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I find it
fascinating that in the very same week St. Christopher has
been called into question by the Roman Catholic Church, I
should be standing up to preach a sermon inspired, in no small
part, by a love affair that many of us have with the
automobile. For St. Christopher has long been revered as the
patron saint of drivers. His statuette sits perched atop many
a dashboard. And, if you can locate the remnants of that
two-toned brown Ford Fairlane….stick shift….early fifties
edition….on which I first learned to drive in the parking
lot of the local A&P food store, you will find a St.
Christopher medal pinned to the headliner. Where my father put
it. Not because he was Catholic. Or even religious. But, in
the phrase my father used to describe his benign acceptance of
most things having to do with faith: “Hey, it can’t
hurt.”
So,
did it work? Did St. Christopher protect us? Well, we never
crashed the car….totaled the car….or died in the car. So
maybe it did. Or, more likely, having St. Christopher above us
(pinned to the headliner, I mean) served to remind us to slow
down and keep our eyes on the road. Which helped us look after
our own protection. And which was the best thing St.
Christopher could have done for us, given that Catholicism
seriously questions whether he ever existed or was merely a
figment of the church’s overly-fertile imagination.
All
of which kindles the memory of my high school buddy, Matt Max.
Matt was a very good Roman Catholic boy who replaced St.
Christopher with a mini-statue of our Lord. Then Matt drove
his bomb of a car with the windows rolled down, singing at the
top of his lungs:
I
don’t care if it rains or freezes
Long as I’ve got my plastic Jesus
Sittin’ on the dashboard of my car.
Well,
Jesus walked everywhere (so far as I can tell). There may have
been one ride on a donkey in utero. There was a second ride on
a donkey, Palm Sunday. And no, I don’t have the faintest
idea what Jesus would have driven, given money enough and
choice. A twelve-passenger SUV, one suspects. Biblically
speaking, chariots are as close as the Bible comes to
horseless carriages. And when Isaiah wrote “Make straight in
the desert a highway for our God,” he
wasn’t referring to a four-lane ribbon of concrete
with on and off ramps.
No,
cars are not the Bible’s thing. Cars are our thing.
Especially locally, where we make them…. buy them…..live
or die off them (sometimes in them)….drive and race
them….occasionally polish and restore them….seasonally
ogle and admire them….and, on weekends like this, come
dangerously close to making idols of them. But oh, what fun it
is.
I’m
no grouch. Were I forty years younger, fresh from divinity
school….fueled by the desire to be a social
reformer….ready to bludgeon the excesses of pop culture with
a hammer called The Gospel….I would suck lemons for a couple
of days and then find a laundry list of things to critique
about the automobile and our romance with it (and in it).
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Or
I would talk (like an informed psychologist) about the
narcissism of teenagers who figure that “cool” is
something you can borrow if, on some terribly important
day in your life, you can be seen driving the right car or
riding in the right car….it being a relatively small
jump, even now, from “notice my wheels” to “notice
me.”
But
like I said, I’m no grouch. I seldom suck lemons. And for
the last ten years, I, too, have cruised Woodward….searching
the oldies-but-goodies station in hopes of hearing, just one
more time:
And
she’ll have fun, fun, fun till her daddy takes the T-Bird
away.
Did
I tell you I had a T-Bird once? It was long after they were
“cool,” mind you. But that’s the story of my life. I
still have to pay some attention to what, as a preacher, I can
and cannot drive. I’ll admit that the Sebring convertible
was close to the edge….although I loved it and, since the
lease expired, miss it. The Cadillac is over the edge. But it
isn’t mine. It’s my stepfather’s and he enjoys riding in
it. The Jeep is just right for a preacher. It holds lots of
stuff and hauls lots of people. It’s wonderfully practical
and totally utilitarian. “But does it have to be red,
Reverend?”
And
I’ll never forget my weekend with Gary Valade’s Viper (I
wrote about it in Steeple Notes) when people would speed up or
slow down just to look at me. Which was heady stuff….until I
spotted my fourth police car in three miles, also speeding up
or slowing down just to look at me. Which put a real damper on
what that car could have done, given the wide open section of
North Woodward. I don’t know what I’d have given for that
kind of attention when I was seventeen. My right arm would
have been too much to ask. But had there been a surgeon
handy….
Roger
Wittrup (my psychologist friend) called to tell me that men
rekindle memories by recalling cars, while women rekindle
memories by recalling homes or significant events in the lives
of their children. Picture a husband and wife trying to tell
another couple when they went to California. After much brain
wracking, they arrive at the same answer. He, by remembering
the year he bought the Chevy. She, by remembering the year she
had Bobby. Which Roger told me after I’d already played
Automotive Jeopardy on the cover of Steeple Notes (“Cars of
My Life for $500, Alex.”).
But
I digress into nostalgia, too long I fear. Although that’s
what the Dream Cruise is, is it not? A much-hyped, week-long
digression into nostalgia. This is a sermon, by God
(hopefully, for God). So I’d better make something of it.
Fast.
Which
is no longer how I drive. Fast, I mean. Explaining why I can
no longer qualify to race in the Faster Pastor event at the
Oglethorpe Speedway in Savannah, Georgia. Now in its fourth
year, it’s getting bigger and bigger. Pastors claim that for
twenty laps (or whatever), they have absolutely no intention
of turning the other cheek. Competitively, I have the
instincts for it. Physically, however, I lack the reflexes for
it. They tell me it has a stewardship angle, given that the
winners go home with money for their churches. So if we’re a
little short next year, I have every intention of sending Jeff
and Carl to Savannah (Lynn and Rod, too).
But
it is a “speed” story that transitions me into my point.
It’s several years old now, dating back to when Kris, Julie
and I went to visit Dave and Ann Tenniswood in Germany. This
was the same trip that sowed the seeds for our wonderful
partnership with Methodists in the Czech Republic. But this
wasn’t in Czech (where we trained and taxied it). This was
in Deutschland (where we Autobahned it). In a Mercedes, no
less (a car with power to go….on a road with room to
go….coupled with permission to go). So at one point while I
was driving, Dave asked if I wanted to open it up and see what
it could do. Looking back on it, I translated Dave’s
question into a discussion of my manhood, as in: “Did I want
to open it up and see what I could do?” So I pondered
it momentarily and inched it up gradually, until I crested the
150 mark on the speedometer.
It
occurred to me that the poles and trees were flying past me at
a mighty clip. Then I began doing some mental mathematics
around the issue of braking distances, should braking be
required. Finally, adrenaline stepped aside to make room for
caution. And I eased up on my foot, creating a more
respectable distance between pedal and metal. Whereupon I
steered back into the slow lane, joining Germans who were
crawling along at the snail-like speeds of 90-110.
“So
what did it feel like?” the reporter from the Eccentric
wanted to know. Which stymied me for a moment, given that it
wasn’t a feeling I had etched into the hard drive of my
psyche. It felt fast. It felt good. It felt risky. Heck,
I’ll admit it, it felt manly. Finally I came up with a word.
Not a word, but an image. It felt, ever so fleetingly, like
living on the edge. Truth be told, I don’t know what that
means. Because the phrase “on the edge,” when pushed to
its outer limit, means exactly that….the outer limit. As in
life’s outer limit. Which, I suppose, is also death’s
inner limit.
I
wasn’t there. Nor would I have wanted to have been there. In
part, because I have an incredibly powerful life wish. And in
part, because there were other people in the car. Which
explains why I told the reporter that while “the edge” is
a great thing to experience, it is not a very good place to
live. The Autobahn was abundant in possibilities. But my life,
then as well as now, was awash with responsibilities.
I
don’t know Rev. Jim Wilson. All I know is that he races his
’78 Monte Carlo in the Faster Pastor event. He says he
doesn’t scare easily, fueled as he is by faith. “The thing
about us pastor-drivers is, if something were to happen to us,
we all know where we’re going.” Well, that’s confidence
for you. That’s also stupidity for you. When the apostle
Paul talks about being a “fool for Christ,” I don’t
think that kind of bravado is what he has in mind.
That’s
because the word “control” shows up big in the Pauline
lexicon. To the Galatians, Paul suggests there are nine fruits
of the spirit (Galatians 5:22-23)….love being the first,
self-control being the last. Not because last is least. But
because self-control regulates the other eight.
And
for those of you who like lists, II Peter lists, not nine
fruits, but seven virtues (II Peter 1:5-7). You guessed it.
Self-control is among them.
Out
there on the Autobahn, where there were no controls
externally, I had to come up with my own controls internally.
Which reminded me of my favorite Pauline admonition, when he
says to the Corinthians: “All things are lawful; not all
things are helpful.” Then, as if to reinforce his point, he
says it again (with an ever-so-slight modification): “All
things are lawful; not all things build up.”
When
you’re young, a car is your ticket to freedom. You can go
anywhere with it. You can do anything in it. Nothing could be
worse than having your daddy take the T-Bird away….or having
the state take the T-Bird away….or having the finance
company take the T-Bird away. Unless it’s turning ninety and
having sonny take the T-Bird away. But the moment you get a
little freedom, you have got to cultivate a little
discipline….or the T-Bird (and all the wonderful things the
T-Bird represents) is going to be taken away.
Moments
ago, I told you I learned to drive in an A&P parking lot.
Which wasn’t quite true. My initial instruction took place
in a fenced-in driver’s education course at Mackenzie High
School….where the course had parameters and the cars had
governors. You couldn’t drive far. You couldn’t drive
fast. And you couldn’t drive in traffic. Which was why my
father took me to the parking lot. But I’ll never forget
that Sunday afternoon when my father said: “Enough of this
parking lot. Take it out on Oakman Boulevard, son.” Where
there were neither parameters nor governors. Unless you call
my father a “governor.” And it wasn’t all that long
before there was no longer my father, either.
Sooner
or later, friends, they take down the fences and they take
away your fathers….and you can go as fast as you want or as
far as you want, with whomever you want for as long as you
want. Which is when you realize Paul had life’s wide-open
Autobahn in mind when he said that while all things might be
lawful, not all things are helpful. For it is in the midst of
life’s incredible freedom that you have to decide for
yourself what’s helpful and what’s not. Then, if you lose
the T-Bird, it’s pretty much your own fault.
I
have not read Bill Clinton’s recently-published memoir. Not
that I won’t. It’s just that I haven’t. But I understand
it contains some soul-searching reflections on his involvement
with Monica Lewinsky (which, as you will remember, did serious
damage to both his marriage and his presidency). Apparently,
in trying to separate the “why” of his affair from the
“who, what, when and where” of his affair, I am told he
came down to a rather simple explanation. “I did it because
I could.” In other words, he cruised into the intersection
of availability and opportunity. And without a real reason to
say “No,” he said “Why not?”
Which
is what a lot of us do….cruise into the intersection of
opportunity and availability and, without a real reason to say
“No,” say “Why not?” I can’t tell you the number of
times I have veered into the fast lane on the expressway and
passed a string of cars….not because I needed to….not even
because I wanted to….but because I could. Which always leads
Kris to comment: “You know, every stretch of open highway
doesn’t necessarily have your name on it.”
Fortunately,
I have more control in other parts of my life. Which has less
to do with self-discipline than with self-surrender. For long
ago I said: “My life is not for me to do with as I
please.” And that single statement has made all the
difference.
Who
did I say it to? Who didn’t I say it to? Over the years, I
have said it to one board of ministerial examiners, four
Pastor-Parish Relations Committees, seven bishops, one woman
and two kids. But before I said it to any of them, I said it
to Jesus Christ.
“My
life is not for me to do with as I please.” I am talking
about my own personal method of cruise control. You don’t
need Jesus on the dashboard when you’ve got Jesus in the
driver.
Note:
This sermon was occasioned by the tenth anniversary of the
Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise. For those reading this sermon
outside the state of Michigan, the Dream Cruise might be a
source of puzzlement. But it is second only to Christmas as a
cultural event in our area. I could even call it a
pseudo-religious event (albeit with tongue in cheek) because
the awe and adoration it engenders is the kind usually
reserved for objects of great devotion. Fully 40,000 classic
automobiles drive up and down Woodward (or are displayed
street-side) while a couple of million other people
participate in related events for several days preceding
Cruise Day.
As
a part of this year’s festivity, our multi-talented
associate pastor, Jeff Nelson, designed an outdoor service in
our parking lot (6:00 Sunday evening) complete with cruise
music by the Praise Band, classic cars on display, and the
opportunity to listen to the service on an FM station on
one’s car radio.
Conversations
with the car buffs tried to ascertain the actual speed at
which I drove the Mercedes on the Autobahn. Several suggested
that the speedometer was probably calibrated in kilometers.
But Dave Tenniswood claims that while the speed was measured
in kilometers, the actual number was above 200. And Dave was
there….praying.
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