The Everyday Club

1/7/12   Aaron,   26
I stopped a young man on the sidewalk, asking if he had time to answer an interesting question. This began a long interesting exchange that moved over to a bench at a nearby bus stop and may have reached people waiting for the bus more than it reached him. The young man - Aaron - is Ethiopian, Jewish, and gay. He majored in philosophy and economics at the University of Chicago and now works as a political analyst, having worked on Barack Obama's presidential campaign. He had been headed to hear a lecture by one of his university professors but chose to miss it as we talked for an hour and a half about Christianity and his form of Judaism. I think my patience in hearing about his beliefs led to his patience with mine. Though highly educated, Aaron really didn't understand biblical Christianity. In fact, he had that intellectual and scholarly pride that prohibited him from having the ability to understand, at least by his own efforts. Nevertheless, he was willing to listen to my explanation of the Gospel - not just the good news of grace but the biblical and hard to swallow aspect of the law - though he was not willing to agree with it. No matter - Aaron wasn't the only one to hear the Gospel as many bus riders came to our bus stop and listened as they waited.