No Parking

“Whatever people expect, they soon come to think they have a right to: the sense of disappointment can, with very little skill on our part, be turned into a sense of injury.” - Screwtape, Senior Tempter, Hell. (The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis)

“An unfriendly person pursues selfish ends and against all sound judgment starts quarrels.” Proverbs 18:1

One night in Santa Barbara, I met a partner at a 7-11 for a cup of coffee. We got our caffeine fix and stood outside the front door of the store next to my police car. We talked for a few minutes and a woman pulled up in a car next to where we stood. I could see that in the back seat was an orange, 2 ½ foot tall “A” frame sign printed front and back with the words, “City of Santa Barbara - No Parking.” These signs are used to create temporary no parking areas for special events, road work and such. Now it looked to me like this woman “borrowed” the sign from the City to create her own personal “No Parking” space when she needed it. I was looking into her car trying to figure out why she would have the sign in the first place and she saw me staring. 

“Can I help you?” she asked with sarcasm halfway to the front door.

“Yes, where did you get that sign?”

“It was a gift.”

“A gift? From who?” This was getting interesting.

“From someone who is with the city LONGER than YOU!!!” She was winding up and clearly irritated that I would dare to ask such a question.

Now here was a person who was skirting the rules and got caught. I knew it. She knew it. It was now a game to see how I could get the sign out of the car.

“You can’t have that.” I said in very matter of fact tone.

She started to argue and insisted that the sign was given to her.

“You can’t have that.” I repeated the statement.

“What do you want me to do? Give YOU the sign?” Sarcasm dripped from her words.

“Yes.”

She walked back to her car and started a verbal barrage about how this was unfair, how she had a “right” to the sign and expressed her general distain for city employees. She unlocked the car, took the sign out and handed it to me.

“Thanks.” I said. I opened my trunk, put it in and continued to drink my coffee.

The woman was really mad now. She was yelling as she walked into the store. The door closed behind her and while I could not hear her words, it was clear that she continued to yell as she walked to the Slurpee machine. People inside stopped what they were doing and watched the unhappy tax payer. My partner suggested it was time to go.

I got in my car and backed out to leave. The woman sees me leaving; bolts from the back of the store, past the cashier, shoves open the front doors and yells, “WHY DON’T YOU GO EAT A DOUGHNUT!”

I laughed as I drove away.

The sad reality was that this woman believed she had a right to this sign. Who was I to question her possession of it? It does not take long working as a peace officer to figure out that people who break the law are, for the most part, driven by selfish ambition. Galatians 5:19-21 puts selfishness in perspective: “The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Considering that selfish ambition falls into the same category as extreme as witchcraft on one end and as innocuous as discord on the other, it is clear to me that all have sinned and fallen short of the kingdom of God. (Romans 3:23) While it is not likely that we will face a judge for the choices we make, the truth is that we will all have to answer for the No Parking Signs we have a in the back seat of our cars. There is no break we can get from a cop, no court that can issue a stay and no amount of time spent in a prison cell to escape eternal judgment. Forgiveness is only found at the foot of the cross.

Mark 10:32-34, “They were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid. Again he took the Twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to him. ‘We are going up to Jerusalem,’ he said, ‘and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.’”