Hint of Hope

I want to tell you the story of my car.

About a year back I lost my job with the church and was thrown into the challenging South African job market. I quickly found myself on the wrong end of affirmative action and unable to find a full time job, so I made, what I can retrospectively see was a rash decision. At the time I was paying off a new car which I bought in 2005. When I bought it it wasn’t a problem because I had a salary that meant I could keep up with the payments, but when I found myself without a job I knew this was a financial burden I wouldn’t be able to bare.

So I sold it.

I say it was rash because I didn’t think about how I would get another car. I assumed I would just go to the bank and get another loan for a smaller amount. I got quite a shock when I was told that I only qualified for up to a R10,000 personal loan, or over R40,000 vehicle loan. I couldn’t afford a decent car for R10,000 and just couldn’t commit to the vehicle loan, knowing that bank would slap their own R20,000 on top of the arrangement.

I was stuck.

How was I going to get a car?

How was I going to get around to find a job?

In the middle of sulking about all this I got a call from a friend of mine had attended the church I had just left. He said, “Sean, I heard about your predicament and I want to help. Go out and find the car you want and tell me how much it is. I will give you an interest free loan so you can purchase. I know you are in a difficult transition period at the moment so I’m not going to put a time limit on this loan either. You take as long as you need to pay it back. Just put in whatever you can manage each month until you find your feet.”

I was blown away by his generosity. I’m no mathematician, but I could only image the interest my friend was going to lose in helping me out this way. But he put no conditions on it, he just wanted to help.

So I went out and bought myself a car, and I’ve been paying it off bit by bit every month. But that’s only half the story.

This week I got to hang out with some dear friends who I have felt for ages are my ‘church community’. We’ve journeyed together for years now, supporting each other through our frustrations and questions, it’s just a shame we live in different cities. They happened to be in Cape Town, and so Sarah and I went wine tasting with them on a rare, sunny, May day. As we sat down one of them said to me, “Sean, we need to talk business. We have paid for your car. We want to be ‘church’ to you and so we’ve contact your friend who gave you the loan and told him we want to pay it in full! It’s done already. That’s the gospel bud. Deal with it.”

I couldn’t really work out what to say, so I just said ‘thank you’, obviously. Anything else seemed cheap. As we walked round the rest of the morning I just processed what had happened and felt so humbled that my friends, my community, would sacrifice so much just to help me out.

It really was gospel.

The church in Acts 2 did exactly the same kind of thing; they took care of each other. They gave to anyone as they had need, going so far as to pool all their collective resources to help each other out. This kind of ‘blurring of ownership’ must have been a huge sacrifice, especially to those with much. But it seems they did it gladly, because it was the gospel.

Now I’m not suggesting for a minute that money has anything to do with the gospel. The fact that a few gracious people chose to help me out financially isn’t really the point at all. The point is they made sacrifices. These friends saw me in need and chose to give up something in order to make my life better.

Forgive a cliched point, but it’s Truth as far as I can tell. This is ‘Jesus’ isn’t it. This is the good news He brought. He gave everything up in order to improve our existence. He sacrificed, we benefited. If we are followers of Jesus way then we have to live life in the same pattern.

This is the gospel we get to be a part of: continuing what Jesus began by giving up what we have, to make the lives of others better; giving up our time to heal society; giving up our resources to mend injustice; giving up our creativity to restore the world. Selfishness is going to be the enemy of this kind of gospel, but ironically it seems everyone wins when we live like this. If you’re the giver in the equation you feel the joy of being without, so that someone else can get something they need. If you’re the receiver you feel the humility of accepting the help you couldn’t give yourself, and being grateful that there is a God who is trying to put everything back together. It’s all gospel. It’s all good.

Church has to be the place where we live like this; where we are ‘gospel’ to each other and the world at large. It’s like catching a scent on the wind, hearing a sound for a split second, seeing something out of the corner of your eye; it’s just a whiff of the better reality God is working to bring us to.

It’s a hint of hope.

Now I’m just looking for ways to pass it on.

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