The Company We Keep

Trying to talk sense to Marie

You hang around with coconuts, you get nowhere. They're lemons

Hang out with nice people, you get nice friends.

Hang out with smart people, you get smart friends.

Hang out with yo-yo people, you get yo-yo friends.

It's simple mathematics.

Rocky to Marie in Rocky

It happens every fall: good Christian kids sprout wings and head off to college or leave for boot camp. And their parents who are left behind struggle with the same fear: that their regular church-going child who generally keeps their nose clean will fall into bad company and become tainted. That this very scenario is, in fact, played out again and again doesn't help these same parents feel any better about dropping their kid off at school and driving away. Because truly the company we keep affects the conduct of our life more than we realize.

I think about that moment in Abraham's life when Lot, having chosen the greener pastures of the plain, leads his herds away (Genesis 13:11). That kid has been the closest thing to a son he's ever had. He joined him on the great migration from Ur to Canaan. He took the Egyptian detour with him and, when he had been given his walking papers from there, “Lot went with him” (Genesis 13:1). Their travels and trials they had shared certainly had bonded them together as much as lineage had. But in Lot literally throwing in his lot with the “cities of the plain”, there is something more than a change in scenery going on. He is renouncing his uncle's way of life – the simple life of a herdsmen living remotely in the hill country comfortably far from the urban trade centers in the valley below. Abram's routine of pitching his tent and building an altar (Genesis 12:8) perhaps is too austere for a young guy with Lot's aspirations. So while the parting of the ways was a pragmatic and amicable solution to a very real problem of resources, it was bound to happen. Though related by blood, these guys are captivated by two very different visions. Still, while Scripture is silent, I can't imagine Abram not feeling the sting of loss as he watches Lot and his entourage slowly slip off the horizon.

At first, Lot “lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom” (13:12). By the time war comes to the plains, he is living in Sodom (14:12). While we naturally assume what was going on in that town, the author doesn't tell us. He simply states that the atmosphere of this community was “against the LORD” (13:13). There is no fear of God in the place. While the fruit may have been ripe for the picking in Sodom is it really the place you want to call home? Apparently for Lot this was not deterrent enough to keep him from moving in and setting up shop. Many years later on the eve of judgment, Lot is now “sitting in the gate” (19:1), a Bible euphemism that means he had become a leader in that community. First he lived near them, then among them and by the night the fire fell from the sky he was one of them, his wandering days with Uncle Abe a distant memory. It's the Bible's way of describing the natural progression away from the lifestyle of his upbringing and that of the man who had been his surrogate dad for many, many years. Lot would have been wiser to find better neighbors.

The people of Refuge probably get tired of me referencing that wonderful scene from Rocky where Rocky is escorting Marie home through a fairly seedy neighborhood. He's trying to share some fatherly advice with this young girl about being smart about the people you “hang” with:

This is how good advice is often received

Hang out with nice people, you get nice friends.

Hang out with smart people, you get smart friends.

Hang out with yo-yo people, you get yo-yo friends.

It's simple mathematics.

Certainly good parents would agree with Rocky's advice. In fact, most of us are keen to the company our kids keep because we know that if the friends of our kids are “a bunch of coconuts” it will only spell trouble sooner or later. But his advice applies to we adult-types, too. If our circle of friends is made up of “worldlings” exclusively how can their attitudes and values not have some impact on us if we are not also interacting with fellow disciples of the Way? It's not that we should avoid friendships with pagans and outsiders but if they are our only circle of friends we may find one day that we have moved from living near them to living among them and have developed a taste for some of their fare. All the more reason to seek out authentic Christian fellowship where we can be mutually encouraged in the way of faith and the kingdom of God.