Drinking, Community and the Gospel

I know someone who likes to drink. He cannot handle it though. He drinks too much and becomes inebriated. At that point it is difficult to be around him. Conversations become repetitive and animated, he pulls on my dog's ears playfully but too hard and she yelps, he becomes sloppy and just all around useless. He lived with me awhile on the condition that he not drink while staying here. After three strikes he was out. That was a couple months ago.

I've lived alone since my divorce. It was painfully lonely at first - especially on Sundays. Our pastor calls our congregation a "faith family" and that is what we are. I love my small group. But it was hard to worship together and then leave and be alone. I was always looking around for other people with whom to go to lunch after the service. Most of the time it was a drive-through and on to the house where Trudie would sit quietly waiting for a morsel to fall from the table.

In his book "Blue Like Jazz" Donald Miller shares how his pastor kept nagging him to move in with roommates. As I recall the author quite liked to be alone but his pastor believed firmly in community and kept nudging him until he relented and moved in with 4 other guys. He experienced difficulties but God used the experience to grow him, smoothing out some rough places like a sculptor.


I do think you can get mighty weird living alone. Talking to your pets isn't all that odd but I might want to keep an eye on the more lengthy two-part conversations. The ones that go something like this:


Trudie: "Daddy, why you gotta leave Trudie again?" (Trudie always speaks in the third person.)

Me: "Baby, you know Daddy has to work. Someone's gotta buy you food and treats." (I guess Daddy sometimes speaks in the third person too.)

Trudie: "Daddy, excuse me but it looks like you're the one doing all the eating."

Me: "Watch your mouth mutt or no walk before Daddy leaves for work!"


See what I mean? Doing it doesn't seem all that weird but writing it down like I did just now makes me wonder if I ought not find another roommate.... quickly.

Lately I have been thinking that relationships are far more important than I ever thought. I should have guarded many that I let dissolve or just kind of dissipate. I used to tell friends that moving around so much as a kid kept me skilled at cutting off relationships. If dad and mom said we were going back to Florida or moving to California I immediately started cutting ties and closing off a bit inside. These days I don't think that is such a great skill to have. Aside from the growing weird part I'm thinking God may use the more difficult times (like when someone is just royally getting on my nerves) to reveal things about my character that I'd rather not look at.

Imagine a guy hanging out for three years with twelve other guys. Out of that group he's really close to three of them. They do everything together - eating, sleeping, everything. You know how close you get to people just spending a week's vacation them. Sometimes their little habits start grating on you. When my friend lived with me he had a habit of walking through the house not really whistling but making a soft tune, which I could never identify by the way. It was kind of a cross between humming, breathing and whistling. Every morning he would do this as he paced around going from one room to the next with his coffee. EVERY morning.

Now imagine that you are Jesus hanging out with your twelve friends and you know them thoroughly. Not just the part of them they want you to see but you know them through and through. You see the core of their petty envy and bitter hatred. You see their irrational fears and slavish lusts. You see them as proud, arrogant and blind.... yet you love them. You reveal to them for the 3rd time at least that you are headed to an excruciating death on a cross of wood, nailed up there like a convicted murderer, though you never did one wrong deed in your life. You bear your soul and it goes right over their heads. They stare at you blankly and go right back to bickering about who is going to be the greatest in the coming kingdom. How alone would you feel? How desperate for intimacy and starved for true companionship and it's nowhere in these twelve. One of them will soon turn you over to authorities for some cash and another, who happens to be the loudest about his loyalty, will soon turn and run to save his own skin! At that point if I were Jesus I think I would've prayed, "God, just give me a dog! Please!" I bet his sweetest companionship was felt when he went off by himself, maybe knelt and looked up to the sky to talk to his Father. "Abba Father" he cried, "all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will..... but what you will."

Soon after he was suffering. Pain like we will never know. The cup would not be removed. The Father turns his back on his Son after placing every lie, every adultery, every murder, every drunken binge, every proud thought and envious glance right on the body of His Son. That body which Jesus said was broken for me. For you. Blood staining the harsh wood of the cross and falling to the dirt. Blood he said was poured out for us.

If someone wrote a play they could not capture the depth of this love. It's no wonder he told us to go tell everyone.