The middle seat

Susan sat next to me on the flight home from Melbourne. She was a lady around my age, friendly, and didn’t scream in horror and demand a change of seat when she discovered I was a pastor.

Susan’s story was interesting. She was a single Mum who had raised three children in country Victoria. She worked hard, began her own business, and gave her kids the best she had. Once they were grown she started to travel, including backpacking through Europe three years ago, and a desire to do the El Camino walk. She seemed strong, determined and adventurous.

But then she shared other aspects of her life. The struggles, the difficulties, some of the pain and disappointments she has faced and continues to negotiate. As I listened I realised that not only did her adventurous side challenge my relative complacency, but the difficulties that confronted her were, in many ways, the same ones we all face at different times and in slightly different contexts.

John sat on the other side of me. I had thought that I had an aisle seat which meant I could (if I chose to), ignore my fellow passengers and lose myself in a book. But God has a sense of humour and made sure I was in the middle of two people who were willing to chat the flight away.

I’m glad he did; God seems to know what he is doing.

John had been in the army for most of his life and now worked as a truck-driver. He was involved in the Malaysian conflict, was in one of the first Australian units into Cambodia following the overthrow of Pol Pot, and served with UN forces in Mogadishu, Somalia (echoes of Black Hawk Down?). In other words he was deployed to almost every crap-hole the ADF was involved in during his years of service.

He had a failed marriage behind him, had trouble sleeping, was subject to anxiety attacks when on planes, and drank too much on Anzac Day. As I listened to his memories of the Killing Fields and other deployments I thought about these consequences and wondered, “Is that all?” He saw and experienced things I thank God I never had to, and if I had I’m sure the list of issues I struggled with would be a lot longer than John’s.

He told me of family tragedy, and of his pride in the accomplishments of his new wife and his children. As I listened to John it reminded me that the people in his world are often the reason people join the ADF, to maintain our way of life and to remind the world that injustice and oppression isn’t acceptable.

Whatever the politics that landed John in those far off places, he did a job, and came home to other difficulties and challenges and to resume his role as husband, dad, and mate.

Susan and John, acquaintances, chance meetings on a place, who I’m confident, in other circumstances might have become friends. They both had a story, they both shared memories of difficulty and of accomplishment, they both had hopes and dreams, they both had families they cared for deeply. They were just like me.

As I read the gospels I am struck by something that I think we can often neglect - the people Jesus met. We know about the miracles, we read (even if we don’t always practice) his teaching, we see this journey from manger to cross to empty tomb and assign meaning without stopping to consider the steps, the thousands of steps he took to get there.

Those steps were full of people. We read about them and give them descriptors like, ‘the woman at the well,’ ‘the blind men,’ ‘the lepers,’ ‘the prostitutes and tax-collectors’, ‘the scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees,’ and so on. Some of them have names, Mary Magdalene, Lazarus, Martha, Mary, Peter, John, Judas, Nicodemus. Whatever their descriptor, whatever their name, they were people. They all had stories, they all navigated a life filled with difficulty and accomplishment, hopes and dreams, and even families they cared for deeply.

To us they are words on a page (or on a screen…), but to Jesus they were people. He stopped to talk with them, eat with them and even party with them. He listened to their stories. Why were they prostitutes? What caused them to become a scribe or Pharisee? How did they deal with the pain of rejection as a leper, or the socio-economic reality of being blind?

He listened, he heard, he was one of us for a time and engaged with us in our world. The miracles were a sign, the teaching was a new possibility for life, the people were the reason he came.

I read a lot, I talk, discuss and debate a lot, I do stuff and I plan more stuff to do. But in the end, it’s the people that matter. Sitting on a plane talking to two strangers and listening to their stories I was reminded of the value and dignity of every life and the overwhelming love of God for each of us.

Two hours. That’s all our flight was, two hours. But I don’t think I’ll forget Susan and John easily, or their stories. You see they reminded me that Jesus is less concerned with what I think or read or write or do and very, very interested in whether I stop and listen and give time to the people he died to set free.

Who’s around you? Whose story will you listen to? Who will you take the time to stop and notice?