Last Saturday I had the “opportunity” to eat at Cracker Barrel. I’m sorry, but I’m just not that into breakfast foods, nor am I that into “country cookin.’” Oh now … come on folks … I need all the help I can get in maintaining a steady but safe decline in my weight. “Country cookin’” does not exactly help.
However, I very much appreciate the chance to file through their “country store.” It certainly has the effect of helping to long for days I have never seen before: the days of authentic rural Americana. On this particular day I even had the opportunity to chat with a fellow for “quite some time,” sitting in rocking chairs on a lazy afternoon. Yes, we solved the world’s problems, but, as always with front porch conversations of this nature, the world wasn’t listening.
Oh well, no matter, I was listening … both to my friend and to the moment. What is so valuable that we rush, rush, rush through life, passing up opportunities like the one at hand, only to find that there’s one more order to fill, one more paper to write, one more problem to solve … alone?
And yet, as I wondered through the country store, I was amazed at all the plastic things for sale. Is plastic really dainty morsel of yesteryear? While I certainly have nothing against plastic per se (the computer I’m typing this on is plastic), often times plastic is merely a cheap time-saver. And in this store, dedicated to whetting the appetite for the best of rural Americana, can cheap time-savers (from rural China, no doubt) really replicate the iron-n-steel wielded by backbones of the same material that actually plowed the lifestyles of yesteryear?
Plastic. Cheap time-savers. With the time saved on the cheap I am now able to rush, rush, rush to fill one more order, write one more paper, and solve one more problem (all alone); so that I can now pay down the balance on my plastic, which I used to buy more plastic things: more cheap time-savers, more imitations of the real-steel of yesteryear.
Unlike my coffee, which doesn’t care if it lives in a plastic cup, made in China that reads, “Proud to be an American,” my soul does care if cheap imitations are used to “save time” in his cultivation. I may think it a mark of ingenuity to rightly divide the word of time into “quality” and “quantity,” but my kids’ self-images will reflect this plastic care. I may think it efficient to simply remove the “problem” person (or people) from my life to promote peace, but when conflict arises in the next relationship there will be no superglue powerful enough to fix my broken, plastic heart. In reality there is no proverbial factory in China that can produce any metaphorical plastic capable of functioning in the Temple of God, which is the “oneness” of the Spirit-redeemed/redeeming relationships among the people of God. He does not build his Temple on the cheap, nor does he expect us to use cheap, time-savers in producing authentic worship. Consider the following real-steel of Paul:
If, then you have been raise with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of god is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do no lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And by thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him (Colossians 3:1-17; ESV).
Bargains are great for basic material things in our lives. When it comes to the heart of Christianity, which are right, redeemed relationships (with God and neighbor), remember that if it is a steal, then it is most likely not the real-steel of Paul. The real-steel of Paul produces pain and anxiety in us and requires sweaty-hard work from us, as the Spirit refashions us into the image of God, described in the passage above. Plastic faith will melt and disintegrate in the blacksmith station of the Holy Spirit, known as the Church.
