Day 22 -- Models

My maternal grandfather raised me on stories about his dad. I can't tell you how many trips I went on with him as a kid. He had a ranch in New Mexico...several thousand acres he was developing for sale to Arizonans seeking a private mountain retreat from the heat in a state where only 15% of the land is actually commercial.

We spent countless hours in his pickup truck with 20oz bottles of Dr. Pepper crammed full of peanuts...foaming salt and sweet with the noise of NPR and our conversation. It was magical time.

And he told me stories. His dad, Ernest Snell, was one of those exceptional men who was long on character and incredibly short on vices. Of course it's my granddad who was recounting the stories, and perhaps his memory has reshaped the tales over time to make him look more favorable.

To describe him: when a liquor store tried to rent space in town, he found an alternative business to rent the space (so that the renters would have the income) so that liquor stores would remain someone else's reality.

He was the local water district manager. He read the meters and figured the bills. In La Verne, California, even back in the 40's and 50's, the hispanic population was large and poor. He refused to shut off the water of those who were late or unable to make payments. Instead, he often just paid the bills himself and told the folks that when they could, they could pay him back. If they couldn't, he would just eat it. He felt better knowing that a family would have running water, a necessity for life, because he was able to see to it that it kept running for them.

Then there was the time the new football coach came to town. My grandfather was playing high school ball at the time. It didn't take long for word to get out that the coach's mouth was incredibly foul, and that he was known for berating and shouting curses at the kids in practice and doing the same for opposing teams during the games.

My grandpa remembers the Saturday morning they walked over to the coach's house so that his dad could have the conversation with the coach about his language and demeanor. At the steps of the coach's porch, my granddad remembers Ernest turning to him and saying, "Wait here Galen. I'll be right back." Great-Grandpa knocked on the door and the coach answered it. He asked the coach for a word, and the coach invited him in. It was about 15 minutes before the door opened up and when it did, my grandfather says he was dumbfounded. The two men walked out together laughing and smiling, literally arm in arm. On the way home my granddad asked his dad how it had gone. "It went fine," Ernest smiled, and that's all he ever said about the incident again.

Here's what happened though. Cursing of any variety stopped immediately. It was never heard from the coach again, and was never tolerated from the players. Several weeks later La Verne High was playing a visiting team and the other team's coach was shouting particularly ugly things at the refs and at his players. Grandpa remembers that his coach calmly walked down the field line, stopped the visiting coach dead in his tracks and said calmly but firmly, "We don't use that kind of language on this field." The coach look dumbfounded and shocked, but stopped nonetheless.

Whether these stories are absolutely true or not isn't the point. They were in the ballpark. When my great-grandfather died of a massive heart attack at the age of 65 or 68 (I can't remember), over 2000 people came to his funeral. He'd touched an incredible number of lives.

Ernest Snell's character flowed from his faith. His defiance of the liquor store was a statement of his deeply held belief in temperance and that part of the Christian witness and life meant steering clear of drunkenness. His concern over the least and poorest in his community grew from his belief that his Lord Jesus had said it just as he meant it. "In so far as you've done it to the least of these, you've done it to me." His talk with the coach affirmed his belief that the kids of the community should have models in their elders of the highest character, while also affirming his belief that there was an inherent dignity in the coach that needed to be addressed. So rather than character assassinate him in the community, he went and talked with him directly, affirmed him and invited him into a vision of himself that positioned him to be a true leader and mentor in the community.

Wow.

I don't agree with all of my great-grandfather's positions. But I value his character and the ways in which every day for him was both an opportunity to serve his Lord Jesus and also make the world a genuinely better place. And he did. It was better for his having lived. It was better as he passed.

He was a model, and in so many situations I now face, I hear the stories of his character and they speak loudly to me, not of things celestial, but of things human; love and forgiveness, and faith alive and active. He is a model for me 40 years and three generations after his passing.

This morning I wonder: who are the models in your life who have raised the bar on your sense of your baptismal calling, asking you to step into a greater vision of yourself than you'd imagined? What are the stories that have formed you and given you life and hope for lives lived well?

Today, may you model the light of Christ in your lives.

Pastor Nathan