The heist was happening inside the darkened warehouse as I sat in a van, I was brought in to drive. It wasn’t that I had extraordinary driving skills, it was that I already knew too much, and it was either I got involved to the point of culpability or I was probably someone who needed to disappear. Sounds like a movie or something, doesn’t it? At the moment as I was sitting in that van waiting for either the three guys inside to get what they were after or for the cops to show up, I had that surreal feeling. One day, I am sitting on a couch in this dude’s house getting high and talking what I thought was the usual ‘trash’ about an electronics warehouse break-in and two nights later here I am involved up to my teeth. I had to chuckle as the old Laurel and Hardy line came to mind, “Here’s another fine mess you got us into…” Yeah very funny. Drug dealer now a getaway driver!
Time was ticking away. I had not gotten high before, neither did the others. This was serious business, so all were sworn to sobriety until the deed was done. But I sure needed a drink, even more I just wanted to be anywhere but here.
The van I was driving was parked around back of a large warehouse, more than a city block in length. From all I was told there was a guy on the inside that was in on the heist and had specific goods that could be taken without being noticed for a while. The three guys that went in were other drug dealers that I had hung around with in the apartment complex where I lived in Oceanside, California, the inside guy I had never met or if I had did not know. I had only been dealing out of this complex for less than two months, but I knew at least two of these guys were ‘connected’. Word on the street was Mexican Mafia. I had started hanging with them to see if I could get a connection myself. Well, that had not worked out so well so here I was about to add to my rap sheet. And I was thinking, amazingly, that I might be a drug dealer, but I certainly was no thief!
Isn’t it strange that even in our sinfulness we find a way to feel superior to others? I can testify in my life I said to myself many times, “Well, I might deal speed but at least I am not dealing heroine!” I had made a distinction in my mind that ‘crank’, or ‘meth’ as it is called today, dealers were better people than the low lives who would sink to dealing heroine. That once I was involved in other crimes, I would sooth my conscience by assuring myself, “Sure, I was the driver in that heist, but I didn’t steal the goods!” or “Sure, I took my cut from that robbery, but I didn’t do it myself!” It was always the other guy who was the ‘bad’ guy. Someone who was worse than me and I took my unholy solace in it.
But am I so different today? Yes, I am now an upstanding ‘Christian’! I would no more be part of the scheme I am sharing in this blog than I would commit any crime. No, my friends, I am saved! But what about the times when I say in my heart, “At least I am not a pew sitter like so and so!” or “Why can’t everyone serve the poor like I do?” In those times am I so different than the Pharisee who can stand and feel his own righteousness over the publican in this story Jesus tells:
Two men went up into the temple to pray; one was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself like this: ‘God, I thank you, that I am not like the rest of men, extortioners, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.’ (Luke 18: 10-12)
Is my righteousness like this man’s? Does Jesus look into my heart and see his pride and averseness in me, when all the time I need to be like the other man Jesus shows us in this parable who says and has a true heart of humility and surrender:
“But the tax collector, standing far away, wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13)
Only when I can truly have the heart of the publican can I know that my ‘Christian’ conversion is more than a change of time and place. Yes, I am no longer a drug dealer and thief, but I need to no longer be a judge and jury! It is only then I can hear Jesus final words of this parable and know I walk in HIS footsteps:
“I tell you; this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14)
This is who I need to be today and every one of these last days!
Not so as I sat in the van waiting! I wanted to separate myself from what I was doing even though the crime was committed, and I shared in the wealth of it. Even when I was grilled by detectives who knew I was involved, I could hold myself aloof because after all I was just a victim of circumstances, I wasn’t a thief like the other guys! The scary thing to me is that even in my ‘clean heart’ forgiven place. Knowing God’s mercy and grace can still think in those terms. I seek today for that never to be true. It is the heart of the publican I seek. I know many of your reading this can think as you do, “Man, I am glad that I have never sinned like the guy writing this!” You sure can think that! But remember these words of Jesus, they are so needed in this world of turmoil we live in:
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7: 1-5)
May we all find these words to live by today!
Blessings
John
7/14/20
