Disobedience

One of the lasting byproducts of the worldwide pandemic is the fact that many face-to-face institutional interactions of modern life have been conveniently relegated to virtual meetings. Among those institutions affected are our beleaguered court systems.

So, in late May, when social media feeds across America featured a clip of a man attending court via Zoom, the novelty was not in the platform itself, but about what the man was doing. Corey Harris appeared before the Honorable Judge J. Cedric Simpson on Zoom, while driving.

Harris told the judge, "Actually, I'm pulling into my doctor's office actually, so just give me one second, I'm parking right now.”

The judge said to the Harris’ public defender, Natalie Pate, "Maybe I'm not understanding something. This is the driving-while-license suspended (case)? ... And he was just driving and he didn't have a license?"

“Those are the charges, your honor, yes,” said Pate.

At this point in the video, Judge Simpson becomes quite incensed, and orders Harris to turn himself in or face arrest. People online got a good laugh at the man who appeared to be so flagrantly disobeying the law, virtually appearing in court driving while his license was suspended. Harris eventually spent two nights in jail over the offense.

There was only one problem: Harris’ license had actually been reinstated back in 2022, but because of a clerical error, the judge was not aware of the reinstatement. Harris was driving because he assumed that they knew his licensed had already been reinstated, and was surprised by the judge’s harsh reaction.

According to USA Today, the charges against Mr. Harris have been settled. As a result, many of the people who poked fun at him now owe Harris an apology for jumping to conclusions. Among them is Nate Burleson, co-host of CBS This Morning, who took a whole segment on the show to explain the situation for viewers.

“We’re sorry,” said Burleson, with co-host Gayle King nodding in light penitence. “You were right all along.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

We can show the love of Jesus to people by extending grace to them and not always assuming the worst about their actions or intentions.

Tim Hogan is the founder and CEO SaferStreet Solutions, a development firm focusing on improving traffic safety and reducing pedestrian deaths. For years, he and his team were looking at ways to prevent the phenomenon known as distracted driving, which is statistically comparable to drunk driving as a culprit for traffic-related fatalities.

Inspired by the signs that offer real-time feedback to speeding drivers, Hogan and his team invented the SmartSign. The signs are designed to identify motorists who hold their phones while driving, and display a message warning them to stop: “PHONE DOWN.”

Matt Gregory is a reporter in Washington DC. When the SmartSign was implemented in his city, he was somewhat skeptical of the sign’s efficacy. Matt said, “So, I went for a drive with my phone in my hand. And sure enough, ‘Phone Down’!”

Hogan says the device works by using sensors to identify the unique combination of heat signatures that result from a human holding a phone. If the phone is cradled or resting elsewhere, the sign doesn’t light up.

Rick Birt from the DC Highway Safety Office says the goal is to introduce the signs to the public as a form of behavior intervention. “Last year nationally, 3,500 people died from distracted driving-related crashes. The goal of these signs is to provide instantaneous feedback to motorists so that they have that opportunity to make a better choice.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

God is faithful to remind us when we are veering off of the path given for us, but it’s up to each of us to respond in obedience.

Cole Mushrush does two things when he wakes up each morning at the family ranch: make up a pot of coffee, then fire up his laptop to see if any cows have wandered astray. Not many do, because electronic collars have been hung around their necks that give them a jolt if they try to cross one of the invisible fence boundaries created on a computer. The digital fence follows the contours of a pasture, and the collars are designed to keep the cows hemmed in without having to go to the expense of building a real fence.

He said, “The collars have mostly deterred cows from wandering past the no-go zone—although the animals don’t always behave as desired after a shock that comes following warning beeps. Some of them close their eyes and run. We don’t need that.”

The cows undergo a four-day training regimen which included a beep followed by shock, and playing around with the boundaries. There were a few rule breakers, such as when a cow might see her friend on the other side of an invisible fence. Mushrush said, “There are social cliques within a herd. Sometimes a cow will walk through the shock to be with their friend.”

If you are wondering what the shock feels like, it is reported to hurt less than a bee sting.

Possible Preaching Angle:

We know we have freedom in Christ but sometimes we need to be reminded or warned that we are crossing a line which God has placed there for our good.

Ever get the feeling you're talking to a brick wall when trying to communicate with your teens? Well, a new study suggests there may be some science to it, after finding that teenagers' brains start tuning out their mothers' voices around the age of 13. Researchers said that this is because they no longer find it “uniquely rewarding,” and instead tune into unfamiliar voices more.

The study by the Stanford School of Medicine used MRI brain scans to give the first detailed neurobiological explanation for how teenagers begin to separate from their parents. It suggests that when your teenagers don't seem to hear you, it's not simply that they don't want to clean their room or finish their homework—their brains aren't registering your voice the way they did in pre-teenage years.

Lead study author Daniel Abrams said, “Just as an infant knows to tune into her mother's voice, an adolescent knows to tune into novel voices. As a teen, you don't know you're doing this. You're just being you: You've got your friends and new companions and you want to spend time with them. Your mind is increasingly sensitive to and attracted to these unfamiliar voices.”

Researchers said, “The brain's shift toward new voices is an aspect of healthy maturation. A child becomes independent at some point, and that has to be precipitated by an underlying biological signal. This signal helps teens engage with the world and form connections which allow them to be socially adept outside their families.”

A study published in 2016 showed that children can identify their mother's voice with extremely high accuracy. Even fetuses in utero can recognize their mother's voice before they're born. Yet with adolescents their brains are tuning away from their mother’s voice in favor of voices they've never even heard.

Brain responses to voices increased with teenagers' age. In fact, the relationship was so strong researchers could use the information in adolescents' brain scans to predict how old they were. When teens appear to be rebelling by not listening to their parents, it is because they are wired to pay more attention to voices outside their home.

Passengers on an Emirates flight bound for Auckland, New Zealand that left Dubai one Friday morning ended up landing back at the same airport where it took off a little more than 13 hours later.

Flight EK448 departed at 10:30 a.m. local time but the pilot turned around nearly halfway into the almost 9,000-mile journey, landing back in Dubai just after midnight Saturday, according to FlightAware.

Auckland Airport was forced to close due to severe flooding. The airport statement said, "Auckland Airport has been assessing the damage to our international terminal and unfortunately determined that no international flights can operate today. We know this is extremely frustrating but the safety of passengers is our top priority."

Emirates said in a statement, "We regret the inconvenience caused to customers. Emirates will continue to monitor the situation in Auckland and issue updates where required."

Possible Preaching Angle:

Have you ever started on a long trip only to experience one complication after another only to find yourself right back where you started? In that case, you might begin to understand the frustration of the Israelites, who through disobedience, had to turn away in sight of the Promised Land and spend 40 years going around in circles in the desert before they returned to where they had started on the border of the Promised Land.

Federal law enforcement officers were dispatched to the Gold Coast Airport in Queensland, Australia after a drunk, disorderly woman refused to follow the crew’s instructions. Jetstar Airlines explained the situation in a brief statement afterward. “The safety of our customers and crew is our number one priority and we have zero tolerance for disruptive behavior.”

The woman, who one TikTok user referred to as a “drunk Karen,” clearly wore out her welcome among the nearby passengers who had to endure her belligerent behavior. On the posted TikTok video, police can be seen entering the plane and forcibly removing her from the aircraft, while onlookers began chanting the chorus to a 1969 hit from the band Steam. “Na na nahhh na, na na nahh na, hey hey hey … goodbye.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

In the words of the ancient African American proverb: “God don't like ugly.” While we're not to seek vengeance because it belongs to God, it's natural to be relieved when wrongdoers experience the consequences of their actions.

Wayward teenage years and a surprise pregnancy had Christine Scheller fearing she had lost her salvation. She shares her story in an issue of CT magazine:

I had just been arrested for smoking hash in the drive-through of a bank while the driver was trying to cash a stolen check. I was getting high while committing bank fraud. That’s how out-of-my-mind stupid I was at age 16.

After being arrested Christine landed in a juvenile shelter. Free of the drugs that had clouded her thinking, she realized her life was going nowhere fast. After a month at the shelter, she went to stay with a family who offered transitional housing to wayward teenagers.

Pat and Carl were born-again Christians. Their Christianity didn’t seem focused on rules and right doctrine like some of the Baptists Christine knew and she began to consider the gospel.

One day I found myself kneeling in prayer on the opposite side of the coffee table from Pat while Jim Bakker preached on TV. Pat raised her hand toward me and began praying. I was thrown backwards into the couch by an invisible force. With tears streaming down my face, I raised myself up and surrendered my life to Jesus.

Christine was admitted to Eastern Mennonite University (EMU). It was there that she was introduced to the terrifying idea that she could lose her newfound salvation if she died with unconfessed sin or didn’t persevere in following Jesus. She said, “I was entirely unprepared for the challenge this Arminian doctrine posed to my softly Reformed faith. I grew seriously anxious about my eternal security.”

She prayed, “God, I don’t even know if I’m really a Christian. But I know that if I am, you didn’t save me to leave me in this pit.” She had broken off a brief relationship with her boyfriend when she found out she was pregnant. The first person she told outside her immediate family was Jeff. He was an old friend who had become a Christian in prison after one too many drug busts.

When my son was two months old, Jeff came to visit. Over the next few months, he started falling in love with my baby and me. The first time Jeff kissed me; I knew I would marry him. Never before had I felt so unconditionally loved and cherished by a man, or so challenged by another person’s radical faith.

I told Jeff I didn’t know if I was really a Christian. He explained the grace of God in such a way that I finally understood that I could not make myself good enough to earn forgiveness. “The Bible says Jesus paid the price for all your sin—past, present, and future. Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.” The words finally sank in. They were coming from a trustworthy friend whose background was similar to my own.

As Jesus taught, those who have been forgiven much, love much. I’ve been forgiven much—both before and after my conversion—and I never forget it.

Editor’s Note: Christine Scheller is an award-winning journalist and CT contributor. She and Jeff will celebrate 30 years of marriage this year.

When artificially-intelligent robots began to first play chess, many analysts regarded it as a game-breaking innovation. But in Russia, you don’t break the game; the game breaks you. At least that was the case at the Moscow Open in July. According to local media, a seven-year-old boy named Christopher was playing against such a robot when it grabbed the boy’s finger, eventually breaking it.

Sergey Lazarev, president of the Moscow Chess Federation, acknowledged the incident in a comically understated fashion. Lazarev said, “The robot broke the child’s finger. This is of course bad.” Lazarev went on to explain that the robot had played several matches with other children without incident, and explained that the injury occurred because Christopher had probably forgotten to abide by one of the safety guidelines where players are supposed to let the robot finish its move before starting another move in response.

According to Lazarev, Christopher was not overly traumatized from the injury. He said, “The child played the very next day and finished the tournament.”

A federation official was quick to affirm that such injuries are rare and that the robot is still safe to engage. “There are certain safety rules and the child, apparently, violated them. This is an extremely rare case, the first I can recall. ... Apparently, children need to be warned. It happens.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sometimes technology that seems harmless can contain hidden dangers. We should be careful in how we make consumer decisions, particularly when deploying technology around our loved ones.

Representatives from the city of Portland appeared in federal court to address the city’s ongoing lack of compliance with a 2014 settlement agreement from the Department Of Justice. US District Court Judge Michael Simon was charged with assessing the city’s progress. And the initial feedback was less than positive.

City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty said, “I did not [want to] speak with the city today, because I don’t see myself standing with people saying, ‘We’re doing a good job.’ We’re not.” Hardesty pleaded with the judge to demand tangible actions to address departmental shortcomings.

The agreement was the result of a DOJ lawsuit against the city of Portland for consistent uses of excessive force, especially against people exhibiting signs of mental illness. And despite numerous hearings designed to shed light on the process since its 2014 inception, it had taken the city until February of 2020 for its police force to come into full policy compliance.

And yet, there were several incidents involving police response to the ongoing public protests throughout the summer of 2020 and into 2021 that revealed several operational gaps. City attorneys tried to explain these incidents as being products of extraordinary circumstances, but Hardesty and various community stakeholders say otherwise.

Attorney Ashlee Albies said, “PPB has held itself out as a learning organization. But in order to be a learning organization, it must self-reflect and do so critically. And it’s not for the purposes of punishment. It is for the purpose of … holding officers accountable, holding systems accountable, so that the public has faith in that system.”

Judge Simon agreed saying, “We want policing to work. We want our community to trust our police officers. We want our police officers to continue to feel good about what they do and to earn the respect of the people that they serve.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

As Christians it's our responsibility to respond to correction with humility and repentance. Refusing to do what's right is not being steadfast, but being stubborn.

Usually, a protest is designed to produce a favorable or positive goal. But for the passengers of American Airlines Flight 893 to Nassau, Bahamas it’s hard to see anything positive that resulted from the refusal of 30 students to wear masks aboard the plane.

According to a local news station, all the passengers were required to change planes because of mechanical issues. But once aboard the second plane, the students decided not to follow the crew’s instructions to wear masks. Passenger Malik Banks was seated next to the group. “It was bad. First, they were yelling. They were cursing. They were being very obnoxious.” He was quick to clarify that not all the students were behaving this way. “I would say 75% to 80% of them were being terrible kids, saying smart stuff.”

As a result of the students’ behavior, American Airlines canceled the flight. Passenger Christina Randolph was incensed. “Well, I’m a nurse, and it’s really, really hard to get time off work,” said Randolph. “So when you finally get time off, you really want to be somewhere you want to be.” The canceled flight meant everyone traveling to the Bahamas lost at least a day of vacation time, and another passenger noted that the delay was costly. “Some people’s vacations are ruined. They were only going for a couple of nights. Now, they have to get rebooked.”

A representative for American Airlines acknowledged the incident, and said that adult passengers were given hotel vouchers to spend the night. Due to age restrictions in booking hotels, however, the students had to spend the night at the airport. Randolph lamented, “All they had to do was follow the rules, put the mask on, sit there. No smart-mouth comments. And they couldn’t do it.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

God puts a premium on obedience because rebellion is not just costly for us, but for those around us. We have the power to bless others through our obedience or hurt them through our disobedience.

Courtney Wilson and Shenita Jones had lavish plans for their pending nuptials. The venue they selected had it all: a swimming pool with a waterfall, a hot tub, sauna, tennis courts, gazebos, even a bowling alley. They were scheduled to have the ceremony on Saturday, and a catered brunch on Sunday. The one thing they didn’t have? Permission.

Property owner Nathan Finkel had met with the couple months prior when they posed as potential buyers of the property, which was listed for sale with a $5 million price tag. When they later asked Finkel if they could stage their wedding there, he declined.

But that didn’t stop Wilson and Jones from sending out invitations to guests to gather at the property. According to attorney Keith Poliakoff, who represented the upscale suburban locale, the couple made a critical miscalculation.

“The guy figured it was a vacant house and didn’t realize Nathan lived on the property in a different home. This guy had no idea he lived there. You know the shock that must have been on his face when he showed up at the gate and the owner was home?”

Indeed, once Nathan saw that Wilson had arrived to begin setting up for the wedding, he called police to compel them to vacate the property. Nathan told the 911 dispatcher, “I have people trespassing on my property. And they keep harassing me, calling me. They say they’re having a wedding here. I don’t know what’s going on. All I want is it to stop.” When police arrived, Wilson left without incident. No charges were filed.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Law; Rules; Obedience – We can’t ignore laws just because they are inconvenient to our plans. If we attempt to ignore them, God will use the consequences of our actions to inform our behavior. 2) Kingdom of God; Parable; Salvation – This reminds us of the uninvited wedding guest in Jesus’ parable. All who come into the wedding banquet of the kingdom must come according to God’s rules. No “party-crashers” are allowed.

When a group of friends and families decided to hike to Shoshone Geyser Basin in Yellowstone, they tried to come prepared for the unexpected. But what they didn’t prepare for? Fines, probation, and a temporary ban from the park. Three of them pleaded guilty to the minor offense of “foot travel in a thermal area,” after being discovered by park rangers trying to cook their food in the park’s hot springs.

Park representative Linda Veress said, “A ranger responded and found two whole chickens in a burlap sack in a hot spring.” The ranger found the group and questioned them about their behavior before issuing citations. According to Veress, the laws in place that prohibit access beyond designated trails are there to protect not only the park itself, but the public as well. Hot spring waters can exceed 400 degrees Fahrenheit, with the potential to cause “severe or fatal burns.” Such was the case earlier this year, when a 3-year-old girl suffered second-degree burns after falling into a hydrothermal area. The same thing happened in 2016, but the 23-year-old died from his burns.

Eric Romriell says that he and his friends did their best to be careful, double-packing the chickens inside a roasting bag and a burlap sack to avoid contaminating the waters. He said, “The way I interpreted it was don’t be destructive, and I didn’t feel like I was.” Dallas Roberts, another member of the group, says he saw some signage indicating they were in a closed area, but didn’t think the signs applied to the hot springs themselves. He agreed that the group wasn’t doing any damage, but added, “I can see that we should not have done that.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

It's easy to rationalize disobedience when we think we're doing it for a good reason. But often the restrictions are in place for our own safety and protection. We violate them at our own peril.

You don’t have to “know” a rule to know that you should be following it. Take, for example, the rule of ablaut reduplication. Chances are, you have never heard of it, but you follow it all the same. Writer Mark Forsyth explains in his book Elements of Eloquence:

There are rules that everybody obeys without noticing … Have you ever heard that patter-pitter of tiny feet? Or the dong-ding of a bell? Or hop-hip music? That’s because, when you repeat a word with a different vowel, the order is always I A O. So politicians may flip-flop, but they can never flop-flip. It’s tit-for-tat, never tat-for-tit … If you do things any other way, they sound very, very odd indeed.

Teachers do not have to teach this rule in grammar school. But it is known all the same. Even when we don’t officially know the rules, we instinctively know we should follow them and can immediately identify when something is wrong.

Possible Preaching Angle: Conscience; Morals; Law of God – The same is true spiritually for each person on earth. God has “written the requirements of the law on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness” (Rom. 2:15). Though people try to ignore it or silence it, each one has a conscience that speaks of God’s rules.

Police cited a woman for speeding, hoping it would help her to slow down in the immediate future. Their hopes were in vain.

Deputies with the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department pulled over Chauntl Wilson for driving her yellow 2018 Ford Mustang over the speed limit, clocking her at 92 miles per hour when the limit was 75. However, after issuing the citation and letting her go, the deputies were surprised when she "accelerated very rapidly" and was shortly clocked again at a speed of 142 miles per hour, almost double the legal limit.

After engaging her in a pursuit, Wilson initially resisted, then eventually relented, and was eventually arrested and charged with willful reckless driving. Police also recovered a small amount of marijuana, which could result in further charges.

Potential Preaching Angle: Making a mistake is bad, but it's so much worse when we already know what is right but refuse to do it. Our knowledge of the truth makes us accountable for living it out with our actions.

It's considered "the other drug problem." Millions of people don't take their medicine correctly —or quit taking it altogether—and the consequences can be deadly. On average, half of patients with chronic illnesses like heart disease or asthma skip doses or otherwise mess up their medication. A report concludes that people with initially symptom-free diseases are most at risk. For instance, just 51 percent of high blood pressure patients stick with their medication as prescribed. Former President Bill Clinton was a recent high-profile example. He stopped taking his cholesterol-lowering medication and later needed open-heart surgery. The report estimates that this drug problem could be costing the country $177 billion in medical bills and lost productivity.

The reams of information stapled to the bag confuse some people. Other people forget to take their medication or they start feeling better and toss the rest of the bottle. Even doctors mess up and take their own prescriptions just 79 percent of the time.

The FDA is studying the problem and hopes to achieve better compliance through simpler drug labels and attention-grabbing ads about the dangers of not taking prescribed medications.

Potential Preaching Angles: 1) Bible reading; Obedience; Word of God - Just as regularly taking medication is essential for physical health, the habitual intake of Scripture is essential for good spiritual health. 2) Minister; Pastor; Preacher - We must be sure to teach and preach God's Word in "user friendly" words so that our people understand and practice it consistently.

In his TED Talk, "The Paradox of Choice," secular psychologist Barry Schwartz claims that many of us live by this unspoken but "official dogma": maximize your happiness by maximizing your individual freedom. And according to Schwartz, "The way to maximize freedom is to maximize choice."

Schwartz points to his local supermarket as an example—a place that offers 175 different kinds of salad dressings. Even our personal identity has become a matter of choice. "We don't inherit an identity," he says. "We get to invent it. And we get to re-invent ourselves as often as we like. And that means that every day, when you wake up in the morning, you have to decide what kind of person you want to be."

Schwartz ended his talk by pointing to a picture of two fish in a fishbowl as he said:

The truth of the matter is that if you shatter the fishbowl so that everything is possible, you don't have freedom. You have paralysis. If you shatter this fishbowl so that everything is possible, you decrease satisfaction … Everybody needs a fishbowl … The absence of some metaphorical fishbowl is a recipe for misery, and, I suspect, disaster.

Possible Preaching Angles: This would also work well as an object lesson illustration with a real fish in a fishbowl.

Nothing boosts the prestige of a food or beverage like the perception that it is traditional, hand-picked, fresh, or otherwise limited in production. But in a world full of manipulative marketers, the truffle is the real deal. A type of fungus that grows on tree roots, a few truffle varieties found in France, Spain, and surrounding areas are esteemed as a decadent addition to pasta and steaks. And these fickle cousins of mushrooms have proven impossible to mass produce; they are still dug up individually by dogs that track their scent.

Admirers contend that the truffle begins to lose its flavor as soon as it is pulled from the ground, and fresh truffle season really only lasts a season. The rarity and temporality of truffles has made them the most expensive food in the world. In 2007, a Macau casino owner set a record by paying $330,000 for a 3.3 pound truffle unearthed in Tuscany. The combination of these two trends—the desire for a convenient, ever-ready supply of an ingredient, and a hunger for the traditional, the rare, and "real food"—led to what would seem to be a remarkably successful scam on foodie culture: truffle oil.

But most truffle oil does not contain even trace amounts of truffle; it is olive oil mixed with 2,4-dithiapentane, a compound that makes up part of the smell of truffles and is as associated with a laboratory as Californian food is associated with local and organic ingredients. Essentially, truffle oil is olive oil plus truffles' "disconcerting" smell. Despite truffle oil's poor source, though, it has been used and praised by both average joes and renowned chefs. Truffle oil has been a remarkably successful con.

Possible Preaching Angles: Are we Christians in name only? Jesus warned against wolves in sheep's clothing or a "devotion to God" that involves no obedience to God.

Tim Irwin writes in “Impact: Great Leadership Changes Everything”:

In working with thousands of leaders over many years, I have observed that they rarely fail because of lack of competence. Clearly competence is necessary, but it is not sufficient to be a great leader. We must also have a strong core. The word "core" has become a major idea in the physical development of athletes and others interested in fitness. Core includes all of the muscles of the midsection. The core muscles stabilize the entire body and are prime contributors to strength and coordinated movement. Athletes in just about every sport focus on developing their core muscles because it has proven to make them so much better at whatever sport they play.

When our core is intact and congruent, others experience us as authentic, humble, and trustworthy. When our core is compromised or conflicted, others experience us as arrogant, self-serving, and insecure. No matter how artful their style or competent their actions, every failed leader I have studied had a malfunctioning core—it had been broken in some significant way.