Free Lunch

 

They say that there is no such thing as a free lunch.  This is absurd…of course there is such a thing as a free lunch, just ask any college boy who is home from university for the summer and whose family isn’t charging him rent! I know this because I too was a college boy who came home from college for the summers and ate all of my parent’s food without paying rent.

As a parent…these seem like free lunches…at least to my off spring, but as a student I didn’t consider these meals to be free lunches at all, due to the fact that I was required to mow the lawn, shingle the roof, build some decks and paint the house to “earn” my free lunch!

As an adult, I too insisted that our son mowed the lawn and took care of other tasks around the house to “earn his keep” during his summer of respite.

So what is a “free lunch?” Is there such a thing?  There has been a few times in which I have taken advantage of “free lunches” being served by various businesses around town, free hot dogs, free burgers, free appetizer with the purchase of two entrée’s…wait…what?

The closest I feel that I have come to a “free lunch” was when I stood in line for 5 hours on opening day at Pizza Ranch in Little Falls.  The new restaurant promised free pizza for a year to the first 50 people into the store that day.  I was #5.  I must admit that I was a little dismayed to learn that free pizza for a year meant 1 large pizza per month for the next 12 months…but, beggars can’t be choosers. 

You could say that I received 12 free lunches.  But here’s the thing…those 12 pizzas had to cost someone, something.  Someone had to pay for the products and the workers to prepare the products. Someone was paying for the electricity of the oven and the dish soap to wash the pans…I hope. The 12 pizzas even cost me 5 hours on a Saturday morning.

In the same way, grace is costly.  Forgiveness is costly.  In Matthew 18:20-35, Jesus lays out an incredible parable about forgiveness.  He turns the world of thought on forgiveness upside down.  He insists on a forgiveness that is unprecedented and radical.  At a glance, the picture of grace evidenced can seem cheap, but it is anything but cheap.  In fact, it is incredibly costly.  In Jesus’ parable it is the King who absorbs all of the cost.  The King pays an incredible price to offer forgiveness to the servant. 

Forgiveness is becoming harder to find in our society.  Yet, even in the diminishing evidence of forgiveness in our culture, the incredible payment of Jesus for the remission…the forgiveness of our sins resonates loudly, if we will only listen.

May we come to encounter the Grace of Jesus Christ…that we too may be empowered to pay the cost of forgiveness.

Correction

This is the last one.  After aiding in the vehicular operational skills of my first 3 children, I have come to the final chapter in the driver’s training responsibilities as a parent.  I have already decided that pending some unforeseen future events I will not be engaging in teaching other teenagers to drive…including my own not yet conceived grandchildren…if I can at all help it.  I don’t know how paid driving instructors do it? Likely they have more patience than do I and must be God gifted with nerves of steel.

Each of my children has posed their own challenges in their journeys to becoming roadworthy drivers, but this fourth chapter has been eye opening.  Literally…my eyes have nearly popped out of their sockets desperately slamming my own foot against the invisible imaginary brake on the passenger side floor. 

“Brake! Brake Brake!”… “Start slowing…slow…stop! Stop!”… “Right…Right!...not left! Turn the wheel to the right!...what do you mean which way is right!”…“That’s not the brake!...it’s the gas!”…“Why are you accelerating around this turn!?!”

These are just a few of the actual phrases that have slipped past my lips as my white knuckles desperately clap the armrests.  I have even left fingernail imprints in the molded plastic…and I don’t even have fingernails…as to the fact that I bite them…likely from teaching 3 prior children to drive.

On one of our recent sojourns through the streets of Little Falls, I was struck with the need for some important corrections.

“Erica, you need to keep the vehicle between the lines.  You are driving on top the white line.”

“Oh, I don’t really pay attention to the lines.”

“Erica, I try to watch the brake lights of not only the car in front of me, but also the car in front of him.”

“Oh, I don’t really watch brake lights.”

“Erica, You really need to begin slowing down for stop signs much earlier than you are. Do not rely on your brakes.”

“I am not usually very conscientious of stop signs.”

Surely you see my dilemma!?

To Erica’s immense credit, she hears everything I say and make the concerted effort to change.  Of my four children she has been the most ready to learn and receive correction than any of the other 3…even if she has had more to correct than the others. 

This resonates as I read Matthew 18:15-22.  In these verses we find Jesus giving a process by which we are to pursue and receive correction.  In the scriptures, this process is sandwiched in grace…both before and after.  We all need correction whether we know it or not, or whether we admit it or not.  Jesus wants us to continue to be transformed into his likeness and he has empowered the Church to help navigate this process. Where we get it wrong is when we fall into legalism.  When we get it right it is beautiful and it is immersed in grace.

May we come to find within each one of us, a softened heart ready to be molded by the Holy Spirit.

 My Dad can Beat up Your Dad!

“Yeah!? Well…My dad can beat up your dad!” I retorted after an extended verbal battle of who was faster, stronger, smarter, etc.  My friend Tyler and I had bickered back and forth laying out comparison after comparison.  It began with who was faster, he or I.  He insisted that he was the faster runner and contrarily I argued that I was in fact faster.  What was ironic is that neither of us was willing to put foot to track to prove it…likely each of us feared that we could not live up to our self proclamations. 

We argued about who was stronger and smarter, who could eat more tacos and who could hold their breath longer.  Finally when we had exhausted all other avenues we diverged to esteeming our fathers.  He insisted that his dad used to play for the San Francisco 49ers, which had to be a fallacy, while I insisted that my dad could beat up his dad, what was probably a reality. 

At the time, my dad could bench press a Volkswagen beetle…probably without the engine…and maybe filled with helium balloons…but still…I’ll bet he could have. 

That is how most elementary school boys will banter…at least at some point and to some degree in their preadolescent years, and I was no exception.  I am coming to see that it doesn’t stop with adolescence.  In fact, I think that this is a pattern we see in much of society.  We, as humans, work so hard and spend so much energy trying to proclaim our value. 

What we don’t understand is that we can do nothing to make ourselves more valuable than we already are in the eyes of God!  It is incredible! In Matthew 18:1-14, we find Jesus’ disciples approach him with the question, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of God.”  Let’s be honest…that is an absurdly silly question…they are talking to the greatest!...Jesus himself!  Yet, they ask, likely trying to find where they themselves sit in the pecking order of eternal hierarchy.

It is at this time that Jesus does something truly extraordinary…he pulls a young child aside and says…”here you go.” (paraphrased).

In this moment, Jesus reveals that to be great in the Kingdom of God, you must come to him with nothing to offer…only trust in HIS greatness.

May you come to see you are of great value to God…not because of what you do, but rather because of “whose” you are.