A Maserati in Amish Country

Over the past 19 years, I have rented a lot of Alamo cars.

On Monday evening at Philadelphia International Airport, with an Alamo agent walking in the parking lot at my side, I got asked a question I’ve never been asked.

It started with this observation, “Sir, I know you rented a small SUV (which was my cheapest option), but we don’t have any of them in the lot. Would you be willing to take this Maserati?”

And yes, sitting about 30 feet from where I was standing, all alone in the parking lot, like me at a Middle School dance, was a beautiful, black Maserati Levante. In a moment of reconsideration, the Alamo agent retracted the offer and suggested that she should talk with her boss first. “We usually ask for a $1,000 deposit before we rent this car.”

I smiled and waited. Five minutes later she emerged from the office on the other side of the lot and simply gave me a thumbs up. I was all set.

Simply pushing the button to start the car exposed the reality that I’d never driven a car like this before. The engine roared, without even touching the accelerator.

For the next 90 minutes, I drove cautiously because of the unfamiliar roads, and the darkening sky. My return trip to PHL would afford me an opportunity to more aggressively engage the Italian automotive power that was at my disposal.

And so, Tuesday afternoon at 3pm, I started back to the rental car agency. The beautiful Pennsylvania hillside farms were breathtaking. Narrow, winding, two-lane roads would be a perfect “track” for my 400-horsepower friend. Or not…

Mile after mile of rural Lancaster County roads were littered with Amish buggies, and youngsters clad in black on bikes and scooters.

I glanced at the fields near me where horse-drawn farming rakes pulled freshly cut hay into rows. I watched as horse-drawn plows tugged disks across winter-hardened soil.

I was an alien. A foreigner. A guest in this county. And as such, I submitted. Not reluctantly, but in some fashion, reverently. Out of respect for a tradition and culture that I don’t understand. And as I did, I heard the Holy Spirit whisper… “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

The meek. A Maserati following a horse and buggy. 400 horsepower, under control. Not because it can’t, but because it chooses not to.

Jesus. God Himself. Abused, lied about, mocked, tortured.

Under control. For our sake. For the sake of the lives in front of Him.

The most powerful force in the universe, meek. For us.

Indeed… a Maserati in Amish country.

A model to show us how to live.

Jesus, the Maserati of all Maserati’s, shows us how to love with grace, compassion and respect… even when we have more power than those around us. Perhaps, especially when we do.

In spite of how it looks and feels, it is not the powerful that will inherit the earth. And it’s also not the weak who will inherit the earth… but the meek. Power under the control of the Holy Spirit.

This was my Maserati driving lesson, at 15 MPH.