Totally Suspect

What in the world do people have against skateboarders? Everywhere I go I see NO SKATEBOARDING signs. Downtown merchants complain about them as if these kids are to blame for a 30-year decline in business. In my hometown, the city actually dismantled a skate park that was built by private contributions.

When the media is clogged with warnings about childhood obesity and sedentary lifestyles why do communities consistently single out a group of kids who are spending their afternoons and weekends outdoors doing physical activity? It doesn’t make sense.

My seven-year old got a skateboard for his birthday. I’m happy to encourage him. Skateboarding is the only popular sport I can think of that tells a kid right upfront that there’s going to be a lot of scrapes and bruises on the road to becoming proficient. So when N-- wipes out—and believe me, he does—he dusts himself off and gets back on the board. You need to keep at it. That’s a good lesson to learn as kid.

It’s a lesson I need to recall from time to time because life’s not easy. And what it demands of me frequently wearies me out and wears me down. I desire to be the rugged individualist who lives life against the grain, but often in reflection admit that I’ve been following the path of least resistance despite my best efforts. Just like a kid who wipes out on a skateboard, I have to make a decision to lie there or get back up when life throws me off-balance.

The twelve disciples had lived their share of discouragement and disappointment in their travels with Jesus. They don’t know it yet, but their lives are going to become a whole lot more complicated real soon. They’re on their way to Jerusalem, where Jesus will get caught up in a kangaroo court, receive the death penalty, and be executed.

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.' (Luke 18: 1 – 3)

A fair trial before an impartial judge should be a given; sadly, the morning paper tells us that isn’t always the case. Take the judge in Jesus’ story, for instance. The guy is in a position of power where his word is law. He disregards a couple of thousand years of Jewish law and doesn’t give much thought to public opinion polls, either. This is the judge in all those car chase and women in prison movies of the 1970s. You’re in MY county, now, boy!

The widow, on the other hand, doesn’t posses any power at all. She didn’t inherit her husband’s estate when he passed on—that went to the male heir. The only Social Security she had was the kindness of others. The fact that she’s in court at all is pretty crazy in itself—women didn’t have legal status in ancient Israel. Faced with overwhelming odds, the woman doesn’t give up. She keeps showing up in court to pester the judge!

"For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' " (Luke 18: 4 – 5)

In the translation of this scripture from Hebrew to English we lose one of the genuinely funny passages of the whole Bible. The phrase “wear me out” had a double meaning. One is the obvious meaning that we understand today, but it also meant to “give someone a black eye.” So what the Judge is really saying at the end of the story is I‘m not afraid of God’s wrath or people’s protests, but I’ll tell you what I am afraid of—that lady’s right hook! Judgment for the plaintiff!

Talk about a punchline!

And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18: 6 – 8)

I don’t have a lot of faith in our government or the political process. But come November 2nd, I’ll head into a voting booth to select those politicians that in my estimation will best work for the common good. If after Watergate, Iran-Contra, Read-My-Lips, Monica, and Haliburton I can still muster up enough faith to pull a lever and hope for a better world, how much more security can I have in a God who knows what I need before I even ask Him?

Oswald Chambers writes:

“The true test of a person’s spiritual life and character is not what he does in the extraordinary moments of life, but what he does during the ordinary times when there is nothing tremendous or exciting happening… It is painful work to get in step with God and to keep pace with Him—it means getting your second wind spiritually… God’s Spirit changes…our way of looking at things, and then things begin to be possible which before were impossible. Getting into God’s stride means nothing less than oneness with Him. It takes a long time to get there, but keep at it. Don’t give up because the pain is intense right now—get on with it, and before long you will find that you have a new vision and a new purpose.”

Dust yourself off and try again. It’s good advice for skateboarders. It’s even better advice for followers of Christ.