Out of Gas

In search of gas for our lawnmower, the other day our gas can and I took a walk to a convenience store/gas station up the street a few blocks. When I reached the pumps, I noticed but paid no attention to handwritten signs taped to their fronts. Following the usual regimen of a credit card swipe and receipt preference selection, I engaged the pump’s cheapest (CORRECTION: least outrageously expensive) blend. Nothing.

I then actually read the sign on the pump’s face, from which I learned that the station had run out of unleaded and premium gas (that would be the least and most outrageously expensive blends). Ever quick on processes of elimination, I deduced there was one choice left for me and my can. Unfazed by the prospect of spending an extra dime a gallon, I pushed the mid-grade button then pulled the trigger. Again, nothing.

I reread the signs – no unleaded or premium – then moved toward the store’s entrance, where I was greeted by an exiting employee, she with more hand-drafted signs in tow.

“Are you out of all gas?” I asked, hoping soon to wake up on the well irony-ed sheets of this farcical moment.

“Yeah, it looks like we are. We thought we had the mid-grade stuff, but it doesn’t look like we do,” was the employee’s authoritative reply.

“Do you expect to get gas anytime soon?” I continued, by now working hard to contain my derision and salvage my excursion’s mission.

“Well, we hope so. We called them, but we never know when they’ll come by,” she said, sounding little like the take-charge leader types I expect to find behind convenience store cash registers.

Some creative four letter commentary punctuated my return home, after which I discovered that the gas outage was a contained phenomenon, as I filled our gas can at another station in the neighborhood.

How does a gas station run out of gas?


A few years ago, when I was not nearly as health conscious as I am today, I drove through a Burger King drive thru for lunch. I ordered a Whopper, or a double cheeseburger, or something in the beef section of the restaurant’s menu.

“We’re out of hamburger right now,” said the would-be server.

“You’re out of hamburger?” I asked, thinking the drive thru’s speaker was seriously distorting the worker’s words.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Do you expect to get any hamburger in any time soon,” I continued, not knowing that one day I would put an analogous question to a convenience store worker.

“Well, we have some on order, but we don’t know when it will get here,” she explained.

I drove away from the Burger King without my Whopper, muttering respect for Clara Peller, of the infamous 1980's Wendy’s commercial, who asked “Where’s the beef?” but apparently never found it.

How does a hamburger restaurant run out of hamburger?


There are lots of people who will visit churches in a few days looking for spiritual hope, sustenance, and connection. Perhaps the word “church” on the congregations’ main signs will prompt expectations of success; perhaps recommendations from friends or family, maybe a dusted-off childhood memory of the church’s prominence and potential, or a desire to learn more about some guy named Jesus will create optimism as those folks gather with the churches they visit.

I wonder how many of those spiritual travelers will drive away asking, “How does a group of Christians run out of Jesus?"


Pray with me:
Help me be a clear reflection of Jesus, God. No questions. No hastily written excuses. He is my Lord, or so I say. May no one cross my path in worship this weekend having to ask whether I have run out of the one in whose name I pray, Amen.

Something Different This Way Comes

My current vacation has not distracted me from my spiritual practice of daily Bible reading. I am at the moment five days into my least favorite book, Old Testament or New, Leviticus.

What a challenge. Rules for sacrifices of all sorts. Detailed prescriptions for various offerings (make sure you rub the goat’s blood on the right big toe, not the left!). Minutiae regarding women’s menstruation. Tips for distinguishing between leprosy and other skin infections (Hint: Black hairs in the afflicted area, good; yellow hairs in the afflicted area, not good). As I said, what a challenge.

Most of us modern faithfuls have little use for this kind of legislative Scripture. Rules of such specificity have minimal application in a world fundamentally transformed by medical, technological, and social progress.

We don’t want to know the process by which people were declared “ceremonially unclean.” We aren’t impressed, and in fact, are a bit miffed by the exclusion from the Israelite community of people with illnesses not of their own creation. We don’t benefit from detailed recipes for sacrifices no longer practiced. In sum, we’re hard pressed to discern why Leviticus matters to 21st century humanity. . . . More personally, I rejoice that on Thursday I will move on to the scintillation of “Numbers.”

Just when my reactive boredom persuades me to consider striking Leviticus from my spiritual practice’s reading list, the word “holy” makes one of its 77 appearances, none more penetrating than this, found in the eleventh chapter:

“ I, the Lord, am the one who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God. You must therefore be holy because I am holy.”

The book’s obsessive-compulsion with ritual and cleanliness and hygiene is explained in a single word: holy. Israel must be different – “set apart” is a phrase oft-employed – from other nations. Any people chosen to represent a holy God must themselves be holy. Any community daring to define itself as God’s light to the world must shine so that others will notice its glow. The rules, the ceremonies, the details in Leviticus are of little practical consequence for us, but the divine demand for holiness is a spiritual necessity.


For the last several years I have experienced a burgeoning passion about good, right, holy living. Not perfection, mind you, but holiness – different from the rest. There is right and wrong (though we probably disagree as to what they are!). What we say, how we respond to need, want, and inclination all matter.

** If the Joneses are bad role models, don’t keep up with them.

** If a course of action is wrong/immoral/inappropriate, regardless of its potential benefits don’t pursue it.

** Worship’s seeming decline as a spiritual practice in our culture is not a permission slip for followers of Jesus to abandon Sunday morning praise.

** Among lies, neither size nor color matters (“a little white...”).

** Whether we hold the door open for the person coming behind us, whether we tolerate racial, gender, or sexual orientation intolerance even a single appearance, whether we’re authentic reflections of Jesus to our world in the next thirty minutes – not just the next time we’re otherwise unencumbered – matters.

It all matters. . . because God is holy and expects holiness from us. God expects you and me to live differently than the surrounding throngs.

Not “asks for”
Not “wishes for”
Not “humbly requests”

Expects. Demands.


Leviticus is an insufferable read, until we hear its central siren: God has made you different. Live that way.

Four more days to finish the book. A lifetime to prove I understood what I read.


Pray with Me:
God, you believe in me more than I believe in myself, which is one component in your demand of more from me than I often offer. Keep after me. Be intolerant of my excuses. Be encouraging of my efforts. Be gracious through it all. In the name of Jesus, Amen.