An Indian TakeAway, a Parking Ticket, and Romans Chapter 2

An Indian TakeAway

So we’d just gotten home from a weekend away for a church where I had been the guest speaker. It was fun,  but we were tired. The outdoors events for the free time had been cancelled because finally – and with a bad sense of timing – the Sydney weather had turned.

Over the course of the two days Sydney and its outskirts went from the muggy bright lushness we’d grown used to over summer to a breezy, misty-rained early autumn. And it was getting darker earlier too.

So we were tired. We’re neat freaks. So we don’t feel equalised when we come home from any holiday until the bags are unpacked and the washing machine’s on.

So by that time it was heading towards 7pm. The weather had set in, we didn’t want to cook dinner, so we decided on Indian takeaway. I’ve only done Uber Eats once in my life and I felt guilty enough at that, so I decided on pick up, and just hoped against hope that I could find a parking space in our suburb, which is full of restaurants and bars open all Sunday evening.

If there’s one thing about Sydney that is challenging (and there are many things), it is the parking. We have a double lock up garage at our house, but street parking is a nightmare.  But maybe I would be ok. It was a pretty miserable night weather-wise. Maybe the restaurants would be quiet.

Maybe not.

Tired and grumpy and driving around in the damp and dark for what seemed like eternity, knowing the takeaway would be getting colder by the minute sitting in the restaurant. I decided to go for gold. I was gonna park as close to the restaurant as I could, regardless of the consequences. I’d only be five minutes away, right?

I found what seemed too good to be true – a wide, almost double spot, that seemed near a driveway but to be honest I didn’t look, and as I dashed through the rain I could see a 4P sign. Four hours eh! I have won the parking lottery. Look on my parking works, ye Mighty Sydney drivers and despair!

But still I couldn’t shake the nagging doubt as I got the restaurant, -waiting for like what seemed ages to get the pick up – , that I had parked illegally. Oh well, I thought, it’s five minutes if I have, and besides, what parking inspector is going to be out patrolling the back streets of this suburb on a night like this?

Still, I got a bit antsy, as the young staff member at the restaurant offered me a free mango lassi to go. After what seemed like ages, she prepared the mango-ey goodness with ice and yoghurt and a straw that stubbornly wouldn’t go into the takeaway lid. She’s wasting precious seconds!  Oh well, they won’t matter.

A Parking Ticket

I could immediately tell I was in trouble as I marched back in the drizzle to the car. The street where I had parked was dark except for two torch lights carried by two people – a man and a woman – both dressed in identical clothing. Identical clothing? They’re either twinning it – or – yep, or they are both parking inspectors.

Which they were.  They looked at me as the cold hand clutched my heart and I prepared my defence.

“I’ve already written you a ticket mate,” said the bloke as he handed me the waterproof piece of paper (they come prepared for everything these days), “Why on earth did you park here? It’s across a driveway.”

“It’s dark and wet and I couldn’t see the sign properly”, I began, knowing that it was a waste of time.

“You could have at least put something in the meter!”

“There’s a meter?”

I started to lamely add about how I didn’t know the parking situation, that I was from Perth (that’s a great excuse if you go to the big smoke cos they think you’re a country bumpkin), that I was old and blind and senile, and that …. but I stopped. I knew I was wasting my time. In my gut I realised that I probably knew I was parking illegally (the mango lassi thing and all), and I just asked lamely “How much?”

“136 dollars.”

“136 dollars?”  I hoped against hope that the takeaway would be worth it, given it had just jumped in price from 60 dollars to nearly 200.

Furious, I snatched the ticket from his hand, remembering not to say “thank you”, and drove off in a steamy rage, and we ate our meal in slight misery. The only thing in my head was “Why’d you park here?” followed by my list of excuses as to why I actually did park there. All of them valid of course. And just why did that lady take so long to give me that darned mango lassi! It better be good!

As it turns out that was only really good thing about the meal. At least I assume it was, because given it was Jill’s birthday, I gave the mango lassi to her (Don’t worry I’ve got a great surprise for her in a week or so). Weekend ruined.

Of course that’s not the end of it. It’s only the pivot.  The next morning, with our house low on essential supplies (milk, eggs, high-end chocolate, that sort of thing), I drove down to the local plaza – another parking nightmare, and down into the lower storey car park.  Spaces everywhere!

And as I turned and twisted my SUV down the tight ramps to the undercover carpark, the car in front of me turned right, yes you heard me, turned RIGHT, when the sign clearly said Left Turn Only, and there was a significantly sized arrow POINTING to the only direction that you were permitted to turn. But that reprobate, ignoring the signs or perhaps not seeing them, turned right anyway. Turned right into a lane that was for left turn only!

And I was outraged. Outraged enough to say out loudly to no one in particular, “You idiot!  Can’t you see it’s one way only. Why did you think you could do that?”

Whoops. The pang across my conscience hit hard.  My heart felt sore. There I was, fifteen hours after trying to excuse my own driving misdemeanour, lambasting someone else for theirs!  The shame I felt, and the prayer of confession I offered at that point, was palpably painful.

Of course I had reasons to break the law. They had no excuse, right?  Or at least that’s how we think. Isn’t it? If we are honest.  We have reasons. They have no excuse.

And we do it in all sorts of ways. Everyone else? They gossip. Me? I just tell it like it is.  Everyone else? They are workaholics. Me? I’m just driven. Everyone else? They are unforgiving. Me? I have a keen sense of justice.

Romans Chapter 2

And that’s the Romans Chapter 2 part of the deal, isn’t it? Paul is writing to the Roman church, a mix of Jew and Gentile, and for a good deal of chapter one he is excoriating the sins of the Gentile world that is a stranger to the Law. He lays it on thick. He points out their sexual sins, their violence, their refusal to honour God that is expressed in actual idolatry, and then outworks in the list of sins he portrays as being typical of paganism.

And as Jews watching on, those who know the Law of God are going, “Right on!  Tell those pesky Gentiles where it’s at!” And then Paul throws the sucker punch:

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth.  So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

Oof! Right in the spiritual solar plexus!  It’s meant to double over the Jewish possessors of the law, who professed the goodness of what they themselves did not do!  There were the Jews, busy racking up parking tickets by the truckload, yet pointing the finger at those Gentiles who were going the wrong way down a one way street!

Paul has lured the Jewish nation in with a hook that they could not resist – the palpably awful sins of other people not like them. And then he reels them in with their own blindness. He reels them in for knowing that the parking situation did not warrant them dashing off to get the Indian takeaway without assuming they too might be breaking the law.

The problem was other people. People parking me out. People at restaurants on a cold Sunday night who should be at home in weather like this. People who had parked slightly across two bays in another street that precluded me from parking there. The problem is always other people.

When Paul writes in Romans 3: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,“, he is not at this point highlighting a general universal truth. Rather, the context shows that he is talking about  Jew and Gentile alike. Both those who know the Law and don’t do it, and those who don’t know the Law and don’t do it! The Jews cannot consider themselves on the inside running with God because of their possession of the Law.

You see, the problem is not the possession but the practise. Or rather, the lack of it! That’s why that famous statement is preceded by these words “For there is no distinction.”.  The Jewish nation was in the habit of making distinctions. But don’t get proud. Because we – all of us –  just love to make distinctions. Distinctions that excuse us and condemn others.

You see, in my driving behaviour – and clearly in my parking habits – I have a distinction. There is my driving and parking, for which I have a list of reasons when it is poor or when it is illegal. And then there is YOUR driving behaviour, for which you have no excuse at any point whatsoever. Particularly when you are driving near me.

Now widen that out to everything in my life and you can see the problem. Without Christ I am self-righteous to the core! And even with him, it clings on.  And those fifteen hours in my life proved it.  That’s awful!  Is there anything good to come from this? Well that’s why we have that next famous part of Romans 3, with which I shall end:

and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.God presented Christ as a propitiation, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. (Rom 3:24-25).

God nails the parking ticket to the cross and writes “PAID” across it. Not just for me, but for too who trust in Christ. What a relief!  As I finish this I can see the unpaid ticket on my desk. I won’t be ecstatic paying it in a few weeks time, if truth be told, but at least I will be reminded of the gracious gift of God’s gospel given freely to such as I: a lawless, parking-ticketed Gentile such as I.