What Jesus Gave

"I gave my car to the church." I didn't know what to make of it. She was a college student burdened by student loans. She needed her car to get to work. And she gave it to her church. I worried that she'd been conned. Maybe she was. Or maybe she gave it to Jesus. It's a story that still makes me uncomfortable.

As I scrolled through social media, a government agency posted a video of soldiers in combat gear while Psalm 18:37 scrolled across the screen: "I pursue my enemies and overtake them; I do not turn back until they are wiped out." The caption read, "We Are One Nation Under God." But when I read the whole psalm, it didn't sound like the video.

As I walked through Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, I looked up and saw The Foot Soldier. Ronald McDowell's statue shows a young black boy being manhandled by a stern officer as a ferocious dog lunges at his chest. When police disrupted the children's march in 1963, they thought they'd won. But now their suffering sits on a bronze pedestal, forcing us to look up at them and give them honor.

I spent the morning talking to a skeptic. A friend and I answered question after question and presented layer upon layer of evidence. Eventually, he told us that no matter how strong the case was, he didn't think the eyewitness testimony about Jesus would lead him to the truth.

In seminary, I took a preaching class that required us to give mini-sermons in front of our peers. I agonized over every word and rehearsed my talk a hundred times. I wanted to be recognized as the best preacher in the class.