Podcast listener named Lisa writes in to ask about chronic lateness.

She asks this, their pastor John is habitual tardiness, a sin.

How would you go about talking to fellow church members who are consistently late, like

10 or 15 or even 20 minutes late for their commitments?

What would you say, pastor John?

Maybe if I approach this in a certain way, it will prove useful, not just for dealing

with chronically late people, but perhaps with other irritants or foibles or flaws that

people have that we need to either address or just work around.

So I hope what I say here will be a broader use than only that one particular issue.

And the first thing we need to say, of course, everybody would think of this, I think, is

consider the culture you live in.

Whether a person is late is determined in part by cultural expectations of when one ought

to arrive, and there are some cultural differences among varying groups.

And of course, we think of cultures that are less oriented on precision, the kind that's

demanded by Western transportation and industry, such cultures may have for generations governed

their gatherings by where the sun is in the sky, not where the hands are on the clock.

And therefore one would not be considered late if he comes half an hour on either side

or maybe an hour on either side in that culture, that's just the way it is.

When I was in Germany back in the 70s, I was invited to my doctor father's house for

an evening gathering.

First time ever, I'm new in a German situation to know what to expect, so I took the train.

And by the way, you can count on the trains being on time, you know, me and eternity took

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