Have you seen the news?
We’re suffering the consequences of misguided inquiry.
When we ask the wrong question we’re not likely to receive the right answer, and the longer we allow the wrong questions to go un-checked and un-challenged the more we’ll suffer the bad behavior that accompanies our delusion.
If you are baffled and confused, wondering how anyone could encroach on the White House implying, “No one tried to stop us,” then welcome to reality. It’s a new day in America, where all our transgressions are everyone else’s fault. Even if the most obvious example of bad behavior predicated on wrong-headed thinking is given by a potential cast member for reality TV’s, “The Real Housewives of D.C.,” and even if it's derived from folks escorted out of a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Awards dinner two months earlier (caught sitting at a table paid for by other donors), we’re still surprised. Why?
Why the shock? Why the outrage? What did we expect?
Why would someone act this way? It’s simple; they’re asking the wrong question. Instead of asking, “Am I supposed to be there?” They’re asking, “Can I sneak in there without being stopped?”
America is now buzzing about this bad behavior in Washington DC. Why? The behavior is so common we’re accustomed to it. We indulge it in our own lives. We expect it from our neighbors. And why wouldn’t we assume it'd show up in DC? As long as we ask the wrong questions, we’ll suffer the same predictably poor consequences.
Consider the little boy who’s asked why he took a pen from a nearby desk. His response? “I didn’t know who it belonged to, so I just took it.” He’s posed the wrong question. Instead of wondering who the pen belonged to, he should’ve been asking, “Is this my pen?” If not, he had no business taking it. Though he wasn’t sure who owned the pen, he knew it wasn’t his.
Think about the defense of a trespassing man looking for mushrooms in the neighbor’s woods. “I wasn’t sure whose land it was, but since I didn’t see any 'No Trespassing' signs I figured I’d check it out.” Wrong premise. Instead of being mildly curious about whose land it was, he should’ve asked, “Is this my land?” If not, he should’ve stayed out. Maybe he didn’t know who it belonged to, but he knew it wasn’t his.
Robert Gibbs said this about the bad behavior derived from a false premise, "If you didn't get invited, which they didn't, you shouldn't be here at an event." That only makes sense when asking the right question, "Did I get invited?"
As long as we live with the entitlement mindset - what’s mine is mine and what what’s yours is mine - we’ll suffer the boorish behavior of selfish indulgence and arrogant assumption. People without conviction about personal responsibility and personal property will always trespass on other’s property, steal other’s possessions and threaten the security and sanctity of personal space. These people aren’t safe people, and if that’s us, then we aren’t safe people either.
Until we choose to walk in the Way of Christ, we should expect little else.
We may be tempted to sneak in and sit in the best seat, but when we steal what's not ours we set ourselves up for disappointment. We regularly wonder what bad behavior we can get away with. The problem is a common one, but what’s become so common around us (and in us) is what’s called, “the way of the world,” and we’re in it - until we follow Him and His Way out of it.
Luke 14:7-14
Jesus went on to tell a story to the guests around the table. Noticing how each had tried to elbow into the place of honor, he said, "When someone invites you to dinner, don't take the place of honor. Somebody more important than you might have been invited by the host. Then he'll come and call out in front of everybody, 'You're in the wrong place. The place of honor belongs to this man.' Red-faced, you'll have to make your way to the very last table, the only place left.
When you're invited to dinner, go and sit at the last place. Then when the host comes he may very well say, 'Friend, come up to the front.' That will give the dinner guests something to talk about! What I'm saying is, If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face. But if you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself."
Then he turned to the host. "The next time you put on a dinner, don't just invite your friends and family and rich neighbors, the kind of people who will return the favor. Invite some people who never get invited out, the misfits from the wrong side of the tracks. You'll be—and experience—a blessing. They won't be able to return the favor, but the favor will be returned—oh, how it will be returned!—at the resurrection of God's people."
