Dear Family,
I love stories about journeys, whether aquanauts exploring the depths of the ocean, or pioneers going across the plains, or polar explorers battling the ice and cold. Journeys always leave the journeyers changed. Here are some journey books from our shelves.
Why do I mention journeys? Because the middle section of Luke (chapters 9-19) depicts Jesus’ journey from Galilee to Jerusalem along with his disciples. Sunday’s parable (Luke 17:7-10) falls in this section.
An Urban Journey
Speaking of journeys, we had an urban journey two weeks ago when we went to San Francisco. It’s a wacky city and wacky things always happen to us when we explore it. The first part of the day was smooth and easy. We got coffee and donuts to fortify us.
We tried to go to the Musée Mécanique so the kids could experience the Mighty Wurlitzer organ that I told you about last fall. But the city was packed, and we couldn’t get parking. No problem. Ethan had an idea: let’s walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. So, we drove west from Fisherman’s Wharf and (barely) found parking at Fort Point. Here’s a picture of the bridge – weird perspective, I know!
Then we were hungry for pizza in North Beach. I plugged the address into Google Maps and we set off. We were having a jolly time (that’s the new Seitz word, “jolly”). But here’s where the jolly stopped. See, we found ourselves at the intersection of Union and Jones heading to Filbert. As we paused at the light, we LOOKED UP at one of San Francisco’s steepest streets. Sitting there at the red-light, Anna said, “We can make it up there, right?” I was a little offended. “Oh, come on! Where’s your confidence in me and our car (2007 Honda Odyssey Minivan). We’ll zip right up the hill.
So, like Shackleton leading his men to Antarctica, we embarked, full of high spirits. We made a little headway, but like the explorer hitting the ice floes we ran into trouble. In short, the engine got loud and the wheels got slow. Then we realized our “ship” was stuck. We were going nowhere.
I didn’t stop, because we were already stopped. We continued stopping, if that makes sense. Instinctively I opened my driver-side window. I looked to my left and saw a man on the sidewalk staring right at me. I thought that he might offer a word of advice or encouragement but no. He just laughed. No, he ROARED with amusement.
Then, to add insult to injury, he began to yell, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can,” citing the famous line from the children’s story, The Little Engine that Could by Watty Piper. It’s the inspirational tale about the little blue engine that tugged, pulled, puffed and chugged up the mountain with a “jolly load” of toys and dolls for all the boys and girls.
That was painful because as my mom will attest, that was one of my favorite childhood stories. A real inspiration. But here we were being mocked as the little van that couldn’t.
Sadly, the only way forward was backwards. The problem was there were now two cars behind me, including a Tesla Cyber Truck. With shame, I put my arm out the window and made the “go around me” motion while my tormentor kept cackling, “I think I can . . .”
Finally, after the two cars passed me, we backed down to Union Street and I quickly sped off. Boy, did I ever have to eat my words.
Maybe on your journey of faith and discipleship, you feel that you’ve been going backwards more than forwards. I’m hoping this Sunday you’ll get a fresh sense of how to go forward.
The Journey of Identity
Our parable deals with the question of identity. Sin has injured us by giving us false views of ourselves. Maybe you’re not exactly sure who you are. This Sunday we’ll have a teaching from an often-neglected parable. Check this out.
My prayer is that like Ronnie Davis in the cartoon, we’ll all walk away from our Luke study with a firm answer to the question, “Who Am I?”
For Jesus the Lord,
Darren