Jesus Coffee
WORDS FROM W.W. July 10, 2016
We hadn’t connected for a while. I started with the excuses. “I’m sorry, Jesus, that we haven’t gotten together for a while. It’s just been so hectic and busy.” Busyness is always a good “go to” when you haven’t done something or neglected a certain person.
He smiled at me and invited me to sit down in the booth across from him. “How’ve you been?” I asked.
“Oh, you know…the usual…feeding the multitudes, healing the sick, raising the dead…same-o same-o.” We both chuckled a bit. “What’s been taking up so much of your time?”
I stammered through a list of poor excuses for busyness and then I confessed, “I really have no excuses for why I haven’t talked to you for a while. Perhaps what is really going on is that there’s some things in my life, and in the lives of some friends of mine, that are unsettling. A lot of it is my own poor choices, and some of it is…I don’t know…I guess I could call it a kind of cynicism towards life and some people.”
“So you thought if you talked to me you’d have to face up to what’s going on?”
“Pretty much! I’ve very proficient in the gift of avoidance.”
“So tell me why you suggested we get together again?”
“I’m not sure if it was my old Baptist guilt rising up, or realizing that I just needed this…to sit and talk with you. Maybe it’s a combination of a lot of different things…anyway I’m here and I’m glad we can talk over a cup of coffee.”
“I hope you know that I’m always free to chat.”
“I know, I know. I’ve never doubted that, even though lately it seems that I’ve had a tendency to turn away from it.”
“Cynicism tends to make us unsure of just about everything.”
“And I admit I’ve doubted just about anyone and everyone. I’ve doubted the truth of everything…especially, everything they’ve been talking about in church. I’m not sure what to believe anymore.”
“Do you believe in me?”
“You know I do, Jesus.”
“That’s a pretty good start, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but!” I didn’t know what to say after the but. I left it hanging in the air like a bad smell. Jesus looked at me with his penetrating eyes that could see what was in my heart and troubling my mind.
“Excuse me for making an analogy, but you’ve lost sight of the sun because of all the smoke. In other words, you’ve lost sight of me because there is so much of life’s chaos and fallenness that is clouding your vision.”
“Yes! All those things you teach and talk about…love, grace, forgiveness, surrender, faith, being salt and light…we talk about them a lot, a whole lot…but It seems like what I see emerging so often out of my life and the lives of others are things like hate, indifference, bitterness, a lack of forgiveness, trying to be in control, and selfish ambition.”
“You’re right!”
“Jesus, I don’t want to be right! I want to be changed and to see change.”
“And what are you willing to give up for that to happen?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you not see that the out-of-control condition that you’re describing is because there are certain things that you’re allowing to be?”
“I would be lying if I said I can see it, and yet, in my spirit I know the truth of it.”
“Your cynicism is a symptom of the battle that is going on inside you. You want to believe, but believing is risking, and then what if you’re wrong? What if you love unconditionally and then you feel things are as screwed up as they always are? What if loving one another ends up just being a bad joke? What if you surrender and then you discover it’s all just a crock of crap?”
“I hope not!”
“But you see, Bill, your cynicism in many ways is a safe place to be.”
(TO BE CONTINUED)
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