Odd Transitions

Yesterday morning I officiated a funeral. That is something that most people would expect a pastor to do. After I was done with that, I spent the rest of the day working at a cigar bar. That is something most people would not think a pastor would do. The change in mindset from one job to the next today is certainly odd to me.

I think Jesus knows how I felt. After all, He often had weird transitions too. For instance, John 2 starts with Jesus attending a wedding and ends with Jesus clearing the Temple courts. In Chapter 3 Jesus teaches the Pharisee Nicodemus. In Chapter 4 He is teaching a Samaritan woman at a well in Samaria, a person and place no self-respecting Pharisee would go and talk to. John 7:35-50 shows both these worlds colliding, being at a Pharisee’s house for dinner, and then having a “sinful woman” make a scene crying at Jesus’ feet.

Do you see what I mean? Jesus hung out with some very godly people and He spent significant time with and investing in people who were nothing like that.

I suspect many people know what I am talking about. For most of us, our work looks very different from church. But I have been learning that the main thing stays the same. The goal—be we at home or at church or at work or out with friends—is to be learning to love God and love our neighbors better and better and to help the people we are with (in big and small ways) to love God and love others better.

So, while I may feel transitions like today are anything but complimentary, I am learning that they are not at all unlike what Jesus experienced. And if I am to be growing to be more and more like Jesus, I should expect that these seemingly opposite circumstances will continue.