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veteran |ˈvetərən; ˈvetrən|

noun

a person who has had long experience in a particular field

• a person who has served in the military : a veteran of two world wars.

ORIGIN early 16th cent.: from French vétéran or Latin veteranus, from vetus ‘old.’

Have you ever really thought about that word? 

Someone called me a veteran of Servant Evangelism when introducing me recently, and somehow the sound of that word did not feel right to my ears.  Perhaps it is because one of my favorite authors is Stephen Ambrose. If you are not familiar with that writer, let me encourage you to read at least one of his books.  He was the real genius behind the stories of Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers.

When I think of the word veteran, I think of my stepfather, Jim as he served in Japan during WWII, part of the Great Generation of citizen soldiers that forgot more about serving others than I will ever learn.  I think of my uncle, Dwayne as he served in Vietnam only to come back to a country that showered him not with a ticker tape parade, but rather a shower of spit and curses as walked across the tarmac at Lunken Airfield where we waited to pick him up along with the "flower power" protesters—no, we save the ticker tape for the Yankees, champions of leisure activities.  I think of my nephews currently serving overseas—one in Iraq, on in Korea, and one headed out to Afghanistan later this year.

Given that perspective, I just can’t think of myself in those same ranks.  In fact when I think of SE and veterans I think of a man named George.  I met George when I washed his car.  I will tell you in a moment why it was a great honor to serve this man.

The Free Car Wash is still one of my all time favorite SE outreaches.  I will let Steve Sjogren speak more to the X’s and O’s of why car washes are perhaps the spirals of the DNA that is SE, but for me it is just plain fun to wash a car for some one and watch their head tilt when you refuse a donation.

The free car wash was born when Steve was first trying to wrap his arms around the city of Cincinnati and love this strange town.  We had the first intercession meeting to pray for the city and more than one person saw a vision of us “washing the feet of the city.”  Servant Evangelism, as we knew it, was in its infancy.  Talk about “being fearfully, wonderfully made in the womb,” can you imagine the sudden bombardment of prophetic pictures of us attempting set up free foot washing booths in the local shopping malls? Thankfully Steve translated the bizarre visions God was giving to us into something more tactical—a Normandy invasion of kindness that would change this city forever.  

In the days of Jesus, the primary mode of transportation was the foot.  Keep in mind that the marvels of the Roman Empire had not reached the backwaters of Judea.  The only aqueduct these folks had for sewage were the dirt and stone paved streets they walked on. You were doing an incredible service if you un-strapped someone’s dirty, nasty sandals and cleaned their messy feet. 

The city of Cincinnati is notorious for its poor streets and a less than stellar public works department.  We throw salt on the roads if it rains in October, and given the strange topography of the town, all things gray (air and water) tend to sit in the bowl of the seven hills.  The feet of Cincinnati were tires.  If you wanted to serve people in a relevant manner, you washed their car.

Led by Steve Sjogren, the first free car wash we did was an awesome success.  In fact today, the free car wash has evolved into something even cooler.  The $1.00 Car wash!  No, we aren’t talking about inflation.  See, we have learned to advertise on the corners of the area we wash cars in with attractive signs promising a one dollar car wash.  This overcomes the suspicion people have for free things and strings that may be attached. People pull in thinking it is a great deal.  They wind down the window and fish through their purse or wallet looking for a buck.  We politely interrupt them: 

"I'm sorry.  You misunderstood us.  We are paying you one dollar today, just for letting us wash your car." 

Then we hand them a crisp dollar bill and offer them a free cold drink.  This provokes more than a mere head tilt.  You get a full-body paradigm shudder from folks!

We don’t stop there.  We encourage the people serving at the car wash to look for divine appointments as we scrub the cars.  I would meet George during such an encounter.

Here I was with my hands dipped deep inside a dirty water bucket trying to find the brush to wash more wire-rimmed feet and I remembered that first car wash with Steve. It was his idea to make sure you ALWAYS have a dedicated bucket for wheels. See, he learned a long time ago to make sure we used a special bucket set aside for doing the tires with a scrub brush.  If you have ever washed a car by hand, you know why.  The wheels are the dirtiest part of the car.  You don’t want someone to accidentally use this same source to then wash the windows and body of the next car in line—the resulting mess would be an example of what we call showing God’s love in an impractical way! 

As I dipped my hands in the grey water, I felt God reminding me about the original vision about the feet of Cincinnati literally being the tires.  I even remembered Steve Sjogren teaching me one of the most valuable kingdom lesson I have ever learned at that first car wash and should have known God was up to something—the Holy Spirit was afoot and he was about to introduce me to George. 

If you are a pastor I want you to read this next sentence several times:

Your church will only value what you value and behave as you behave.

Steve taught me that a few decades ago.  See, I had been raised Catholic.  I was even an altar boy.  My psyche was embedded with an unswerving veneration for men of cloth.   Forget the fact that my largest shove on the Engel scale came from a guy that looked like a Hawaiian version of Burl Ives wearing Bermuda shorts, a tropical shirt and sandals.  Forget the fact that Steve was one of the most non-traditional pastors I had ever met.  When I saw him literally on his hands and knees, using a toothbrush on a set of wire rim wheels all those years ago, I lost it.  I could not watch a man worthy of so much respect getting his hands and knees so dirty.  I tried to pull him up and take the toothbrush.  He steadfastly refused, and went back to work getting every speck of grime loose from those spokes.  Please keep in mind that I was not yet intimately familiar with all of the passages of the Bible.  I did not know we were actually replaying a scene between Jesus and his first followers.

Steve, like Jesus, just smiled at me patiently and said gently,

“Kenny, how can I ever ask any of you to serve this city, no matter what it takes, if I am not willing to do the dirtiest job myself?”

That floored me.  I experienced yet another powerful paradigm shift about the Jesus and service.  Rather than stand there and catch mosquitoes in my teeth, I grabbed another brush and bucket and started on the other wire rimmed wheel.  It was hard work.  I watched as Steve focused on every spoke and tried to imitate him.  Oddly, one of the other guys working the car wash with us became a bit perturbed.  He wanted to know why it was taking us so long to finish the least important part of the cars now that there were two of us on wheels.  For him, it was still about the number of cars we washed in an afternoon, not about why we were doing it.

Steve stood up, took a deep breath and slid the guy his patented Norwegian grin and started to explain that what we were doing here would have a profound impact on the car owner—for weeks. “The last thing I want is for someone to wake up the next morning, walk down the driveway to get the morning paper and see a bunch of dirty gaps on their wheels where we took a short-cut.  This clean car is like a business card for God.  I want us to provide better service than they would get if they paid a bunch of money for professional detailing.”

No one said anything for a while, but you could sense a renewed vigor in everyone.  If you were a casual observer, you would have assumed we were being paid hundreds of dollars for each car washed.

Fast forward a few decades and here I am on wheel duty again.  I am even cleaning each spoke of these wire wheels.  The guy holding the hose sees me and what I am doing and tries to convince me that we need to pick up the pace.  Now it is my turn to smile and be Steve and we have that same conversation about “attention to detail.”

That is when I met George.  He was sitting in his sedan, waiting his turn and watching us carefully.  When I looked up, he was smiling down at me and gave me a thumbs up for taking such care.  He is an elderly man, and he gives me one of those grandpa winks that just make you giggle inside.  He reminds me of my stepfather, Jim. Greg, of the other volunteers, meandered over and tapped me on the soldier, “I think that man is like a. . .” he pauses, and well, starts to pray.  “I think he is like a war hero or something.”

I nod, hearing God whisper the same thing.  The man pulls his car forward and has the same amazement we have seen all morning when he gets his free drink and a dollar for letting us wash his car. I look for clues.  There are no VFW stickers on his car, no military caps on the back window ledge, and not even a designation on the license plate; nothing.  I start to chicken out on the word of knowledge, but Greg plows ahead and takes a risk.  We motion for the hose guy to stop spraying and Greg asks the man to roll down his window again.  The man smiles knowingly, probably thinking, “Ah, here comes the catch.”

We just smile and motioned for the guy to put his wallet back away.  My buddy looks directly in the man’s eyes and says, “Sir, if we had wax and interior cleaners, we should give your car full service detailing.  You have served others without asking for so much as a thanks or atta-boy, now it is your turn to get served.  God wants you to know he has seen the sacrifice and pain, and He is very proud of you.” 

The man looks down at his steering wheel, I have a hard time clearing my throat, and Greg, well you have to know Greg, he starts sobbing.  When the man looks back up, there is a tear running down his hollow cheek.

As it turns out this man, George, was a retired military mechanic.  He had been appreciating what a snap job we were doing with the car wash and was marveling at how we were taking so much time to make sure everything was done right—just like he used to do.  He had served in a number of battles.  Apparently during one attack, he had been doing some routine polishing on equipment, grabbed a weapon and defended the base saving a bunch of his comrades, then he dropped the weapon and went right back to the job he was doing, before realizing he was injured.  He was never given any commendation, not even a Purple Heart.  He smiled up at us as he left the car wash and told us that what had happened today was the only medal he would ever need.

I saw this man in church the next Sunday morning.  He had a big smile on his face as the pastor talked about service and how if we needed a model of that duty in the kingdom, all we needed to do is look at a war veteran. That is what the word veteran means to me and that is why I will go to a few recruiting offices and VFW halls the next few weeks loaded with pizzas to treat these special folks to a free lunch.  Please join me.