Father Abraham: Hitchhiker Faith

“Hope is a passion for the possible.” ― Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

Last Sunday, fresh off the Family Reunion, I was in recuperation mode. When at the yearly Family Reunion, I give myself permission to super-size food and beer. I still keep it within biblical boundaries, let us just say that I come against those boundaries. I always made sure to exercise before consumption. "No Pain, No Beer", as my buddy Rob says.

All weekend long, I was just settling back in to my humble abode. It was interesting how much work and packing and unpacking being away for four days required. I still have the 10 foot kayak in my living room as we speak. 

I made an intentional effort to not overpack. Come Sunday morning, I was running a bit late for church because of still feeling out of sync. It is not the biggest deal. My church rarely starts at the stated time of 10:30 and there is no social ostracism if a party comes in late and is discrete about it. Come as you are. 

When I saw the man along 462, I only caught at the last second that he had his thumb out. I started to think about how I was already running late but then had a moment of honesty...late for what? It is Veritas. Not exactly the local gathering of the suit-and-tie bound Frozen Chosen. If I offered up to God that I was late for church and thus should not pick up the man, God just might smite me. 

I am sure that all of the characters in the Good Samaritan story had their reasons for not stopping and providing help to the injured and robbed man alongside the road. "Dinner is in the oven," "My kids are due back from Hebrew lessons at 4:00," "I am heading to Synagogue." All the while the man bleeds and moans. Jesus's point is that the need for mercy outweighs them all.  

So, I turned around. In doing the U-Turn to pick him up, I ran over the corner of someone's yard. 462 is a busy road and I had to do what I had to do to get back on the road without backing up into traffic. Forgive me.... 

I do think these days that it is getting more dangerous to pick people up along the road side. We live in perilous times. I have recently stopped following the local newspapers' daily newsfeeds on Facebook because it has become a parade of criminals doing more and more depraved behaviors. By giving so much PR to these hellions, I am concerned that we are sending the message that they deserve energy and attention. They don't. I prefer anonymous justice served cold and quietly.  

We as a society--President of the U.S. on down--are precipitously close  to showing more charity to the perpetrators of crime rather than its victims. I know that police can be Dicks, especially to men of color. And dangerous, too. I have had enough run-ins with rude cretinous cops to know that if I have been treated poorly as a white upper-middle class highly-educated white-collar person, chances are that I am getting the most professional version of law enforcement on  the spectrum. 

So, I am no apologist for lawless law enforcement. Read a well-researched report recently by a mainstream black scholar whose data demonstrates that the "Tough on Crime" approach of the police and penal system of the late 1970's until now derived substantial support from communities of color who tired of grandma getting robbed on her way to the store or an innocent kid getting shot in the crossfire of drug dealers. As one might imagine, the scholar's work doesn't sit well with the Liberal crowd. That said, I know the current justice system needs reform but it starts where it always does: Putting an end to undereducated teenager kids and young adults having kids before they are truly ready. Marriage is tough, and having children is tougher. But, being a single mom/parent without an education, job skills, and legit employment opportunities (hear this outsourcing companies?), is a an absolute societal disaster. Not just a minority thing...I work with a good deal of poor white kids. Same deal.      

Thus, I am usually pretty reticent about picking up hitchhikers along the roadside. I can tick off probable characteristics: Carless, Jobless, Addicted, Etc, Etc, Etc. So all of this is going through my head and it is keeping me from doing the right thing. Yet, I picked up the man. His name was Abraham. He, in our brief time together, told me that he is in alcohol and drug recovery (been an off-and-on cycle with relapses), had been shot and mercilessly beaten by his Dad when he was a kid, has a drug-addicted daughter who blames him for her life. He had been on his way to share his story with other men in recovery only to find himself stranded by his supervisor who was a no-show.

He suffers from tremors and has had several mini-strokes. His life has been hard and he shows the scars. But, here he is, back on the road of redemption. He has gone the wrong way a lot, yet now is heading in the right direction again. God is good, God is graceful. He spoke of his faith in a very real an authentic manner. He had no reason to front it up to me. 

Neophytes to the Bible, some very educated, make some remarkably unastute and inaccurate assumptions about Bible characters. That they are portrayed as righteous people always doing right. Since when do heroes allow their flaws to be detailed in such excruciatingly personal detail? 

Abraham screws Hagar, has a child Ishmael outside of his marriage to Sarah. Good old dysfunction Jerry Springer/Maury Povich Catfish-Fever bottom-feeder shit. It would be like Donald Trump publishing a book about what a Prick he is. A lot of the details about the biblical heroes--who often act quite unheroically--comes from they themselves or people close to them. Attempts to suppress the dark side often leads God raising up a prophet and punishment to make the deeds known far and wide as a lesson to all. 'David, thou art the man."

I tried to encourage Abraham on our ride to keep walking with God. That the road of faith is rocky. We do bad, and sometimes we get bad just by being a bystander. Not all of our pain comes from our own hand, others' dish it out too undeserved. Abraham was encouraged, I was too even more. We parted as friends in the Faith of God's care for us despite our failings.

Fear and Trembling is a great book. In it, Soren K. shows Abraham as a man who struggles, who fails, who sometimes lacks faith in God. The tale of being called by God to sacrifice the child of promise Isaac on the altar is a crucible of crazy faith and all of fatherly conflict of being told to do so by God Himself. In the end, Abraham does right, renounces his selfish possession of Isaac (Parents: Your kids are ultimately God's, not yours), and moves forward. God provides a ram instead for sacrifice. 

God picks up hitchhikers heading His way of Hope. We must also.