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Do you remember your first day of school? It is one of life's great separations. I'll never forget that hot, humid day in 1952 when my mother drove our black Chevrolet up the circular driveway of the McColl, South Carolina, elementary school. I clutched her hand as tightly as possible as we passed legions of strangers on our way to the classroom. We stood at the door and she literally had to push me in. The classroom appeared to be the most foreboding room I had ever entered.

Looking back, that time of "letting go" of mother's hand was a necessary step. It was indeed the time to "let go" and enter another experience. Life is essentially a series of separations. We let go of certain experiences in favor of other experiences. Friends are gained and then we are separated. Sometimes couples marry and at other times they separate. Sometimes our "letting go" involves places; we leave our hometowns; we leave our schools; we even leave our churches. Sometimes we let go of roles or patterns of relating. We let go of our roles as parents, as children, as students. Sometimes we even "let go" of attitudes and beliefs. In those moments of "letting go" we come to realize how intensely loyal we are to the people, the places and the attitudes which have shaped us.

Letting go is a necessary part of life. The Bible is full of separations. Abraham and Lot separated so each could live and multiply. In the newly-found freedom as humans with a mind of their own, Adam and Eve had to separate from the Garden of Eden. In the book of Exodus, God told Israel: "I have separated you from all the people that are on the face of the earth (33:16)." Jesus himself was separated from his family and his family's business. In order for the early church to be more than four little families meeting together in upper rooms to remember Jesus, those people had to separate.

Daniel Day Williams is correct: "love always makes itself vulnerable by willing the freedom of the other."12 You and I can only grow when we are cut loose into freedom. In essence, that is what God did with us humans. He let us go so we could grow, just as my mother did to me in 1952. Hosea tried to get that message across to his generation. He depicted God as the parent of human beings: "When Israel was a child, I loved him and out of Egypt, I called my son." Apparently God recalled with nostalgia how he had taught his children to walk, holding out his arms to encourage the toddler's first steps. And when the toddlers stumbled and fell, it had been God who had placed the Band-Aids on their scrapes. Yet the children never knew it. "I led them," said God, "with gentle encouragement (Hosea 11:3-4)."

One of the consistent factors in contemporary life is its speed. We have been granted the freedom to move from a simple, primitive society to a secular, advanced society. Such has moved religious symbolism from the center of life to the periphery. It is perhaps God's greatest act of love that he has made himself vulnerable by willing our freedom to develop. The modern day pilgrim finds himself or herself looking for home or clues to home in a society that moves at unbelievable speed around the traveler. We must find home as we march toward death on a very fast track.

In preliterate and simply structured societies, religion played a unifying role in life. The village was a self-contained society in which all rituals and symbols were religious ones. "The religious" was not relegated to one aspect or activity of life, distinct from the other aspects. Speaking of the religious and the nonreligious or secular as two different dimensions of life would have been foreign to a preliterate society. To live at all was to live within a religious community with clearly defined rites of passage on the journey home. Every major event in life, from pregnancy and childbirth to the cutting of the first tooth, puberty, the first haircut, marriage, and vocation carried religious rites of passage like clear signposts along one's ultimate journey home.

Even in classical Greece a wholeness of outlook characterized civilization. The private and the social were not separated from one another. Religion tended to unify or support all elements of life, both social and individual.

But as society became more open, urbanized and heterogeneous, religious influence became relegated to particular segments of society. Along with our movement beyond antiquated and irrelevant values from primitive cultures has come the fragmentation and breakup of traditional guideposts toward our eternal home.

Hosea's words certainly ring true in our society. If we are to be led, it will be with "gentle encouragement" along a very fast track. Life is indeed separation, speed and growth. But there are a few things even our society cannot separate itself from, speed past, and grow beyond.

We can never separate ourselves from having a future. An Englishman, Osbert Sitwell, wrote a fine novel titled, The Man Who Lost Himself. There is a crucial scene where the hero, a kind of teenage James Bond, is trailing a person in Paris. He wants to know if the man he is chasing has stopped at a certain hotel. But how can he find out without raising suspicion? He figures out that the only way is to go to the desk clerk and ask him if he himself is registered there.13

It would be like me saying, "Is Hal Warlick registered here?" Then when the clerk is looking at the register for Hal Warlick's name which he, of course, won't find, I can glance down the page and see if the name of the other person is on the sheet.

The plan is carried out and I get the shock of my life! The clerk looks up and says, "Yes, Hal Warlick is here. He has been waiting for you. He is in Room 60. I will have you shown right up."
There is nothing to do now but go through with it. So, I follow the bellboy to Room 60. And when I get to the room and open the door, there I find a man remarkably like myself - only a little more gray, a little heavier, a little weaker, but undeniably myself. The person I meet, of course, is myself, Hal Warlick, as I would be at age 60.

It is all fantasy, but it has this undeniable truth: there is a man or woman out there in the future waiting for you, the man or woman you will be in 20 years. There you sit, a little more gray, a little heavier, a little weaker, but undeniably out there waiting for yourself. Even as Jesus was born in Bethlehem there was a person out there waiting on him who would give up his life on a cross.

There is a person sitting in the world's future, waiting for you, the person you will be in 20 years. You cannot separate yourself from that - and you will be stuck with having to live with that person. The crucial question is this: How will you like that person you are going to be stuck with in a little room for the rest of your life?

Remember this: There is only one real way to get a glimpse of the kind of man or woman you will meet.14 You must project, as in an architect's drawing, the lines on which you are now going. At each stage in your life you must ask yourself: "Suppose I keep on for 20 years just as I am now! What kind of person will I meet out there in the future?"


7. THE CHILDREN OF COCAINE

Unfortunately, today's world is not a world particularly concerned with the future. We live in a generation that has been characterized as the "Generation of the Yuppie." The Yuppie generation is the generation of "give me my pleasure now. Let me indulge only in my own pursuits. I want to consume all I can consume."

The Yuppie is convinced that money is the root of all good. A Yuppie defines himself or herself by what he wants. Consequently, if a Yuppie wants to be a doctor, it is because doctors make lots of money, not because he or she is committed to medicine. And once a Yuppie becomes a doctor, the main concern is how much money he or she "put on the books" today instead of the relationship with the patients. Likewise, if a Yuppie wants to be a lawyer, it is because of the money a lawyer makes, not because of any desire for public service or representing the widows or the orphans like the biblical imperative. God's standard of fairness and compassion has no place in Yuppie economics.

You can easily see why the drug cocaine is the ideal chemical for the Yuppie or anyone without particular concern for the future. Cocaine can separate you from the present. If you are bent on being an assertive Yuppie, cocaine appears to help you. Pre-existing shyness and feelings of inferiority tend to disappear with cocaine. You can go for days without sleep.

Cocaine also increases the blood pressure by 15 percent and the heart rate by 50 percent. Ah, but remember, you cannot separate yourself from your future. Paranoid and suspicious thinking also accompany cocaine use. A semi-break with reality occurs.15 Draw a line out 20 years and, after 20 years of 15 percent blood pressure increase and 50 percent heart rate accelerations, go up to Room 60 in the hotel of life and visit the wreck of a human being you would have to live with.

In like manner, spend the next six or seven years of your life concerned only with money, power, and prestige. What kind of society will you create? Better still, go up to room 40 or room 60, and it may be the most expensive room in the hotel, and visit the wealthy, selfish, empty, spoiled, unfriendly, unsociable, frowning person who depends on his or her money and power for satisfaction. Are you going to like living with that person? Proudly value the world of conspicuous consumption and greed and disregard the timeless message of Christian sharing as just boring rot. Then extend those lines out and visit the person you will be stuck with in 20 years. You cannot separate yourself from your future.

Fortunately, there is another thing you can never separate yourself from and that is the love of God. Paul is right:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress or persecution, or nakedness, or peril or sword? ... No ... I am persuaded that neither life nor death nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 8:35-39)

Like the prodigal son, you may grab your money from society and run away totally to the cares of the world. Like the lepers and the lame, some unfortunate illness may overtake you. Like so many persons in Scripture, you may lose loved ones. But you cannot lose God. You cannot be separated from the love of God.

God has shown us his nature. In Bethlehem's child, God gave us what was not deserved. Instead of reacting with anger and hositility to his wayward children, God came down himself and was crucified among us. We humans could not and cannot separate ourselves from the love of God. Even on a fast track world, our effort to find the way home depends upon conviction as much as conversion. In a simpler culture, religious symbols provided the dominant ordering of an agrarian society. The terminology "follow me" enabled a person to participate totally in a corporate religious life.

Today's world with its emphasis on individual identity in the midst of increased secularization of the culture as a whole, creates a delicate and often frightening seesaw. We try to find our way "home" in a world that is becoming increasingly complex and frantic.

"Follow me." Jesus Christ said, "Follow me. Take up your cross and follow me!" In short, that was the sum of what Jesus had to say to us. "Follow me." Eighty-one times the command occurs in the gospels, that we are to follow him. We may choose not to obey this order but we are not at liberty to change it, regardless of the speed of our culture. Our faith began with attachment to a person, not with subscriptions to a creed. "Follow me."

That's a difficult command. In fact, we know more about believing in Jesus than we know about how we are to follow him. There's always the tension between conversion to a person and the conviction to follow him.

I once knew a man who changed his life, but I couldn't tell if it was for the better or not. He needed to become converted to something. He was missing something in life. There was no joy, no spark, no self-assuredness. Sam was president of South Carolina's largest bank, a leader in his political party, and the social friend of a thousand people. But there was a big void, an emptiness. He needed a cause to support, something to reach out and grab his emotions, that would eventually transcend his regular world and justify his life in terms of obedience. Sam was 60 years old when he became converted. He was converted to the football program at Furman University. He became a personal admirer and friend of the head coach. He purchased a purple blazer and a purple tie. He pumped thousands of dollars into the program. He followed the coaches around on their speaking trips and probably recruited more new members to the athletic boosters club than anyone in its history. His life had a new purpose, a new direction. He possessed meaning instead of emptiness. He came to practice sessions regularly and even sat on the bench with the team during the games. Jesus had Peter and our team had Sam. Sam memorized all the players' names, backgrounds, and numbers by carefully studying the media guide. We knew him and he knew us. At one point, sitting on the bench was not enough for this zealous disciple, so he began to accompany the team into the locker room at halftime.

Well, at that time in the flow of life, our biggest rival was Davidson College. All those games were played in Charlotte. Sam started riding the team bus with us to Charlotte each year. My senior year was the year Sam lost his conversion. The game was a brutal one. And true to form, Sam followed us into the locker room at the half. He stood there, by the door, just watching as the trainers taped and retaped ankles, the doctors checked the wounded and the individual coaches met with their selected groups. Then our silver-tongued orator of a head coach blew his whistle and called everyone together. He launched into his best sing-song cadence about loyalty, effort, and victory. Sam's eyes grew larger and he started squeezing the program in his hands. Sam hung on every word the coach delivered. As the coach's voice rose to a crescendo, Sam rolled his program into a tight little roll. Finally, as the coach screamed his final plea, Sam literally left his feet as he yelled in response, "I'm ready; follow me!" Then he threw open the door and sprinted out into the night for the field. With 50 athletes running behind him, he turned his head back over his shoulder, waving his program in the air, and yelled again, "Follow me!" Then, before he could turn completely back around, he ran headlong, in full stride, into the goal posts and knocked himself unconscious.

We had to leap over and sidestep Sam's limp body to get on the field. The ambulance, which is at every football game in case of injury to the athletes, had to drive the length of the field to get Sam. They carried Sam to Charlotte Memorial Hospital where he stayed two days. His wife was so embarrassed she wouldn't even drive to Charlotte to transport him home. So poor Sam, with a bandage on his head and his rumpled purple and white outfit, had to catch a Greyhound bus back to Greenville.

We never saw Sam at any of our practices or games after that. There just wasn't enough conviction to make him stick beyond the conversion. He hadn't attended our college so there wasn't that knowledge of historical tradition to keep him close. And it was the coach's last year, so his hero left. And Sam really didn't know that much about the game. He had memorized the media guide but he didn't understand enough about a game he hadn't played to really appreciate it. He was a lost convert. In his embarrassment and his pain, he found that there wasn't enough conviction to keep going.

We modern Christians have a hard time with conviction. We have problems maintaining momentum in our journey toward "home." We are touched and pulled by our faith at both the feeling and response levels. Then, that which has sustained us in our hour of need becomes relegated, out of necessity, to live a compartmentalized lifestyle, to only one facet of our existence. As a result, we are always on the lookout for new plans, new pathways, and new programs which quickly degenerate into formal religious programs.

Many Christians are like old Sam, converted but not convicted. Sometimes memorizing the Bible and recruiting other converts in a frenzy of activity becomes the be-all and end-all of the enterprise. There is no history developed, no knowledge of the lifestyle, no lasting effects that will carry them beyond the embarrassments, doubts, and head-long dashes into stone walls that are a part of every emotional experience. So they quit the enterprise. "Conversion" is thrown overboard because it is now a part of my past so it must be no good for anyone else better.

Secondly, we humans, I think, have tended to separate conversion to the person from the conviction to follow him because we live in an age of proxy. We tend to turn over to others the carrying out of some of our obligations. We send people to Congress to govern for us by proxy. We want to be associated with good government without having to be directly involved in it. We create social agencies to take care of our needy by proxy. We can be associated with bettering the welfare of others without having to be directly involved in it. We truly live in an age of proxy. In some ways it is helpful, but in some ways it is harmful. We often confuse autonomy or independence with living by proxy. Some churches live by evangelism and turn conviction over to churches which are judged to be more socially and educationally inclined. And sometimes churches with conviction try to give proxy to other sectors of the community judged to be more evangelistically inclined. Such living by proxy hurts the churches. "Follow me," said Jesus. We cannot contract out to others essential parts of that challenge. "Follow me." It is an imperative for all of us. It is Jesus we must follow, not a scissors and paste picture of him presented by the denomination or popular sentiment or even a media evangelist. What does it mean to follow Jesus in an age of proxy?

First of all, we must be converted and convicted to having a life of prayer. We must be open to God and his will for our lives. Again and again Jesus took the disciples aside to pray, to be alone in their thoughts with God. He made people of prayer out of them. They were transformed by the practice of regular prayer. If we would follow Jesus, if we would walk in his steps, we too must learn to be with God in prayer. When people are praying when a church member is having a problem, a miracle happens. You can feel a strange power. But it took the disciples years to learn how to pray like that. We certainly cannot become sanctified overnight. Now, this is not a popular word in a culture that worships the instant way of life - instant coffee, instant tea, microwave ovens, remote control television, and instant developments. Prayer is the work of a lifetime. Follow Jesus by becoming converted to beginning a life of prayer. Start someplace. Say, "Now, today, I'm going to begin learning to pray." But become convicted to it for a lifetime.

A second aspect in following Jesus is taking this life which is turned over to God in prayer and letting it be led toward a ministry of reconciliation in the world. In short, to follow Jesus is to become committed to the poor, broken, and despised of the world. His ministry was not just to the wealthy and the comfortable. We can't follow Jesus by proxy in that regard, my friends. Jesus wasn't just a decent sort of fellow with his eyes blindfolded to the depravity of human existence. Jesus withdrew often to have his cup filled. But always so he could not only supply his own needs but share the power and love of God with others. George Bernard Shaw once observed that Christian congregations are not to become as groups of hermits coming into the sanctuary, each person bringing his or her own cup of self-satisfaction to be filled and then carrying the filled cup back to his own cave to be devoured. Become converted to taking your love to the parts of the city and to the people in the congregation who confront the greatest pain and humiliation. And become convicted to stay with it. "Follow me," said Jesus.

Finally, following Jesus toward "home" means your willingness to give up something. "Take up your cross and follow me," said Jesus. Not your featherbed. Not your lounge chair. Not your lawn chair. But your cross. Have you ever become converted to giving up something, surrendering anything, to be a real follower of Jesus? I want to ask this honestly: what would this world be like if we could get Christians to show the church the same conviction and commitment they give their civic responsibilities, their businesses, and their community service organizations? There is pain and there is cost to following Jesus. Do you surrender anything to be a part of Christ's church? Or do you give Christ's church what you have left over after everything else in your life is taken care of? "Take up your cross and follow me." Jesus is not the church. Nor is the minister the church. The minister is not supposed to be the one that makes the church go.

In his farewell sermon a minister once told his congregation why he was quitting. "For years now," he said, "I have been like a pump by the side of the road, with a sign on me that said, 'take my handle and pump me, and I will slake your thirst.' It made me feel good for people to use me that way. Then one day, there wasn't anything left in me. I had been pumped dry. I didn't have anything left to give."16

Many Christians feel like a pump by the side of the road in our fast-paced society. Many of us fail to get on the path toward home because we have little left to give the journey. When we have been pumped dry by a consumer-oriented society, there is little conviction left for beginning an arduous religious pilgrimage. The speed at which our society moves outraces our ability to recognize direction and purpose as we grope on that fast track, trying to find our way "home."