The One Thing

City Slckers (1991)

I recently rewatched the 1991 movie, City Slickers. Mitch Robbins (Billy Crystal) is a 39 year-old in a mid-life crises. He and his two friends from the city have come out to a ranch for a two week vacation and a cattle drive from New Mexico to Colorado. 

At the ranch, Mitch meets Curly (Jack Palance), an old cowboy with some wisdom about life. In one scene, Mitch and curly are out riding, and the conversation turns philosophical. Curly, sensing Mitch is after something deeper asks a question of his own.

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is? [pointing index finger skyward] This.

Mitch: Your finger?

Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean s**t.

Mitch: But what is the “one thing?”

Curly[smiles, pointing his finger at Mitch] That’s what you have to find out.

Mitch goes on to help Curly deliver a calf, which Mitch names, Norman. Mitch later risks his own life to save Norman from a raging river during the cattle drive. These experiences cause Mitch to realize what the “one thing” is, and he goes back to New York with a new focus and sense of purpose.

The scene depicted by the narrative above is one of the most famous in movie history. It remains because it resonates. There is one thing that is most important, and once we realize that it puts everything else in a perspective.

38 Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word. 40 But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; 42 but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

Luke 10:38-42

Martha was focused on many things, probably preparing a meal, being a good host, and maintaining her reputation amongst her guests. This caused her anxiety, as a multitude of cascading concerns can. 

But Jesus cut through it all, “…only one thing is necessary. For Mary has chosen the good part…” Luke 10:42. Mary had correctly chosen the one thing, and that one thing was her relationship with Jesus. 

The Apostle Paul would later make a similar choice.  Once he did, like Curly in City Slickers, he considered everything else “dung.” Philippians 3:8 (KJV)

We live in a far more complex world than that of the first century, but it gives rise to the same anxieties and confusion. Recognizing one’s relationship with Jesus is the one thing more important than anything reorders everything. GS

Trading the Gospel for Politics

I have a relative who is a Christian and constantly posts on Facebook derogatory comments about Joe Biden and and all things Democrat. They are the kind of posts you would find offensive if you were a Democrat. So, I asked him one day if he had any friends who were Democrats. He said, “I don’t think so.”

I mention this example because it is indicative of too much of evangelical Christianity today, which seems more interested in confronting the world over politics and culture than the gospel.

First century Christians had a lot more politically and culturally to take issue with than 21st Century Christians, yet I don’t see any indication in the New Testament that they were picking fights with the pagans over such things. Rather, I see Paul, for example, using the Athenian culture to reach the Athenians on Mars Hill. See Acts 17:22-34.

Jesus said Christians should use money to make friends to reach them with the gospel. Luke 16:1-9. Christians today are too often doing the opposite with their politics.

Maybe it’s time to reassess priorities. GS

The Death of Roe v. Wade

I have to admit, I didn’t think I would see it in my lifetime. I had hoped, and hopefully done my part. I sued an abortionist who perforated my client’s uterus while in the act of killing her unborn baby. I represented a pro-life protestor wrongfully arrested for protesting outside an abortion mill. I have functioned as legal monitor for pro-life protestors who were working the sidewalks outside abortion clinics, and I have voted pro-life for forty years.

From the first time I read Roe v. Wade in law school in 1986, I thought it was a tortured, result-oriented opinion. If a first year law student could see that, why did it take 50 years for six Supreme Court justices to see it?

The truth is that many more have seen it than have admitted it, but as C.S. Lewis described it, we have been creating men without chests, i.e. men without the virtue to guide their intellect or emotions. That is not to say those on the Supreme Court now are any more virtuous than those in the past. More likely, Evangelicals have simply been successful in making the fight against abortion a key component of the Republican platform, and the party has finally thrown Evangelicals a bone, and it is a very big bone.

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What If Jesus Doesn’t Return for 500,000 Years?

If you have followed this blog for a while, you know that I have little grace for those who try to convince others Jesus is returning soon. Harold Camping, Edgar Whisenhut, and Tim LaHaye and his Left Behind books have all been the target of my sarcasm.

My reaction is not without reason. Those who preach such things, while likely from good motives ,can have a devastating effect on Christians investment in advancing God’s kingdom of earth. After all, why polish brass on a sinking ship?

So, I would like to posit a possibility for you to consider: What if Jesus doesn’t return for 500,000 years?

Is that so unthinkable? Why would Jesus have told parables about the ten virgins unless He was not going to return for a very long time? And if your initial response is “Jesus said he was returning ‘soon,'” – if it means 2,000 years, it could just as easily mean 500,000 years. “Soon” is not 2,000 years in any human’s vocabulary. “Yes,” you say, “but to God a day is as a thousand years.” Yes, to God it is, but when Jesus said He was returning soon, He was talking to men. It would make no sense to give men a timetable using metrics that meant nothing to them.

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The Great Evangelical Brainwashing

Brainwashing is a terrible thing. It’s what happens when a person is exposed to only one point of view and any opposition to it is always portrayed in a negative light. In totalitarian regimes brainwashing is done through control of the media and promulgation of propaganda.

Have you ever wondered how Germans could have followed Hitler in support of his hellish policies? It’s easy actually. Germans thought Hitler was right because their state controlled monolithic, propaganda-producing media, told them he was right, and they were never told he was wrong.

The same thing is happening in Russia right now. More than 50% of Russians support Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. They do so because Putin and the state controlled media are telling them Ukrainian leaders are Nazis, are persecuting Russians in Ukraine, and are controlled by US and Nato forces intent on destroying Russia. None of that is true, of course, but Russians believe it, and they believe it because they are told that and told nothing to the contrary.

Evangelicals look at the examples of the Nazis and modern day Russia and thank God they live in a country where the government cannot brainwash them, but then they voluntarily choose to brainwash themselves. They do this by getting their news from only one source (typically Fox News) or from the same ideological stream of sources (Breitbart, Newsmax, Fox News). As a result, all that evangelicals hear merely reinforces what they have already heard.

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