“I think if you let the match burn right down to your fingertips you get a better flame.” “Maybe your tobacco is too dry. Try adding some beer!” “Have you thought of giving up pipe smoking? Maybe you’d be more successful at something simpler, like nuclear physics.”

Our advice flowed as freely as Yuengling from a pitcher as our friends David and Tanner struggled to keep their pipes lit. Pipe smoking is an art, and even the best of artists have an off night. Sometimes the paint won’t go on the canvas the way you want it to no matter what you do. But if these artists weren’t getting much tobacco enjoyment, they were at least providing some comic relief performance art for the rest of our table.

Laughter. A few drinks. Some cigars and (unlit) pipes. Stories told and remembered. A typical Friday evening with my friends at a local pub. A little diverting amusement for weary seminary scholars, but hardly of any importance in the kingdom of God, right?

Later that evening I listened as two of those friends related their fears and frustrations concerning the ministry situations into which they would likely step once leaving seminary. They spoke of recalcitrant church leadership mired in cultural prejudices…and they spoke of their own inadequacies to be agents of change. One could almost hear the edges of despair and resignation. And yet, somehow, somewhere in the middle of this sharing there was also a strange sense of hope, like a message from a far country not yet fully translated but with just enough words understood. We began to speak of mustard seeds, of being willing to die and be planted, of great trees which had emerged in the past from such tiny things.

The gospel is a call to life that comes from death, to joy that comes from pain, to triumph that comes from apparent defeat. But it is also a call that never needs to be walked alone.

Laughter. A few drinks. Some cigars and (unlit) pipes. Stories told and remembered. Diverting amusement? Yes…but so much more. After seeing Amazing Grace, and even more so after having read more of the real story of William Wilberforce’s spiritual motivations, I could not view the simple gathering at a pub last night as mere triviality. For Wilberforce, his lifetime friendships did not just provide a little refreshment apart from the battle. They were actually one of God’s primary weapons for enabling him to do what he did.

And so, may it be, with my bar stool companions. Each of us has no idea where or when God will call for our mustard seed to be planted. But how encouraging, how courage-filling, to know that when that time comes for me, those who provide the laughter now will also be there to weep and cheer and admonish and love and inspire. The hand that lifted a mug in greeting last night may very well be the hand that someday will hold up my arm as a battle rages.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 24th, 2007 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Christian Community, Discipleship, Family & Friends, MereMission, Tell Me a Story, WTS, Worldview. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.