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As far as I can tell, there are
two ways to talk about cars. The first is to talk
details—make, model and year. This kind of detail often
entails what’s under the hood—you know, engines and
transmissions, belts, filters and hoses. I was present
during an evening conversation about a year ago with Brian
Baker, Don MacDonald and Greg LaPorte when they all began to
talk “cars.” Now, these guys are what I would classify as
“car guys,” and as the conversation ensued, I felt as if
they were speaking a foreign language. As far as I could
tell, they weren’t speaking in words but in code. They used
strange combinations of numbers and letters like Z136 and
SR529. They talked about hemis and split blocks and suicide
brakes. It was amazing to witness. It was like a game they
played. One guy would mention a model and a year and the
other guys would fill in all of the details—the intricacies
of the engine, the subtle changes from the years before in
fenders and detailing. I sat there in utter amazement.
That is one way to talk about
cars. The details. The specifics. The “roll up your sleeves
and get under the hood” kind of stuff. But I must make a
confession. When it comes to cars, I can’t do the details.
In truth, the only detail I know anything about on any car
is where the gas goes. When it comes to cars, I don’t do
details.
Observing Brian, Dan and Greg
talk that night, I discovered there is another way to talk
about cars. You see, there were times when these car guys’
“car talk” turned from nuts and bolts into memories and
moments. There were moments when the mention of a model
didn’t turn into detailed code about what was under the
hood, but instead one of the guys would begin telling a
story about their dad or an uncle who once owned that kind
of car. Or the mention of a car would spur a story from
another guy about the year they drove that car across the
country on a family vacation. Other mentions of cars would
lead to stories about old friends, old loves, old songs or
old movies. It was then that I realized that a “car guy”
loves cars not for just where they could take him in the
fast lane, but also for where they could take him down
memory lane. When it comes to cars, one can talk details or
one can tell stories. But it doesn’t really matter because
ultimately, when it comes to cars, the only thing that does
matter is that at the end of the day… they get us where
we need to go.
Now, I can’t talk details. I am
no good with nuts and bolts. But I am pretty good with
memories and moments. Like many of us, my earliest car
memories are of my dad’s cars. It has been said that the car
one owns is a reflection of the owner. That would be true
about my dad. My dad is a sensible man. He is a modest man.
He is a reasonable and practical man. So it would fit that
the cars he owned were sensible, modest, reasonable and
practical. There is nothing fancy about my dad, and so there
was nothing fancy about his cars. My dad was a Buick man,
and is there any more sensible, modest, reasonable or
practical car than your standard Buick? The first car I
remember was the 1968 Buick Skylark. Of course it was brown,
a sensible color to be sure. It had a black roof and a black
vinyl interior. You know what happens to cars with black
roofs and black vinyl interiors? Well, let’s just say if it
spent even ten minutes in the direct sunlight, it became a
convection oven. I am not kidding. That car got hot. This
was the early seventies, long before air conditioning. The
only air conditioning you would get in a car like that was
to open your window while going 55 down the freeway. My
brother and I were like dogs with our heads out the windows,
trying to get some air.
So you might think that would
deter our family from taking long road trips during the hot
summer months, but oh no. Every other weekend during the
summer, my parents would pack that car, put me and my
brother in the back seat, and make the almost-three-hour
trek to my grandparents’ house. That little Buick wore a
path between our home and theirs. I remember sitting in the
back of that car, and we would sweat. I am talking hair-wet,
shirt-soaked kind of sweat. But here’s what else I remember
about those sweaty car rides. We would sing songs. We would
tell stories. We would play car games. We were together.
Those trips in that hot back seat are some of my favorite
and most vivid childhood memories. So I guess I can pick on
my dad for his safe and sensible car. But at the end of
the day…it got us where we needed to go.
I would imagine that for most of
us, the next most memorable car is the first car that was
our own. I remember the first car that was mine. All mine.
Bought with my own money. I bought it in 1994. It was a 1976
baby blue Chevy Caprice Classic. It was huge—19 ½ feet long.
I bought it from a friend for $300. It had no shocks, no
struts, no heat and no radio. (I kept a battery-powered boom
box on the front seat in order to listen to music.) It had a
nasty pull to the right. If I took my hands off the wheel,
it would veer right for the ditch. When I drove it down the
highway it shook, swayed and swerved, all at the same time.
(I kid you not, this car was such a sight coming down the
road that I got pulled over twice coming home from work as a
suspected drunk driver.) This baby burned a quart of oil a
week. I never had to worry about getting the oil changed…it
did it on its own. This car wasn’t reliable, it wasn’t
attractive, and it surely didn’t score any points with the
ladies (can you imagine being picked up for a date in
this?). But it was mine, and the fact that it was mine made
all the difference. And besides, at the end of the day…it
got me where I needed to go.
Well, the Caprice finally blew
up. Since then I have had lots of different cars and each
has its own stories. But when I think of this last phase of
my life, the vehicles that immediately come to mind are the
blue and white church vans. Over the past four years, I have
spent countless hours and racked up thousands of miles in
those vans. I have been to bowling alleys and pool parties,
Broadway shows and baseball games, soup kitchens and urban
gardens. Those vans have taken me half a country away and
into pockets of our world that too often get forgotten. On
every trip the van is full of our youth, and I have
witnessed some amazing things in those vans. I have seen
friendships formed, horizons expanded, and boundaries broken
down. Just this last spring on our eleven hour trip to Red
Bird, I had a van load of kids, mostly from different
schools, who didn’t know or talk much to each other—that
was, until someone put in a CD of Shania Twain’s song, “Man,
I Feel Like a Woman.” And before I knew it, kids who hadn’t
spoken most of the trip were singing together at the top of
their lungs. It was a party. I thank God for these vans and
the ministry and mission they have enabled us to do, because
when it came to carrying out God’s call, at the end of
the day…they got me where I needed to go.
When it comes to talking about
our faith, we have the same choices as when we talk about
cars. We can talk details—the nuts and bolts, “under the
hood” kind of stuff. We can use technical language and fancy
religious terminology that only other “church folks”
understand. We can talk in our “ifieds”—you know,
saying things like, “Have you been justified and
sanctified by the blood of the one who was crucified?”
Or we can talk in our “ologies”— “How has your
theology of Christology informed ecclesiology
in preparation for a future eschatology?” Sure, we
can talk in such a way that the folks around us have no idea
what we are talking about, but what does that accomplish? We
can talk details, or we can tell stories—stories about times
God has felt close, stories about the people who have helped
us take the next step in our journey of faith, stories about
the places where we have witnessed the hand of God at work
in truly amazing ways. We can talk details or we can tell
stories, and who doesn’t love a good story?
It is interesting that my faith
stories are a lot like my car stories. Just like the first
cars I remember were my parents’, my earliest faith memories
are of my parents’ faith. Their faith was a lot like their
Buicks—reliable, sensible and practical. Not too many
extras. No need for fancy bells and whistles. My memories of
my early faith life consisted of regular church attendance,
paying our pledge, volunteering on committees and working at
the rummage sale. It might not have been fancy, but it was
reliable. It was sensible. It was practical.
And at the end of the day…it got me where I needed to go.
But just like the day finally
came when I could no longer drive my parents’ car, the day
would come when I could no longer live their faith. The day
would come when I had to make their faith my own. I remember
the day it happened. It was in my dorm room at the
University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. It had been a tough
year, full of lots of changes, full of lots of
disappointments, full of lots of soul searching. It was in
that dorm room one fall afternoon, with the help of someone
from a campus ministry program, that I asked Jesus to come
into my life. It was on that day that I made the decision to
make my faith my own. Walking the walk of faith those early
weeks and months after making that decision were a lot like
that old Chevy I bought. I was a bit shaky, a little wobbly
at times, and I needed a lot of maintenance. (I got a lot of
mentoring and guidance from older and more mature Christians
after making the decision to become a follower of Christ.)
And to tell the truth, just like that old, beat up, baby
blue Chevy Caprice, there were times that I wondered if this
new faith of mine wasn’t just a few moments away from
blowing up. But you know what? That unsure and uncertain
decision to accept Christ as my Savior, to make my faith my
own, well, at the end of the day…it got me where I needed
to go.
If we were to tell our life’s
story through the cars we have driven, we would quickly
realize that we have different makes and different models
with many different colors. In looking at these different
cars, we might begin to see that often the change in the car
we drove coincided with a change in our life’s
circumstances. We got a better job…we bought a better car.
Our family got bigger…we bought a bigger car. We bought a
cabin in the woods…we bought a truck. You in the community
that hosts the Dream Cruise…you bought a classic car. Every
car is as different as the life stage in which we drove
them. But here’s the deal. Take each of those cars, strip
them down, and you discover they all boil down to basically
the same thing: four wheels, a steering wheel and an engine.
Which, when you think about it, is all you really need, and
at the end of the day…they got us where we needed to
go.
And if we were to tell our life
story through the eyes of faith, we would realize that it
too has looked and felt different at different points in our
life. There have been times we have believed differently or
looked at things differently than we do now. There have been
times we have worshiped differently, in different places and
different denominations than we do now. Looking back, we
come to realize that as our lives change, often so does our
faith.
Not only are our individual
experiences with faith different at different times, there
are, just like with cars, many different makes and models of
the Christian faith as well. Consider this. According the
Worldwide Christian Database, there are around 34,000
Christian denominations worldwide, each different and
unique, each responding to the spiritual needs of the
different and unique people around the world. Similarly,
there are lots of different models for the way Christians
express themselves. Consider all of the different models
that churches have for worship. In fact, right here in this
church we have traditional worship, contemporary worship,
liturgical midweek worship, emergent worship, youth praise
worship, and there are plans to begin a new worship
experience with a relaxed traditional model. Each of these
is different in order to help different people with
different life experiences and different spiritual needs
find the same thing—the love of God made known to us in
Jesus Christ. That’s what’s left if you strip away all the
differences in all the makes and models of Christianity—the
very heart of God which beats with the love of Jesus Christ.
What connects all these different traditions and all these
changing models is God’s word, the Spirit’s guidance and
Christ’s love. And when you think about it, that’s all we’ll
ever need because at the end of the day…it will get us
where we need to go.
Our scriptures tonight
communicate this simple message. Boil it all down, strip it
all away, take away all of the differences, and what is
left? God’s love in Jesus Christ. These scriptures make it
plain. In the midst of upheaval and change, God’s love
remains steadfast and consistent. Times will change, people
will change, we will change, and here’s the Good News—God’s
love will not.
The prophet Isaiah, writing
thousands of years ago to people in the midst of upheaval,
exclaims “the mountains may fall and the hills turn to dust,
but the love of God will stand forever.” In the gospel Jesus
declares, “‘Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of
the age.” And there in the last pages of Revelation, in the
final words of the scriptures, Jesus declares the same thing
about himself, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and
the last, the beginning and the end.” From these words our
scriptures tell us, “There isn’t anywhere you’ll go that I
won’t go with you. There isn’t a single change I won’t see
you through.” Jesus promises to be with us in our beginnings
and our endings. We are never alone! Jesus was there with us
on our first ride home from the hospital and he promises to
be there on our ride from the church to the cemetery, as
well as every ride in between. Because at the end of the
day…God will get me where I need to go.
And where will Jesus take us
that we need to go?
From doubt to hope
From darkness to light
From sickness to health
From brokenness to wholeness
From division to reconciliation
From isolation to community
From fear to love
And from death to life
I don’t know where you find
yourself tonight on your journey. Perhaps you are like
Bridget and me, discovering with the birth of our first
child that we need to trade in our sports car (well, it’s
actually a hatchback, but you get the idea) for a minivan.
Or perhaps you are on the other side, becoming empty
nesters, ready to trade in the minivan for something smaller
and faster. Maybe you are at a point where things aren’t
running so well, but you aren’t sure how to figure out what
needs tuning up. Perhaps you are looking to get the car back
out, take it for a spin, see the world, save the world.
Wherever we are on this journey, we can trade in or trade
up, retool, refashion or restore. We face this changing
world and our changing lives without fear, but with hope,
for Jesus promises to face the changes with us—and at the
end of the day…get us to where we need to go.
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