God Is The Difference Between Stealing and Taking

Today’s reading:Hebrews 2:9-18

One night when I was in college, my friend Johnny showed up at a gathering on foot rather than on his beloved bicycle. He and his bike were usually inseparable, so several of us asked him about it.

“Someone else took it today,” he said.

A few weeks later, when Johnny was still on foot, it began to dawn on us friends of his:  the bike, in fact, had been stolen.

A couple of us had long been concerned about Johnny’s tendency to be a pushover, so we confronted him lovingly about his bike.

“Yes, it was gone one morning when I came back from class. I think I forgot to lock it. So someone took it,” he said.

“Did you call the campus police?” we asked, reminded him they had a good reputation for recovering students’ stolen property — if notified quickly of the theft.

“No. I didn’t call them. Whoever took it needed it more than I did,” he said.

I remember being frustrated by this reply. I worried aloud to several other friends — all of whom agreed with me — that Johnny “might be taking his church stuff too seriously.”

Johnny was a regular at the Catholic church near the college, and, most evenings he could be found in lonely booth of a coffee shop with his nose buried in the Bible.

And he talked a lot about Jesus.

My friends and I all respected Johnny — he was a great drummer in several bands and his drawing skills were amazing —  but we also thought of him as a bit of a kook.  This non-nonchalant attitude about his stolen bike only confirmed his reputation with us.

More than 20 years later, I am happy to report that I eventually let Johnny have an influence upon me. I have lost many things myself since those days, and those episodes often remind me of Johnny.

Just a few weeks ago, for example, I returned to my truck after a run on the Corpus Christi Bayfront and discovered my wallet missing. Yes, replacing all of my ID cards and such was a frustrating experience the next day. But, with Johnny’s help, I did it happily.

And this story has two happy endings:

First, I befriended a nice lady at the driver’s license office who actually went out of her way to inquire about my wallet a couple of weeks later when she spotted me at the grocery store.  Our quick chat somehow turned to her back yard, and I took the opportunity to hand her my business card. There now seems a good chance she will call me sometime to be her yard guy.

Then, the evening after I lost the wallet,  a police man showed up at my door to hand it to me.

“A transient dropped it off at the PD just now, so we’re bringing it to you. Is everything there?”

All that was missing was the cash (probably about $20).

The police man said he knows the transient personally and suspected he probably took the wallet from my truck. He asked if I wanted to file a criminal complaint and try to to get the $20 back.

I thought of Johnny — and of Jesus — and decided the man must have needed that $20 more than I did. Not overly naive, I was willing to assume he spent some of it on beer, but I figure he probably bought at least a little food with it too.

“No, just tell him thanks for returning my wallet. Thanks to you, too,” I said.

It was a kind act of that man to actually return my wallet, was it not?

Today’s reading makes me glad that my friend Johnny taught me his healthy way of thinking about suffering.

“For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham.” (Verse 6)

Jesus did not suffer in order to please God. But, rather, the crucifixion was  God’s way of teaching us the lesson that Johnny, obviously, learned very well.

Thanks be to God for the eternal peace that forgiveness brings.