mean that we should be just seeking out people only to give them the gospel.
One man asked Jesus how to enter the kingdom and Jesus turned the question back to him and asked what he thought. What an expression of respect for the person! He didn't just give the answer. He asked the man what he thought. But, when the man answered that we love God totally and completely and love our neighbor as ourselves, Jesus told him he had it right. We might have given a theological explanation, or handed him a tract to explain the need for faith and asked him to pray a prayer. Love God thoroughly and completely. That certainly includes faith. But, love my neighbor? Surely there is some limit to that. What if I don't like my neighbor? That's where Jesus told the story about the good Samaritan--and Samaritans were not just unloved, but thoroughly and completely despised by Jews. But, here was not just a Jew who loved a Samaritan, but a Samaritan who loved a Jew. How did he love him? It wasn't planned. It was natural. It was concrete. It met a need. It was a sacrifice. It was an interruption. It was not just flippant. He even came back to do more later.
How do we interract with our community--the natural one that includes everyone around us whether we have anything in common or not, whether we like them or not. We make natural and uncontrived contact and we enjoy their presence. We have fun. We slow down. And, by doing so, we become a testimony of grace, love, acceptance, and the joy of the Spirit. We earn the right to be heard when we do have an opportunity, as Peter says, to give an answer to those who asks us to "give the reason for the hope that you have." I don't think that the Bible is just talking about our need to learn apologetics. It's just being able to answer when someone says, "Oh, so you're a Christian" or even when talking about every day topics and someone wonders why you might take a certain position on an issue. Most people only know caricatures of Christians and the caricatures are likely not very positive. We can be the real thing, a fragrant addition to their life.
But, we need to slow down, enter into the community, enjoy little things, and get outside the fences we have built around ourselves. Maybe you won't carry your furniture purchases home in America. Most of us don't live in that kind of town where stores are not far from our homes and there are sidewalks. But, we still have neighbors and they aren't just those whose yard touches our yard. What should we all be doing to break down the walls? How can we get to know people around us in a natural way? How can we slow down? Have we become so obsessed with the trivial that we have mistaken it for the important and labeled what is truly important as trivial? Who is your neighbor? Do you get out where they are? Can you love them? If you moved away, would anyone miss you? And, most important, do they see Christ in you? Would they know what Jesus would do from seeing what you do?
