Leamon

Leamon hung up the phone, threw the necessities in the back of his van and hit the road. Verizon had work for him in League City, 1200 miles away. The money was good and his wife was already gone to a training conference, so he set out to join the hundreds, perhaps thousands of workers who have flooded into the bay area in recent weeks to get our power, water, phone and cable working again, pick up our trash, and repair our roofs and fences.

Somewhere around Beaumont on Saturday night, Leamon's transmission started talking to him. By the time he reached Houston he could smell the burning transmission fluid. As his van limped into the parking lot of the Verizon service center in League City late Saturday night, the transmission refused to shift gears. He gathered a few things out of the back, left the van where it sat, and walked about 6 blocks to the Super 8 for a little sleep before returning to his van early Sunday morning. A night's rest did nothing for his transmission. He was stuck in a strange town with no transportation and no friends, and Verizon would be closed for another 24 hours. Leamon thought to himself: "What am I going to do now? Well, it's Sunday. What do you do on Sunday?" He looked across the street at the YMCA, and noticed on the marquis that a church was meeting there. "Go to church, " he said to himself, grabbed his Bible from the seat of his van and walked over.

He walked in the back of the gym-turned-auditorium and took a seat on an unoccupied row. The pastor was addressing this fledgling congregation: "we have to take the initiative in relationships. We aren't an unfriendly church because we don't care about people. We're an unfriendly church because we're all new, few of us know each other, and we're all waiting for someone else to take the initiative." Then he asked everyone in the room to put on a name tag, seek out someone they didn't know, and take a few moments to get to know them. The next thing Leamon knew, he was telling his story to a married couple. After the service, several other people greeted him and learned of his predicament.

"Leamon, what do you need?"
"I think I need jackstands and some transmission fluid."
"I don't live far from here. If you can hang around for a few minutes, I'll go get the jackstands and come back."

Hang around for a few minutes? He had all day, and where else did he have to go? The jackstands arrived momentarily, and after a ride to Autozone for transmission fluid and a filter, Leamon got to work on his van. His delivery driver came back a couple of hours later to find him cleaning up after a successful transfusion of fluid and filter. As the two men cleaned up the remaining debris from the transmission job, Leamon turned to the stranger and said, "I don't know if anyone has told you this today or not, but I love you." He laughed as he said it, the nervous laughter of a man whose real needs had been met by strangers, and who just blurted out words men don't say to each other. But both men understood.

Presumably, Leamon is around here somewhere today, repairing someone's phone lines. Or maybe he isn't.

Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. --Hebrews 13:2 TNIV

Margaritas, Anyone?

I've been keeping an eye out for a part-time job to supplement my income, surfing through craigslist and the newspaper from time to time. One that caught my eye this week was an ad for a part-time delivery person in our area. The pay and the hours were agreeable, and the business owner seemed intent on finding someone who would "represent my company well," although what, exactly, his company was, or what I would be delivering was not clear. What the heck--I thought I'd give it a shot. I replied with my best pitch about being a reliable driver and that I would represent his company with professionalism and integrity. I received the following in reply:

Let me tell you alittle about this job and then let me know if it is something you would be interested in. I rent margarita machines to private parties and company events that are mainly rented on weekends.... It's really easy and for the most part really fun if you like dealing with people and a party atmosphere. It's kinda like being the flower delivery guy everyone is always happy to see you.

I laughed out loud. I started imagining myself driving around League City with a truckload of margarita machines every Saturday. Maybe I could hand out Springs invitation cards at my deliveries! What would it be like if I made a delivery and it turned out to be people from the church? The more I thought about it, the more my thoughts turned from "fun to think about but could never happen" to "dang, I wish I could do this." Did I think renting a margarita machine was inherently sinful? -no. In fact, I've been to some parties that desperately needed one. Part of me would enjoy the job--"everyone is always happy to see you." Part of me needs the work. Part of me likes the opportunity to rattle people's cages about what it truly means to be godly, or the ridiculous ideas we have about the clergy as a separate, spiritual class in society. But all those parts lost to the part that wants people to come to Jesus more than I want to rock the boat. If I thought I could rock the boat and help people come to Jesus, I would do it in a heartbeat. But I'm afraid passing out margaritas isn't going to do it.

At some point, somewhere, there's going to be a party with a margarita machine. At this same party, someone is going to invite someone else to a Springs gathering or a table group, or give them an invitation card to the Springs. I may or may not be there when it happens, but I will applaud.

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I realize I may have opened up a can of worms (or two or three) with this post. This is a great time to ask me questions, challenge my assumptions, or express whatever thoughts or feelings you have about this topic.