Impositions

There was a story on the Today Show last summer for a new app, an “AirBnB” for pools, Swimply. The idea is, you post your backyard onto the app, and people can pay an hourly rate to swim in your pool. During the interview, a Swimply host cited the “community building” as one of the greatest benefits of using the app.

And I thought--is this what community has come to? Paying our neighbors $40 an hour (and that’s a cheap listing) to swim in their pools?

Who knew we've been missing out on so much extra cash?

My own neighbor called me a few weeks ago to ask if I could feed his cats while he was out of town for a couple days.

I hate to impose, he said. But then again, I like being imposed on.

And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this. I like being imposed on. I wonder, when we’re so afraid to ask for help, to impose on others, who benefits? Probably not others. Certainly not ourselves.

For isn’t all any of us want on this side of heaven is to have purpose, to be needed by someone? And what is purpose if not loving, helping, being needed by others?

But why need each other when we can get an Uber for Teens; it’s faster than getting to know and trust our kids’ friends’ parents. We can use an app to hire strangers to walk our dogs; it’s less awkward than trying to talk to the 12-year-old down the street. We can use AI to pick a paint color or keep a plant alive without ever having to consult another human. (Side note--the same neighbor went on to tell me how he renovated his entire home himself in the ‘80s. And this was before the internet, he reminded me. It was talking to the guy at the hardware store, going to Home Depot, consulting coworkers and friends.)

We are promised trouble in this world: our outward selves are wasting away (2 Corinthians 4:16). And when life gets hard, when we lose someone, when our heart is broken, is it an app we turn to? Unfortunately sometimes. But it can instead be one another.

The brokenness in this world feels overwhelming at times. And yet what if the world is no scarier, no crazier, no more broken than it’s ever been? We’ve always been in desperate, desperate need of a different kind of king. We now hold an all-encompassing mirror of our own sin nature in our hands, and we drown in it. We fear more, and we turn further inward.

But what if a first step to healing is to turn outward, to look to a neighbor and ask for help. To ask for tips on pruning your hydrangeas. Ask for help on picking a paint color. Ask for help feeding your cat.

And maybe we will find that we like being imposed on, too.