As many of you already know, I went to Charlotte Country Day back when I was in high school. I confess there are some advantages to a private school education.   At the same time, there are quite a few disadvantages.  One of those shortcomings was the emphasis that was placed by your peers on what kind of car you drove.  One of my friends, Marc, he drove a brand new 1987 BMW 320ix.  He got it on his 16th birthday.  The ix meant that not only was it a BMW, it was a four-wheel drive BMW sports car, the very pinnacle of style and performance at the time.  I remember getting into that car and being filled with the aura of it all.  It sparkled in the sunlight, a gleaming white.  The inside held that new car smell we all love.  There was the iconic logo on the hood, the soft-leather bucket seats, the roar of the finely crafted German engine. 

  When I turned 16, I was blessed to be handed the keys to a car…a much different kind of car.  It was a domestic sedan.  It was a red 1976 Plymouth Volare.  Instead of soft leather bucket seats, it had a bench with red vinyl that was cracking in a great many places.  Instead of an iconic logo on the front, it had a missing hood ornament.  Instead of having an engine which roared with power, the Plymouth’s engine knocked and puttered and pinged…. sometimes even after you turned it off.  Now look, the Plymouth wasn’t a bad car by any stretch of the imagination.  It dutifully went from point A to point B perfectly fine.  In fact, on the day that I got my license, I remember opening the windows up and driving off on my first parent-free outing.  I’d never felt so alive.  I loved driving that car because in held in its humble shell the freedom that every teenager desires!

  Well, I should say I loved driving that car every place but one.  When I drove it into the parking lot at Charlotte Country Day School, I didn’t love it so much.  There I saw BMW’s and Mercedes and other sports cars lined up side-by-side.  In comparison, my red 1976 Volare sedan made me feel ashamed.  I didn’t want to be seen in it.  As a habit, I deliberately got to school extra-early in order the ignominy of having to be seen get out of it.  It wasn’t that the car was bad but I certainly wasn’t going to flaunt it to the world. I was just ashamed of it. 

  In the book “If Christians were really Christian,” author John Killinger wonders – “What kind of Good News do we have for people who jet halfway across the country to attend a ball game?  What kind of good news do we have for people who live in houses whose garages or swimming pools are bigger than the house they grew up in?”  What kind of Good News do we have in a world that tells us there’s no need for God, that we can do it all for ourselves all by ourselves.”  His questions get us to a good point. 

  In today’s Western world, a great many Christians are often ashamed of the Gospel.  It’s mocked, sneered and dismissed in newspapers, and on the internet and on television.   Many Christians decide to keep their faith secret lest they become an object of scorn or ridicule.  Not surprisingly, fewer and fewer Christians share their faith with others.  The results, as they say, are in.  Fewer and fewer people are becoming Christian as the people called to proclaim it silently appreciate their own faith but dare not tell others.  So, it begs the question –Why are we ashamed of the Gospel?  In a way, that old Plymouth Volare of mine offers us some good insights into why we might be ashamed of the Gospel. 

  To begin with, the Gospel is OLD, ancient in fact.  And if there’s anything out of step with our lives these days, it’s old.  As we all know, NEW is the only standard that matters anymore.  Technology comes and goes so quickly that if it’s 6 months old, it’s probably already obsolete.   And even if what we have is far from useless, if it isn’t the latest and the greatest we just aren’t happy.  Just look at the lines at Apple stores whenever a new iPhone comes out.  There, standing in line are people with perfectly functioning iPhones less than a year old.  These people are willing to endure hours in queue just to get the latest product.  Or take in for consideration that to be “so last year” has become an epithet of great derision.  If there is a mantra for our age its this – if it’s new, it’s wonderful.  If it’s old, sell it on Ebay.  

  Christianity certainly isn’t the new kid on the block by any stretch of the imagination.  It’s an ancient religion, one practiced for millennia now.  Closer to home, for a great many of us, Christianity is the faith of our parents and our grandparents.  And as we all know, we don’t share much else in common with them.  Our attitudes and world-views are and should be very different from the world around us. In fact, the great struggle of young adulthood has always been to differentiate ourselves from our elders.  So why in the world would we want to boast about anything that we share with our forebears.  So, we Christians are sometimes ashamed of our faith because it’s old instead of being cutting edge.  It’s kind of like my car in high school.  We love our faith secretly in our hearts but aren’t we aren’t proud of it.  Or maybe we’re ashamed of the Gospel because it doesn’t seem to as easily lend itself to getting us the things we think we want.  We look around at a culture that thrives on acquisition and we question a faith that asks us to simplify our lives.  In the silence of our hearts, we wonder about the corporate raiders and people driven to make money no matter what the cost.  They seem to be living high on the hog, don’t they?  We watch shows like “Million Dollar Rooms” and “the Bachelor” and we so long for those lives which seem unattached to any faith whatsoever.  None of these people appear to be guided by the ethics Christianity calls us to.  Jesus Christ tells us to renounce many of our worldly possessions and to live holy lives in order to pick up his cross.  We think, gosh, denying ourselves and bearing that cross seems so inadequate when there are better things to be had, better things to be done.  So again, we’re back to my car.  We’re ashamed of the Gospel because at some level we’re envious of what others appear to possess.