{"id":1709,"date":"2022-06-09T09:26:01","date_gmt":"2022-06-09T13:26:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1709"},"modified":"2022-06-09T09:26:01","modified_gmt":"2022-06-09T13:26:01","slug":"get-out-and-help-push","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/06\/09\/get-out-and-help-push\/","title":{"rendered":"Get Out and Help Push"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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There wasn’t much glamor associated with stagecoach travel in the Old West.
\u00a0
The \u201croads\u201d were dusty, miserable, and subject to radical changes of elevation.\u00a0 The food was lousy.\u00a0 The weather inside the coach was pretty much the same as the weather outside.\u00a0 In the pre-shock absorber era, sleep was nearly impossible.\u00a0 And there was always the potential drama of an encounter with hostile native Americans or marauding outlaws.\u00a0
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At least those riding in a nine-passenger Concord stagecoach could exercise one option when it came to privilege and comfort.\u00a0 \u00a0
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According to historian Roger M. Dillingham, a number of travel companies offered three classes of tickets. \u00a0
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If you paid top dollar for a first-class ticket, you were entitled to sit.\u00a0 No matter what happened, no one could force you to leave your seat.\u00a0 Methodist lay pastor Jerry Babitz observes, \u201cIf the stagecoach got stuck in the mud or had trouble making it up a steep hill, or even if a wheel fell off, you remained seated because you had a first-class ticket.\u201d
\u00a0
Second-class ticketholders, on the other hand, were required to vacate their seats from time to time \u2013 perhaps to walk alongside the coach when it needed to negotiate a stretch of sand or a shallow stream, or when the horses simply needed a break.\u00a0 If repairs were necessary, a second-classer was free to stand off to one side and watch while others did the work.
\u00a0
A third-class ticket entitled you, in sports parlance, to one of the cheap seats.\u00a0 You got to sit all right \u2013 right up until there was a problem.\u00a0
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Third-classers then had to hop off the coach, roll up their sleeves, and help push.\u00a0 Or lift.\u00a0 Or help move the fallen tree or the loose rocks that were blocking the road.\u00a0 And you had to do so without complaining.\u00a0<\/em>
\u00a0
Over the years, people have entertained some funny ideas about what it means to follow Jesus.\u00a0 One of them is that Christianity is like being granted a first-class ticket through life.\u00a0 Because of God\u2019s grace we get to sit and watch and enjoy the view.\u00a0 When problems arise \u2013 well, \u201cwe have people who take care of such things.\u201d
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Jesus, of course, would dismiss that out of hand.
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\u201cFor even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many\u201d (Mark 10:45).\u00a0
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There are no entitlements in the company of those who follow the Messiah.\u00a0 We all hold third-class tickets.\u00a0 That\u2019s because our Master spent his life knee-deep in the problems of the Least, the Last, and the Lost.\u00a0 He calls us to do the same.\u00a0
\u00a0
Paul makes things considerably more interesting by adding one of the great Are You Kidding Me?<\/em> verses in the New Testament:\u00a0 \u201cDo everything without grumbling or arguing\u201d (Philippians 2:14).\u00a0
\u00a0
At present, American churches aren\u2019t renowned for cultivating a spirit of servanthood.\u00a0 Nor can they be described as Bicker-Free Zones.
\u00a0
But we still have miles to go on our trip through the Wild West of the 21st<\/sup> century. \u00a0It\u2019s not too late to make up your mind to be a \u201cworking passenger.\u201d\u00a0
\u00a0
What\u2019s the right response the next time things in your part of the world break down?
\u00a0
Get out, roll up your sleeves, and help push.\u00a0

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There wasn’t much glamor associated with stagecoach travel in the Old West.\u00a0The \u201croads\u201d were dusty, miserable, and subject to radical changes of elevation.\u00a0 The food was lousy.\u00a0 The weather inside the coach was pretty much the same as the weather outside.\u00a0 In the pre-shock absorber era, sleep was nearly impossible.\u00a0 And there was always the potential drama of an encounter… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1710,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[452,350],"class_list":["post-1709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-complaining","tag-servanthood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1711,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709\/revisions\/1711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}