No Other Name

No Other Name

All was calm in the airport shuttle van until she boarded. “Maria” was slow to get in, giving an earful to the young port authority employee (not) helping her (enough) to arrange transportation to Manhattan. Then she promptly got on her cell phone and began doing business.

“Debbie? No? Then who is this? Where is Debbie? We were supposed to do an interview.”

Debbie was actress-choreographer Debbie Allen. I know this because Maria dropped her name multiple times. Clearly, there would be no interview for the “seventeen media outlets” apparently salivating for Maria’s story. The unfortunate person on the other end of the line got the same treatment as the port authority kid. The message was simple: they were stupid. She was important. In fact, she said so: “I’m like Barbara Walters or Anderson Cooper. I’m the busiest person in the world.” Oh yes, she did.

Did the person explaining Debbie’s absence not realize what an egregious error had been committed? “I took the red-eye in from LA and had one hour to spare, and I used it to prepare for this interview.” Oh, well then. And, “I have Kate Upton all week this week—I’m on my way to the Waldorf Astoria to meet with her, so this was the only time I could do the interview with Debbie.” Perhaps next week, her victim must have asked? Uh, no. Because “next week I’m in London all week with Tom Cruise.”

One name she dropped held my attention, though: Jesus Christ. She invoked it after she’d chewed out the kid on the curb, after Debbie’s assistant hung up on her, and when a laundry van nearly sideswiped us on the Queensboro Bridge. I held my tongue. I probably shouldn’t have. I wanted to say, “Oh—I know him! Do you?” Her final reference to Jesus was followed by this: “Do I have to do everything myself? [Bleeping] incompetents!”

I have good news for Maria. There is nothing we can do for ourselves. We are unable to change the trajectory of our soul’s destination. But Jesus can. He knows we are frail and sick and deeply flawed, and he loves us as if we were name-droppable A-listers. Because to him, we are.

This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else.

Acts 4:11-12, ESV