Serving One Master: The Supremacy of the Idea

From the start I must stress sometjing about me. I am not someone who believes all paths lead to truth.

Appealing though the approach may be to those who wish to reconcile the diversity of deeply held religious and spiritual convictions, Truth itself, I believe is expressed in the life and mission of Jesus Christ. This view immediately puts me at odds with other views.

I acknowledge that.

This, however does not leave me refusing to hear from others who hold different convictions.

I love taxis. I love getting in them to go from A to B whilst having conversations with taxi drivers. I love the fact that most of them are open to a chat. Sure there are the oddities, but you get that all over the place. Even church. (Ssssshhhhh don’t tell anyone.)

Recently I had a ten minute taxi journey that took half an hour. I loved it.

His name’s Shahid, which means Witness. He’s a fairly unassuming guy as appearances go. He’s not blasting his views for all and sundry to hear. He is content to just take his passenger to the destination with minimum fuss and maximum hospitality.

That would have been the case with me, had it not been for my interest in actually conversing with taxi drivers to get to know them. Soon we were sharing the similarities of being the offspring of economic migrants and the e periences of growing up in this particular system.

A few choice questions later and Shahid was mesmerising me with the depth and passion of his view of the world. Blending in the social, historical, political, cultural, economic and fundamentally ideological he was brilliant in his analysis of history still being a competition of the supremacy of an idea.

Whether you’d agree with that view or not, it is certainly true that as Malcolm X put it, if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything

We spoke about the prevalence of competing ideas and their hold on people whether they are consciously aware or not. Shahid was outstanding and truly compelling in his perspective. It was a thoroughly engagong and deep taxi journey, reminding me again, that journeys are great to gain insight and depth from people from varying walks of life.

As I left the taxi with a huge grin on my face for having enjoyed such a conversation, I was reminded by something fundamental Jesus said.

A man cannot serve two masters – He will love one and despise the others. Now Jesus was referring to how Mammon competes with God. However it’s dressed up with as a political, social or economic idea – it is a sophisticated version of the enemy to the truth of God.

Jesus says we will serve one or the other. However ‘free’ we feel, or liberated, or autonomous – underlying those trappings is an allegiance to something or someone that has mastery over us.

Sometimes it’s our job to show people the reality of this to make a more informed decision as to who they will serve. It’s our job so that people are aware of the importance of seeing where they are and understanding the alternative.

This will not convince everyone. It’s not meant to. Shahid was a brilliant witness to me. We shared. And was also of the knowledge that it would not shift our faith stance onr iota. Yet better to be aware of a faith stance to hold rather than being swept up and tossed about on trends and whims, being deceived whilst missing the point.

I’m grateful for Shahid and how God used this witness to reaffirm and deepen my desire to know and live solely for Jesus.

For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden