Is Tardiness and Punctuality a Christian Witness Issue?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Podcast listener named Lisa writes in
00:00:07.280 | to ask about chronic lateness.
00:00:10.020 | She asks this, "Dear Pastor John,
00:00:11.620 | "is habitual tardiness a sin?
00:00:14.820 | "How would you go about talking to fellow church members
00:00:17.220 | "who are consistently late, like 10 or 15,
00:00:20.600 | "or even 20 minutes late for their commitments?"
00:00:23.300 | What would you say, Pastor John?
00:00:24.600 | - Well, maybe if I approach this in a certain way,
00:00:29.040 | it will prove useful,
00:00:30.960 | not just for dealing with chronically late people,
00:00:33.320 | but perhaps with other irritants or foibles or flaws
00:00:38.320 | that people have that we need to either address
00:00:43.360 | or just work around.
00:00:44.920 | So I hope what I say here will be of broader use
00:00:49.920 | than only that one particular issue.
00:00:52.220 | And the first thing we need to say, of course,
00:00:54.600 | everybody would think of this, I think,
00:00:55.960 | is consider the culture you live in.
00:01:00.960 | Whether a person is late is determined in part
00:01:04.560 | by cultural expectations of when one ought to arrive,
00:01:09.280 | and there are some cultural differences
00:01:11.400 | among varying groups.
00:01:13.120 | And of course, we think of cultures
00:01:14.720 | that are less oriented on precision,
00:01:17.040 | the kind that's demanded by Western transportation
00:01:20.880 | and industry.
00:01:22.120 | Such cultures may have, for generations,
00:01:24.960 | governed their gatherings by where the sun is in the sky,
00:01:28.520 | not where the hands are on the clock.
00:01:30.840 | And therefore, one would not be considered late
00:01:34.400 | if he comes half an hour on either side
00:01:37.720 | or maybe an hour on either side.
00:01:39.640 | In that culture, that's just the way it is.
00:01:42.880 | When I was in Germany back in the '70s,
00:01:45.760 | I was invited to my doctor father's house
00:01:48.240 | for an evening gathering, first time ever.
00:01:50.940 | I'm new in a German situation, didn't know what to expect.
00:01:54.240 | So I took the train, and by the way,
00:01:55.920 | you can count on the trains being on time in Munich,
00:01:59.120 | Germany, took the train to Tuzing from Munich
00:02:02.280 | and walked around till about five before the hour
00:02:06.960 | and rang the doorbell, and a sinking feeling came over me
00:02:11.920 | when his wife opened the door
00:02:14.640 | with a kind of surprised look on her face.
00:02:18.120 | And I thought, "Oh no, I've got the wrong night.
00:02:20.600 | I came on the wrong day."
00:02:22.520 | And she recovered quickly and invited me in.
00:02:25.720 | And later, I was told, "Well, really,
00:02:28.720 | the really ideal time to arrive is five minutes
00:02:32.920 | after the appointed time, not five minutes before."
00:02:37.480 | Well, you just learn what late means and what early means.
00:02:42.000 | So that's the first thing, is culture.
00:02:44.760 | For most of the Western world,
00:02:46.680 | the demands of industry and travel have created a culture
00:02:50.020 | where lateness can be not only annoying or disrespectful
00:02:55.020 | or inconvenient, but even dangerous.
00:02:58.520 | Both to the person who is late and those who have to wait.
00:03:02.940 | For example, if you're late for an airplane,
00:03:04.600 | you're gonna miss your flight.
00:03:05.820 | That may be a big deal.
00:03:07.620 | If you're in the military and the order that you have
00:03:12.680 | is at 1900 hours, there will be Air Force firepower,
00:03:18.520 | and you can take your platoon and run for 15 minutes
00:03:21.460 | across this open territory
00:03:23.600 | because they won't be able to shoot at you.
00:03:25.360 | You miss that by three minutes,
00:03:28.000 | and maybe most of you are dead.
00:03:30.040 | So lateness can be a major, major issue
00:03:34.280 | or a minor inconvenience.
00:03:38.080 | Once you've discerned the level of expectation in the group
00:03:42.160 | that you belong to, and once you have figured out
00:03:46.880 | the measure of inconvenience or irritation or disturbance
00:03:51.040 | or even danger that a person might bring about,
00:03:55.640 | then you have to discern how much effort do I put
00:03:58.900 | into helping somebody not be late?
00:04:01.720 | And it becomes a moral issue, the Bible says,
00:04:06.360 | if you're doing wrong to your neighbor.
00:04:08.400 | Love does no wrong to a neighbor.
00:04:10.760 | And if lateness is wronging the group in some way,
00:04:15.240 | making their work harder, then you're not acting in love,
00:04:19.520 | and then it becomes a moral issue.
00:04:21.400 | And Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 that love is not rude.
00:04:26.400 | And that idea of rude means doesn't offend
00:04:31.080 | against cultural expectations,
00:04:33.880 | and rudeness changes from culture to culture.
00:04:36.960 | Love is not so wrapped up in itself
00:04:40.400 | that it doesn't pay attention to such things
00:04:43.080 | as what the expectations are in this group.
00:04:46.800 | The Bible also says love counts others
00:04:49.880 | more significant than ourselves.
00:04:52.320 | And love takes thought for the interests of others,
00:04:55.160 | not just for ourselves.
00:04:57.520 | So in cases of lateness, they can become a serious sin issue
00:05:02.520 | if enough people are being seriously hampered
00:05:08.860 | by your lateness.
00:05:10.200 | So what do you do?
00:05:11.040 | What do you do if you know someone,
00:05:13.640 | or you're in that group,
00:05:15.480 | and they need somebody to help them,
00:05:19.400 | and it's causing inconvenience,
00:05:20.920 | it's disrupting, it's hindering?
00:05:22.800 | Here's what I would do.
00:05:25.060 | Number one, I would gently, perhaps jokingly,
00:05:28.920 | point out to a person in private
00:05:31.440 | and say that it would be helpful if they got there on time.
00:05:35.640 | Leave it at that, no big deal.
00:05:37.760 | One simple suggestion, see if it helps,
00:05:40.920 | and my guess, it would help a lot of people.
00:05:43.800 | If it doesn't produce any change at all,
00:05:47.480 | I would get alone with that person a second time,
00:05:51.180 | and I would ask if there's a problem,
00:05:56.180 | if there's a reason why they're always late
00:05:59.680 | and why they can't get there on time.
00:06:01.960 | And you may discover something
00:06:03.440 | that you could help them with.
00:06:06.020 | Or you may discover, and this happens,
00:06:08.900 | that there's simply a personality disconnect here
00:06:13.280 | of some kind,
00:06:14.440 | and it makes them habitually inattentive to time.
00:06:20.600 | And in that case, the question is,
00:06:24.800 | do you have enough relational capital
00:06:27.700 | to work on that with them?
00:06:29.080 | If you don't, you're probably not gonna be able to do much.
00:06:32.000 | But if you do, if they're willing to let you
00:06:34.120 | into their life, then you might say,
00:06:37.600 | how about setting your alarm 15 minutes earlier
00:06:40.260 | in the morning?
00:06:41.100 | Or you might say, I've got an app, it's really good,
00:06:44.080 | it's called blank, my wife has one, I have one.
00:06:47.160 | I've got an app on my phone, and you can set this app
00:06:50.460 | for any appointment you want, any way you want,
00:06:53.960 | gives you warnings ahead of time,
00:06:55.780 | and how about setting that up?
00:06:57.340 | How about letting me set it up for you?
00:06:58.780 | How about I download it for, in other words,
00:07:01.180 | you got to determine, is this person's inattentiveness
00:07:04.360 | such that he's gonna walk away and say, good idea,
00:07:06.200 | and never do it?
00:07:07.480 | Or can you do it for him?
00:07:09.320 | Now, of course, all that requires an enormous amount
00:07:12.540 | of humility on the part of the other person
00:07:15.560 | who's being late, to admit that they have a problem.
00:07:19.600 | That takes humility, to admit that they have a problem
00:07:22.240 | and they can't solve it on their own.
00:07:24.720 | And will they submit to your counsel?
00:07:26.680 | Will they assume a position of a needy person
00:07:28.880 | who's not able to run their life
00:07:30.600 | as effectively as they'd like, and that bothers other people?
00:07:34.480 | And if you don't encounter that kind of humility
00:07:37.240 | that lets you work with them in some practical way,
00:07:40.380 | but resistant, then you're probably just gonna need
00:07:43.720 | to pray for them and work around them.
00:07:47.680 | And that means that they probably won't ever assume
00:07:50.040 | a certain role in that group, where you need more precision,
00:07:53.440 | more care, more intentionality and attentiveness,
00:07:57.240 | and you're just gonna expect them to be late
00:08:00.480 | and take them for what they are.
00:08:02.960 | In other words, some things we change,
00:08:05.840 | some things we forgive, some things we forbear,
00:08:09.360 | and we need wisdom to know which is which for this person.
00:08:14.120 | - Wise words.
00:08:16.000 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:08:17.440 | And Lisa, thank you for the question.
00:08:19.520 | Tomorrow, we're gonna close out the week
00:08:20.920 | with a very sobering topic
00:08:22.240 | related to recent events in Oregon.
00:08:25.040 | Recently, a 26-year-old man walked onto the campus
00:08:27.800 | of a community college in Roseburg, Oregon
00:08:30.160 | with three pistols and a semi-automatic rifle
00:08:33.160 | and targeted Christians.
00:08:35.320 | He killed 10 and himself.
00:08:37.200 | So gun to my head, would I deny Christ?
00:08:39.840 | That's what one listener wonders about,
00:08:41.700 | and asked John Piper how we could ever possibly
00:08:44.680 | be prepared for such a moment like that.
00:08:46.800 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.
00:08:47.640 | I'll see you tomorrow on the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:08:50.240 | (upbeat music)
00:08:52.820 | (upbeat music)
00:08:55.400 | [BLANK_AUDIO]