Arbys. Not the one where I worked for one day.
Most of us have had a least some experience with having someone else be in charge of us: a parent, a boss, a coach, a teacher, perhaps an older sibling. And I am sure we have all good bosses and bad bosses, good coaches and bad coaches. And even if we had generally good parents, they weren’t perfect and so you had to endure some truly unbelievable parenting from time to time. (I could tell some stories and probably will.)
Some of the best authorities in my life (aside from Mom and Dad, they really were great were guys like Coach Deti. He was a short gnome of a man. He was the football coach at our high school for about 40 years. His father had been the coach for about 40 years before him. Our stadium is called Deti Stadium. He was P.E. teacher by day and would roam the halls in sweats, muttering something about the single wing offense or something. He always had a stopwatch around his neck; his weird idea of a man necklace, I guess. Maybe he thought he might run into a new kid in the hall and want to check his 40 yard dash time.
He was unorthodox to be sure.
Coach Deti was my Driver’s Ed teacher one summer and e very day we’d go out to practice driving. The routine was always the same:
“Ok Dunham, let’s practice driving to the dry cleaner. I have some stuff to pick up for the wife.”
And then, “Ok Dunham, let’s practice driving to the bank,” or “let’s practice driving to the grocery store,” and so on until the lesson was over and all of his errands had been run. I heard from some other kids Coach had taken a job delivering phones books in the summer, so they had a lot of practice driving “to the next house.” On the last day we got to practice driving to the Daylight Donuts, where he met up with some of his old cronies to talk about the good ol’ days of Laramie High football. He bought me a bear claw.
We all thought coach was a little odd, but we all loved him and would have done anything for him. Mostly because we knew that he really cared about us.
At the end of my sophomore year I was considering not going out for football. I had broken my arm that fall and didn’t get to play much. To be honest, I didn’t imagine I would get much of a shot to play the following year so I figured I would just not go out and no one would notice.
One day as I was walking to class I saw Coach Deti coming down the hall opposite me. I just looked straight ahead not wanting to make eye contact, but he spied me. “Dunham get over here.”
“Ok, coach.”
“Now you get on out there for football next year.”
“Ok, coach.”
And that was it, I went out for the team. He was a good coach because he cared enough to find me and tell me (in his own weird, but charming way) that I was wanted and needed. Good coaches know when to do that. And good coaches are pretty easy to play for.
I have had other men who have spoken into my life over the years. My dad’s good friend, Norm Tyser, was my boss at the sawmill. He told me I was slower than a snake’s butt in December and I better pick up the pace. That hurt a little, but I appreciate now those words of instruction and encouragement. I use that phrase with some regularity now.
Gary Dodds was my boss at the Dodds’ Bootery, a family shoe store in my hometown. I worked there for a year after high school before our family moved to Europe for my dad’s sabbatical. Towards the end of my tenure there, he noticed I was getting a little lax with my customer service and hustle. I remember him pulling me into his office in the back.
“Now I know you’re getting ready to leave and to go on your trip,” he told me, “but you have a month left.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I know you are ready to move, but you have to finish up well. It’s only a month.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can do anything for a month. You can eat a poop sandwich for a month.”
I had never heard that expression before, but I got his meaning. And I appreciate the things I learned from Mr. Dodds in those months at the shoe store.
Good bosses are easy to work for, but we don’t all get good bosses all the time. By far my worst employment experience was the one day I worked at Arby’s. My dad had been hassling me about getting a job and to quit laying around on his couch all day eating Cheeto’s or I’d have to start paying rent. So Arby’s was the quickest thing I could find.
I was scheduled to start on Memorial Day for breakfast. I know, you knew Arby’s had breakfast? Not many people thankfully because they might have gotten the weirdest sandwich ever if they had come on my first day. I show up for work expecting to go through some sort of training and roast beef certification, but it was just me and the boss. He took one look at me and started digging in a old box in the corner.
“Here, put this on.”
It was a crumpled up Arby’s polo. I held it up and I am pretty sure it was a women’s extra small.
“Do you have any other sizes?”
“Nope, that’s it. Put it on.” It was like a half shirt. Good thing this was the 80s.
Ok boss what’s next? LIke I said, I was expecting training, certification. Let’s just ease into this whole fast food business.
“You’re on grill. We’re cooking breakfast. I’ll be on the register.” Wait a second!
“How am I supposed to know what to cook?”
“Pictures of the food are on the wall. Eggs are in little fridge in the corner.”
And with that he was off. I was left standing in a puddle of roast beef grease, holding a spatula and my shattered dreams of ever working fast food for more than one day.
I had no idea what I was doing, but I did my best. Fortunately only two customers came in that morning, the last two breakfast customers in the history of the Arby’s franchise.
Peter tells that one of the things we are going to have to do, one of the things that God expects from us is that we would be submissive to every authority, every leader that we have in our lives: a boss, a coach, a parent, whatever. In our culture that is a pretty offensive and strange expectation. We are taught to question authority, to stand up for our rights, to assert ourselves and our own will. God just sees things working a little differently.
Actually Peter points out that if we live submissive, respectful lives there are some real good reasons to do the right thing, to submit to authorities even when that authority may be unjust or incompetent:
The Ignorant Talk of Foolish Men (2:13-17)
Nothing is as odd or quiets the criticism of others as quickly or thoroughly as one who submits, does good and shows proper respect. It is really difficult to criticize someone who is respectful and does their job well regardless of the leadership situation. Eventually you just run out of bad things to say about that person. Peter puts it this way “For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the talk of foolish men.” (2:15)
Suffer For Doing Good (2:18-22)
It is commendable, remarkable really, to both God and people, to follow the example of Christ and to suffer for doing good and to endure it. We may not understand it, but when someone suffers for doing the right thing, we respect that. “How is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.” (2:20)
Entrusting Ourselves (2:22-25)
Christ was able to endure insults, humiliation and shame without retaliation by entrusting himself to God, the one who judges righteously.
I have thought about this one a lot over the years. I think it is about the hardest thing on the planet to not retaliate when some one wrongs you; to lash out, to throw a punch when attacked. Peter writes, “When they hurled insults at (Jesus), he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” (2:23)
There is something very freeing, I think, coming to the conclusion that we do not have to stand up for ourselves, we do not have to defend ourselves when someone comes after us. We can trust God to defend us. This is totally counter-intuitive, I know. Sounds a bit sissy-ish, especially given our American ethic of power, something I think we share with the Roman Empire that dominated the world at the time of Jesus. But I think it works. And I think it is true.
God will defend us if we will stop our ridiculous attempts ate defending ourselves.
1 Peter 2:13-25
