“What’s that in your pocket?” The TSA officer looked sternly at me.

“My wallet.”

“Take it out and show it to me.”

I comply.

“There’s still something in that pocket!”

“Oh, yes – it’s a granola bar.” I pull out my Quaker Chewy Low Fat Chocolate Chunk granola bar, unopened, and hold it up.

She glares at me. “You’ll have to go back through the metal detector, and put that granola bar through the scanner.”

What is welling up in me as I turn around and walk back?

There could have been a question about public policy – that is, a question of truth: “Have we made air travel any safer through all these regulations, or just more of a hassle? Have the terrorists indeed won? Was this their goal – to make our lives more difficult?”

Those are legitimate questions. Had those been the questions in my mind, there would have been no sin involved.

That’s the way I am tempted to tell the story: I care about the efficiency of air travel in the US, the hassles faced by other travelers, the economic impact of making travel tedious and difficult.

But in fact, the thoughts in my head did not concern those matters of truth and policy. Instead, my immediate thoughts were annoyance at the hassle she put ME through. My immediate action was to demean her in my mind for making me take 15 seconds to put the granola bar through the scanner.

Note: I complied. I smiled at her. I was over it in a few minutes. No one could see my annoyance. I don’t think Fred noticed anything when he saw me on the other side of the security checkpoint.

But my being good at covering up sin does not lessen the depth of sin.

What is so bad about this sin?

Fundamentally, the sin I engaged in is a denial of the cross.

The cross says, “Coty Pinckney is so depraved, so rotten, so despicable, that the only way to make up for those sins is the shedding of the blood of Jesus.” I have Jesus’ blood on my hands. I deserve His punishment. And He came and gave up everything to save me.

So what do I deserve from the TSA officer? My mind functioned as if I deserve her service to me, her kindness to me. But actually, I deserve to be told I cannot board the plane, because I am dangerous and I stink.

When we truly see the cross, we cannot be defensive. As in this case, there may be a matter of truth involved: Someone may accuse us of something we did not commit, or (as possibly in this case) the procedures used may be ineffective and unproductive. There could be some value in discussing these matters of truth. But we are not defensive, because the reality of our sin is always greater than the accusation made against us.

In essence, my sin described above is self-absorption. And the opposite of this sin, the Christian goal, is self-forgetfulness. When I take on this attitude, I no longer am concerned with how others are responding to ME – but instead am desirous that others are responding to the TRUTH of who Jesus is.

Self-forgetfulness also leads to “omnivorous attentiveness” (a phrase Alan Jacobs uses to describe C.S. Lewis). That is, seeing God’s gifts everywhere, from the way light shines through a window to the way a cat curls up on a chair; and seeing evidences of God’s grace in others, as they become more Christlike.

What will DGCC look like if we become more self-forgetful and less self-absorbed, more cross-centered and less me-centered?

• Time and again Scripture will come alive to us as we are amazed at who Jesus is and what He does.
• Time and again we will share with one another what we have seen recently of who Jesus is.
• Time and again we will be attune to and thankful for the common grace God gives others, including unbelievers.
• Time and again, we will speak of Christ and His work on the cross as an encouragement to our fellow believers and as a witness to unbelievers.
• Time and again we will be generous with time and money – and think not at all about OUR sacrifice or OUR work.

This is what we want DGCC to be; this is what we want our small groups to encourage; this is what I want in my own life: That is, we want us as a community to live out Galatians 2:20:

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

So we want each of us to say: “I am dead. The me that takes offense at being told to go back through the metal detector is dead. Christ is in me. He loved me, He died for me, He raised me with Himself, He made me alive so that He can display who He is through me. That is the only reason I live.”

May God make us self-forgetful and thus omnivorously attentive. And may we so marvel at the saving cross that we cannot but speak of the One who died so that He might live through us.