3 Porsches

On the video that Colleen Martin and the youth of FUMC-Kissimmee made for me when I left for the Union Church of Hinsdale, Eric Jacobsen left me a message he meant as a joke.  He told me how much he would miss me, and then told me to "have fun with all the rich people" in Hinsdale.  By that point we knew that UC was a wealthy church, but our feeble minds could not conceive just how wealthy.  I mentioned yesterday that the former CEO of Marriott was a member; it seemed most everyone was CEO or owner of some company.  Even the guy who founded the DeVry Universities was a member.  But when people would ask me later on just how much money those folks really had, there was one story I could tell that summed it all up- 3 Porsches.

There was a young woman in the church who was not active in the youth program, but whom I knew because her parents were on one of the committees I worked with.  Like many of the students of the community, at age 16 she had been presented with a car worth more than most of the houses I have lived in- a brand new 2000 Porsche.  It was very similar to the one pictured, but it was blue.  She had been driving it a few months when I met her.  Several weeks after that she and a friend were out late one night and had an accident.  They were both fine, but the car was a mess.  So her parents bought her a new one.  Less that three months later she totalled that Porsche racing it in a parking lot.  She stopped by my office one afternoon when her parents were at the church for a meeting and told me she was afraid she might not get another new car.  She needn't have worried.  Porsche #3 was already ordered, it turned out.  I was dumbfounded. What kind of life lessons were those parents teaching their teenager?  Money might not buy happiness, but it sure seemed like this was a community committed to testing that truth. 

It wasn't just the material things, it was a philosophy of life.  The University Of Illinois was not good enough; you had to go to Harvard.  Church was something you did when you had no tickets to the Bears game, after you had taken your weekend SAT prep class, and after you had completed more important social activities.  Anything less than an Ivy League school and owning your own company and you would be a failure.  The whole attitude that had young people going on mission trips because it would look good on a college application was prevalent in every area of life.  And I just didn't get it...

I didn't speak their language (or drive their cars- Marilyn and I were sharing a Ford Taurus Station Wagon that I finally sold this past spring), but I knew what they needed.  Jesus, the man of no reputation and no home, could speak to their condition.  I just had to get someone to listen.  And much to my surprise, I began to find a small group of students that was hungry for scripture.  More on that in the days to come...

Jesus- the only hope for me is you...and You alone!