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Faith and Culture

boys will be…

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October 7th, 2016

It was a Friday evening, and I was in a hotel room in Atlanta. I had made the trip from Nashville to Atlanta to interview for a youth ministry position at a church there. It was a Friday night,  and it turned out to be one of those times when you don’t remember where you were because something significant happened specifically to you; you remember where you were because something happened out in the world and it seemed eternally significant. After meeting some of the church leadership for dinner, I had returned to my hotel room and turned on the radio coverage of the Chicago Cubs divisional round playoff game against the San Francisco Giants. Then, as had become a habit during the months leading up to that night, I turned on the news to see what was happening with the upcoming election. What I found was more than I had bargained for.

That night the Washington Post had released an Access Hollywood tape of a conversation between soon-to-be-President Donald Trump and television personality Billy Bush from about 10 years prior. They were on a bus pulling into where Trump would be making a cameo on a soap opera that day. The conversation that we all overheard seemed to stop the nation for a night. At one point towards the beginning of the footage, Donald Trump is telling Bush about a failed sexual conquest:

Trump: I moved on her, actually. You know, she was down on Palm Beach. I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it.

Unknown: Whoa.

Trump: I did try and f*** her. She was married.

Unknown: That’s huge news.

Trump: No, no, Nancy. No, this was [unintelligible] — and I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping.

She wanted to get some furniture. I said, “I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.” I took her out furniture —

I moved on her like a b****. But I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony t**s and everything. She’s totally changed her look.

This was plenty bad, but it gets worse. The listeners can hear the laughter of Bush in the background. Fueled by the affirmation, Trump continues when they see Actress Arianne Zucker:

Trump: Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

Bush: Whatever you want.

Trump: Grab ’em by the p****. You can do anything.

As much as I didn’t want Trump to be elected and had been hoping that something – anything – would derail his campaign, those words made me sick to my stomach. My intestines tightened and my face felt flushed.

I clicked from news channel to news channel, and everybody was covering it. Showing the video. Using the p-word on TV. Somehow, even this was becoming a partisan issue. The Trump campaign and surrogates had already begun to spin this potential deathblow as merely Locker Room Talk. There were men and women alike claiming that this was simply boys being boys. Saying that this type of conversation was normal.

Thinking that this was surely something that people would be unequivocally condemning on social media, I opened up Facebook. Many of my friends had shared articles detailing what the tape revealed, most saying that this was unacceptable behavior from someone wanting to be the President of the United States. But what I found under their posts in the comments section was appalling. So many people replying things like this real comment thread from a friend’s post:

“How about supporting a liar like Hilliary.”

“Trump has his issues bit I’d rather support him than the alternative”

“I’ve heard all kinds of “locker room talk” but I will never stand for a women who trashed other women that were raped and abused in the White House..she admits she is different when public compared to when she is private..laughed when she got a man off with 2 months in jail for raping a 12 yr old girl..the list goes on and on..y’all are beyond insane if you don’t vote for trump..BELIEVE ME”

“Preach it Jeff!!!! I am way more concerned with Kill-liar-y’s actions than something Trump simply said over 10 years ago!!!!”

I was shocked. This wasn’t about the other candidate, who happened to be a woman. It was about human decency and the level of morality we expect from men in our society. I didn’t know what to do, but I felt like I needed to say something. People needed to speak up in reasonable and just ways. So I commented back in the thread:

Jeff, what locker rooms have you been hanging out in? I played sports in high school and spent a ton of time in college dorms with groups of guys, and never did I hear the graphic vulgarity that Donald Trump used while describing his sexual exploitations of women in the video. This “boys will be boys” attitude is the reason that so many are sexually assaulted every single day in our country. My heart breaks for our society that a man like this is in contention for the highest office in our country.

I don’t know what I expected to happen next. Maybe I had hoped that I would change everyone’s mind. Maybe I just hoped that I would “win” this Facebook bout with a stranger. Another guy commented back:

Michael Clinger, don’t even know you, this post just stumbled along my feed but give me a break man. Denying that you never heard vulgarity like that and you are a grown man is simply blasphemy.

For some reason, I remember this hitting me harder than listening to the words on the tape. It hit me harder than seeing people on TV defend Trump’s words. I had entered into a gunfight with only a knife. He was implying that either I wasn’t a man or that I had no integrity. Neither were true. Both hurt.

And there alone in my hotel room with no one to talk to, I cried.

 

You know the rest of the story. Donald Trump went on to win the 2016 Election in a sizable Electoral College victory. Despite being investigated for the last two years, it has been reported that Donald Trump himself was most likely unaware of any Russian interference and did not personally collude with a foreign agent to steal the 2016 Election.

Still the most shocking statistic to me: 81% of white Evangelicals voted for President Trump.

 

So how does someone get to the point where they will talk that way with another television personality? Or for regular folks like me, how does a man get to the point where they will talk in such a demeaning way? And then when that happens, how has our society gotten to a place where that is seen as normal?

Boys will be boys.

A statement commonly made around groups of boys and men of all ages from the womb to the tomb. I don’t know where this phrase originated, but when used it means that when groups of boys are together, they often do things that are reckless, adventurous, and mischievous, and that’s just how it is. We use the same phrase when a 8-year-old accidentally throws a baseball bat into the screen door, and when a pair of drunk 40-year-old men verbally assault an 18-year-old college basketball player. When the older 6-year-old brother cuts the hair of his 3-year-old little brother, and when a group of fraternity brothers throw a pledge into the trunk of their car and leave him there for hours.

Girls misbehavior is not so easily excused with a quippy phrase. Girls will be girls does not apply when two women get into a verbal altercation at a bar. It is not an excuse when two high school girls get caught peeing on their softball teammates mouthpiece.

Parents spend most of their lives warning their daughters about boys. Don’t be alone with a boy. Don’t talk to strange men. Don’t be out alone. Don’t be out late at night. Don’t wear that dress. Don’t talk that way. Don’t lean in for the kiss. Say no. Say no. Say no.

For all of the time that we spend warning our daughters about boys, we spend almost no time teaching our sons not to be the boys that daughters have to be warned about. We don’t teach boys that it’s not ok to refer to women as hoes or b*tches. It’s not ok to talk to your guy friends about women’s breasts and butts and what you’d like to do with them. It’s not ok to stand or sit too close to a girl that you don’t know. It’s not ok to ask personal questions to girls that you don’t know or just met. It’s not ok to touch girls that you don’t know, or even most girls that you do know. It’s not ok to whisper in the ear of a girl that you don’t know. It’s not ok to approach a girl that you don’t know who is by herself and looks distressed. It’s not ok to comment on a girl’s appearance in passing. It’s not ok to ask a girl in passing if she has a boyfriend or to ask what she’s doing later. It is not ok. That’s a lot, but I could go on.

And if you think that those guidelines are too much, or you think “How then can I even talk to women?” Just don’t. They’ll be ok, likely even better off.

A big reason that we have the amount of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment that we do is because we let too many of these seemingly small things slide. No one just wakes up one morning as a sexual predator. If we don’t address these issues as men to other men, nothing will change. 

 

There’s a couple more elements of the Access Hollywood Tape that are important to note, not because they are the most incendiary or the most clearly vile, but because they are the types of things that we don’t often callout or even notice. Understanding their problematic nature may go a long way.

When Donald Trump and Billy Bush get off of the bus, they are greeted by actress Arianne Zucker. After a brief hello and introduction, this is what happens:

Bush: How about a little hug for the Donald? He just got off the bus.

Zucker: Would you like a little hug, darling? [Zucker hugs Trump]

Trump: O.K., absolutely. Melania said this was O.K.

Bush: How about a little hug for the Bushy? I just got off the bus. [Zucker hugs Bush]

Zucker: Bushy, Bushy.

It’s a strange interaction to read through no doubt, and even if you watch it, it may seem rather harmless, but there is something underlying that needs to be spoken about. Neither Trump nor Bush has met Zucker before. These are strangers. When Bush asks for hugs for Trump and himself, it’s not a true ask. There’s power dynamics at play here, Bush and Trump with the clear leverage. “How about a little hug for the Donald?” is said in a way that you would tell a little girl to hug her uncle. Here’s the thing:

Women should not be treated in this way. At least in modern society, we’re starting to empower women to say no and teaching our little girls that their body is theirs and no one else’s, but what we’re not doing is teaching boys that it’s not ok to approach girls in that way. We’re teaching girls not to take it, but we’re not teaching boys not to make those attempts.

Women and their bodies are not objects for the enjoyment of others. Though no one would come out and say the contrary (hopefully no one would), we send that message implicitly as we raise our girls. When we pick our 4-year-old girl up from preschool and see that she’s playing with a boy, we ask “Is that your boyfriend?” As if she being just friends with the boy isn’t pure and good the way it is. We imply this when we say to our aging daughters, “How about a hug for Uncle Jon?” We send this message in churches when we tell our teen girls that they need to save their bodies for their future husbands. We have to be aware of the implicit messaging that is happening.

Men, clearly there are prohibitions for the ways in which we approach women that we don’t know, but there should also be prohibitions for the ways we approach women that we do know. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you’re her teacher, pastor, or relative, there are still ways that you should not initiate physical contact with a woman. If she wants to hug you, she will come in for a hug. We have turned our heads and looked the other way too many times when pastors or family members abuse their power and position. 

 

Here’s the last thing on the tape that I’ll talk about. Talk of sexual conquests and objectification do not happen in a vacuum. As a man who has lived a mere 25 years on this earth, I have both heard and said things that I regret about women in front of other men. It’s not uncommon for men, but especially for teenage boys, to speak about women in ways that are alarming. Locker room talk certainly exists, though very rarely to the graphic degree displayed on the Access Hollywood tape. In every situation regarding this kind of interaction, there are two types of people, the talker, and the enabler. On the tape, you should be able to figure out that Trump is the talker, and Bush is the enabler. In my life, I have been both, and I would assume that most men have. Both positions are born out of personal insecurities and a lack of conviction. Neither are acceptable.

Three months ago, I was with some friends (men and women), and we were heading to our cars in a parking lot in Brentwood. For those not familiar with Nashville suburbs, most would refer to Brentwood as a “good part of town.” I think to most people, “good part of town” just means bigger houses and whiter people. We stopped to talk for a minute, and we were laughing as two boys aged 16 or 17 were walking past us to their car. One of the boys said to our group, specifically the girls, “B*****s always be playing, with your heart and with your d***.” One of the girls I was with responded and the boys proceeded to yell back as they drove away. I was honestly shocked. As far as fight, flight, or freeze is concerned, I was in full freeze mode. Once again, my intestines felt like they had tightened up and my face felt flushed. I legitimately was having a hard time processing what I was feeling or thinking about it. My surprise regarding the situation pointed to my naïvety. The girls weren’t as shocked. They had experienced moments like that before.

As I reflect on that experience, I think about how it was just one of the two boys doing the talking. The other was there, laughing along as if it were the funniest thing ever. And that’s most of us men, most of the time. For too long we have sat on the sidelines and shamefully chuckled as we have let our peers believe that what they do and say is not only ok, but it is valuable. And I certainly know the tension of the moment. There are too many times to count in my life in which I didn’t speak up. Too many times where I was intimidated at the thought of being ousted from a group. But enough is enough. We have to start taking one for the team. Men, let’s call each other to a higher standard. It will be awkward and difficult, but what’s worth doing that isn’t hard?

There is a difference in acknowledging that conversations amongst men in which women are objectified are normal, and in viewing them as an acceptable aspect of life. In 2016, American Evangelical Christians showed that culturally, we are the enabler. As enablers, we don’t really believe that what is being done is right, but we have counted the cost of standing up to the talker, and we’ve decided that it’s not worth it. It’s easier to laugh along at what’s being said than it is to point out the talker for what he is.

We have failed in holding each other to a standard of morality and human decency. Churches have failed in extinguishing the fires of misogyny and objectification and, in many cases, have stoked them. More than that, American churches have for too long enabled male leaders to dodge the issues behind the facade of not wanting to be “political.” The “moral majority” that arose during the 20th century has become the immoral majority. Christians, we need to be speaking honestly about what we will no longer be standing for. It is time to rise up and cast aside our prejudices and broken systems. Even if that means blowing it up and starting over.

It’s easy to see these issues as too big to tackle, but the thing about time is that we can make major progress in just one generation. Let’s not hand down the same baggage to our kids that we were dealt. We have to start teaching boys from an early age that they need to respect the girls in their lives as equals, and that they need to stand up to other boys when they are speaking negatively or harmfully to or about girls. What our young boys hear now will shape who they become. Let’s stop shrugging off misogyny and objectification as “boys being boys” or as “locker room talk.” No more excuses, let’s be better.

Faith, Faith and Culture

privilege of walking

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I wrote the following essay a few months ago (June 5th, 2018). I don’t know why I didn’t share it then. I guess I was a little ashamed that I’m not further along with some issues than I am. I think I was also a little scared. Scared that my life may not live up to the ideas that I proclaim myself to seek out. I’m a person, and I don’t always walk the walk as well as I talk the talk. Maybe you can relate to that.

I think this afternoon, I needed to read this again. A couple weeks ago, a young black man, Botham Shem Jean, was killed in his apartment in Dallas by a police officer. For some reason, I felt this one more than a lot of other similar shootings. It could be that I know people who are close to the situation, and it could be that Botham was about my age, went to a school of the same faith tradition as me, and was heavily involved in his University’s community and his church family, much like I am. Maybe it was the Spirit of God giving me a feeling of conviction.

I have put off saying much publicly about my feelings regarding the painful situation in Dallas. I didn’t want anyone to feel as though I was trying to jump in on something that wasn’t mine to jump in on, and I hope that this isn’t perceived that way.

I hope that I am not the only one that this injustice has awakened.

 

 

Tonight I went for a walk through my neighborhood.

I started going on walks through my neighborhood last summer due to some stress and a consistent need to clear my head.  I have found that these walks have given me space to talk to God, or to be more clear, talk to myself about myself in front of God.  Yeah, I talk to myself often.  Those who have ever lived with me or walked in front of me can probably attest to that.  I don’t think I have a clinical disorder, maybe it’s just more that I really like to hear myself speak.  Either way as I walk the neighborhood, a lot of my thoughts just come out.  They come out free and unedited.  Sometimes as I walk, I learn that I think and feel things that I didn’t previously know that I thought and felt.

It’s a beautiful evening out in Nashville tonight.  The weather is perfect, and a lot of people have chosen to spend it on their front porch, playing with their dog, or going for a walk themselves.  As I passed other people, we exchanged a smile and a wave, sometimes a hello.  People have always seemed to be pretty receptive to me right off the bat.  Maybe it’s my face or my approachable, non-threatening body shape, who knows.  As my thoughts wandered out of my head tonight, I kept coming back to one thing in particular:  how might this walk be different if I weren’t white?

…

I remember a time before I was white.  In elementary school, most of my friends at school weren’t white, and they never told me that I was.  We ate lunch together, played together at recess, and participated in a school percussion group together.  On Valentine’s Day I gave everyone a Spiderman valentine.  I got a bunch of different valentines too.  I was good at a lot of things, mostly school stuff.  I won a bunch of awards for the school’s core virtues: responsibility, respect, trustworthiness, citizenship.  I was really good at math and spelling.  I don’t know that my self esteem has ever been higher than it was in elementary school.

I’m not really sure at what age or point in my life it clicked that I was white and some people weren’t.  Somewhere in middle school probably.  I think I’ve subconsciously blocked out most of middle school.  I had to go to a new school in 5th grade.  A private, Christian one at that.  People at my new school had more money than people at my old school.  I guess no one ever really feels like they fit in when they’re in middle school, but I definitely felt like a fish out of water.  The idea of race started to creep in.  As I got older, I noticed that the few black kids at school were all friends with each other.  I heard a joke here, told it there.  It doesn’t take long before that becomes the new normal.

In high school, I still didn’t realize that I was white.  Intellectually I did, but I didn’t have any grasp whatsoever on the weight of what it means to be white.  Being white was normal.  If I was telling a story about one of my white friends, they were never “my white friend,” they were just my friend.  If I was telling a story about one of my few non-white friends, they were “my black friend” or “my hispanic friend.”  I spent hours upon hours in parking lots in high school just talking with my other white friends.  I don’t remember ever getting a sideways glance.  One time in particular, after church, my white youth group friends and I went to Wendy’s.  I maybe ordered a frosty, if that.  We stayed at a table at Wendy’s until they closed for the night.  Then we went out in the parking lot and talked for another couple hours.  Those times are some of my fondest memories from high school, just sitting in public places until late at night, talking and joking with my youth group friends.  Never one time did I even have a thought of “could we do this if we weren’t white?”

I think the Trayvon Martin tragedy was the first time I ever thought that perhaps someone might be viewed differently than me because they aren’t white.  I remember seeing LeBron and the rest of the Miami Heat wearing hoodies.  I knew it was related to the Trayvon Martin story, but I didn’t really feel it.  I remember being a 20-year-old Junior in college at my predominantly white, private Christian university here in Nashville and seeing the events in Ferguson on the news after the Michael Brown shooting.  I remember being in my dorm room with my friend Cedric as we watched on CNN.  In that moment, I knew deep down in my gut that something wasn’t right.  I remember within a week or two of that memory, I went with a group of friends to Nashville’s Live On The Green when, during the show, protesters made their way to the front with signs chanting “NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE.”  At that time I thought, “Why are they protesting here and now and in this way?  Couldn’t more be accomplished by sitting down and having a civilized conversation?”

Over the next couple years, the back end of college, I grew a lot.  As more of these cases of policing came to light, I learned about implicit racial bias.  In short, implicit bias is you feeling different about seeing someone that looks like me (white, 24-year-old man) walking through your neighborhood wearing a hoodie at night than you would feel about seeing a black 24-year-old man wearing a hoodie walking through your neighborhood at night.  Or to give another example: someone might feel different about 5 black young men hanging out in a parking lot than they would 5 white young men.  I learned that everyone in the world, based on their life experience, has some sort of implicit bias.  Perhaps most importantly, I learned that I have implicit bias.  I don’t say that everyone has implicit bias to communicate that there’s nothing that we can do about it, I communicate that as a way of saying that I believe coming to grips with our implicit biases is a key beginning step in our growth.

I also learned towards the end of school that once the person or people in power are dictating how someone else chooses to express themselves in protest, it is no longer a protest.  Protests are designed to disrupt in order to get someone’s attention.  The reason people feel the need to protest is not to ruin my concert or an NFL game, often a reason that people protest is because they were not invited to the conversation and feel unheard.  So when we are upset by someone’s protest, perhaps we should invite them to the table, not write them off.

By the end of college, I felt much more of the weight of what it means to be white.  So much so that I had begun to dissociate with my whiteness.  I began to feel a sense of shame about what it means to be white in America.  I felt overwhelmed with the history of how white people in our country have oppressed black and brown bodies.  First with colonization and slavery, then with Jim Crow, and now with mass incarceration.  When confronted with the dark realities of U.S. history, it’s hard to not want to run and hide.  Being naïve is one thing, but once we have faced the reality of systemic oppression throughout our history, what we absolutely cannot do is shrug it off.

Only in the last year have I begun to realize that being ashamed of being white is not a helpful posture either.  To be white and socially conscious, I believe we have to understand our privilege.  The more I think about my life, my history, and my current day-to-day dealings, the more I see myself benefitting from white privilege.  To my white friends, me claiming that white privilege exists in our culture today is not me saying that white people do not work for what they have.  I would go more in depth on the realities of implicit bias, systemic oppression, and white privilege, but that would take many more words.  Furthermore, many more learned men and women writers, authors, and speakers have tackled these issues in great depth, and I would much rather leave you to read their work.

So now I find myself in a position where I ask myself the question: As a white man, how do I use the platforms that I’m given?

The conclusion that I am coming to is this: When possible, use my seat at the table to bring diversity to the table, even if this means giving up my seat.

Granted, I’m 24.  I’m young, and I have a lot of growing up to do still.  Perhaps in a few years I’ll look back at this time and think, “Wow I was young and dumb.”  The great thing about writing for me is that later I get to look back and see where I’ve come from.  I don’t know if anyone will ever read this, but I hope that if you do, you will grant me some grace because I know I probably said some things wrong.  More than that, I hope reading this may propel you to growth.  We all have room to grow, a next step to take, a new conversation to start.  Me included. Scratch that, especially me.

Faith, Faith and Culture, Uncategorized

A Push and a Promise – A Message for Graduates

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This past Sunday at New Garden Church in Nashville, we had our Graduation Sunday where we affirmed and honored the achievements of our high school grads.  As the Student Minister, I got to share a message with our awesome graduates and our church.  Here’s a manuscript of the message:

 

Let me just say that this is one of my favorite Sundays every year.  I’m so glad to be part of a church that says we want to affirm our high school grads in front of everyone.  So grads, let me start by saying, these are your people.  And church, let me start by saying, that we have a lot to be proud of with this group.

This week, in preparation for this morning, I spent some time wondering about the question:

“What does a student graduating from high school need?”

I asked my Facebook friends, and I got some good and weird answers (as Facebook does), things like:

A Cell Phone Charger, Access to transportation, A book, and A tool box. You need to know your SSN, you need someone you can talk to, A mentor. You need money management skills, Bandaids, and Laundry detergent

When I graduated high school, I thought I needed a lot of things.  I thought I needed to go to college, I thought I needed some graduation gifts, I thought I needed a new pair of shoes, and maybe most of all, I thought I needed to get a girlfriend.  Like me when I graduated, you probably don’t have all those things.

You all have been raised in a new era.  More and more you are able to see what the world has to offer.  You’ve grown up in a world where at just the tap of a screen, you can find anything that you want, good, bad, or ugly.  You’ve grown up in a world where at just the tap of the screen, you can make someone feel good, bad, or ugly.  Some would say that the world that you’ve grown up in is a better world than some past generations, and some would say that the world you’ve grown up in is a world that is farther gone than it was before.

I think either way, you’re not ready for the world.

I don’t think you’re ready for the heartache and the conflict.  I don’t think you’re ready for the inevitable failure coming your way, and I don’t think you’re ready for those things that you can’t control.  You’re going to make mistakes, and it’s going to hurt.  And I know that on some level, you’ve already been through some stuff that you weren’t ready for.

But here’s the thing, it’s not just you that’s not ready.  Look around at all these adults, none of us were ready when we were in your position, and we’re still not ready.

And 2,000 years ago, Jesus gave his disciples a task that they weren’t ready for.

After hanging out with this group of people for three years, they surely ate over a thousand meals together, they traveled together, and they had seen many miracles done in the name of Jesus.  The sick were healed, the blind received sight, and the dead were raised back to life.  But they still weren’t ready.

After Jesus was raised back to life, he was around and appeared to different people until it was time for him to go away.  And so Jesus has these people, his friends and followers meet him on a mountain for his final words to them on earth.

We’re going to pick up there in Matthew chapter 28:

16 Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him—but some of them doubted!

Even after everything they had seen, three years of hearing Jesus teach and watching Him interact with the world, three years of miracles, and then being witnesses to the ultimate miracle, Jesus rising out of the tomb he was barricaded in, these people still doubt!  We find it easy to blame them, but I think this shows that doubting is part of the journey.  Along the way, we all doubt our faith.  It’s hard and confusing, but it’s part of following Jesus.  Having doubt is not wrong, and it is nothing to be ashamed of.  In those times of doubt, what’s important is that we don’t isolate ourselves.  Keep the conversation going. Find people who are willing to be in that with you.  If you need someone, I would suggest taking a look around this room.

Now we get to Jesus’ final words to his followers, A pep talk of sorts.:

“I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. 

He starts off letting them know He is in charge.  Jesus has authority.  What Jesus has said will come to pass.  We can trust that when Jesus says something, God’s going to back it up.  

Then Jesus gives them some parting instructions: “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you.”  Now sometimes we see this and we think it means we need to move to away to find people and turn them into church people, but this is better translated “As you go” instead of simply “go.”  So as you are doing whatever comes next, make disciples, baptize, and teach.

Sounds pretty easy, right? Wrong!  These followers of Jesus were not ready!  And when we read these instructions, neither are we!  I know that you’ve grown up in church or youth group, but this is scary and confusing.  Where do we start?  What do we say?  How do we get from here to there?

Jesus doesn’t wait till we’re ready to give us a push.

But Jesus doesn’t just give his followers a command, He gives them a promise.  And that’s what I want us to be focused on today.  Jesus goes on to say:

“And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

When Jesus tells us to go out into the unknown, He doesn’t leave us.  When Jesus tells us to make disciples, baptize, and teach the world, He knows we’re not ready!  When Jesus tells us to seek justice in an unjust world, He doesn’t expect or desire that we do it alone.

When Jesus gives us a push, He also gives a promise.

There used to be a kids swimming instructor in the area who had an interesting strategy for teaching kids to swim.  If you went to her lessons and didn’t know how to swim, and refused to get in the pool, she would literally push you in.  But guess what?  To my knowledge, they didn’t let anyone drown.  The instructors were there, in the pool, for when the kid needed a hand.  There was a push, but there was also a promise, “You aren’t going to drown.”

Now I know that this season of life has a lot of potential stress involved in it.  People asking you “what’s next?” “where to?” and all those other question that you don’t have a great answer to, and even if you do have solid plans, those will likely change.  You’re not ready, but you’re not going to drown.

So today, I want to give you, and all of us, a push.  But I also want to give you a promise.

Your life is here now, and it has been here. A story has already begun to be written with your life.  As you go about what’s next, fill those pages with a life following Jesus, you won’t regret it.  And that doesn’t mean your life will be boring!  Dream big, try new things, don’t be afraid to fail!  As you transition from this stage into what’s next, keep in mind what we are called to do, share our faith with the people we encounter along the way.  There will be plenty of opportunities to fiercely love your friends and your enemies.  There will be plenty of opportunities to seek justice for those who are not treated the right way.  There will be plenty of opportunities to show humility and place the needs of others above your own.  In all of these things, I am pushing you to follow Jesus, even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.

With that push comes a promise.  God will be with you always.  And that will look different at different times.  Sometimes God will give you the words to say to a friend in need.  Sometimes God will give you a friend’s warmth when you feel alone.  Sometimes God will show up right when you’re ready to give up.  God will be there.

Furthermore, I want to promise that the people of God in this room today will be there for you.  I don’t know how you feel about church or church people, and I don’t know how you’ll feel about church or church people in 5 years, 20 years, or 50 years, but I can tell you that no matter where we meet, what songs we sing, or what we call ourselves, the people of God care deeply for you.  We cannot follow Jesus on our own.  And guess what, you don’t have to be perfect or even pretty good to be with us.

I always say, that there’s nothing you can ever do to make God love you more, and there’s nothing you can ever do to make God love you less.  And we want to have that same mindset.  You are never too far gone to find a home here with us.  Never.  Our door will always be open to you.

Faith, Uncategorized

Spider-Man, Creation, and Blemishes

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Have you ever made something that you were really proud of? A masterpiece of sorts?

When I was in third grade, I created a masterpiece.

In Art class, we had a new teacher named Mr. Stevens.  He was a really cool younger teacher.  Ok maybe I don’t know how cool he actually was, but to a boy in 3rd grade, a male teacher who isn’t old and boring is super cool.  Mr. Stevens was a really talented doodler, and he loved Marvel comics.  He would always show us some of his drawings of The Hulk, Wolverine, and others.  Spider-Man was his favorite superhero.  Spider-Man is undoubtedly cool; he’s a high schooler that can shoot super strong spider webs from his wrists, climb buildings without any gear, and fly through New York City swinging from web to web and building to building.  I probably would have thought Spider-Man was cool anyway, but the fact that Mr. Stevens liked him really put me over the top.  Mr. Stevens had a ton of drawings of Spider-Man in his classroom that he would show us, most of them were of Spider-Man swinging through New York City.

So one day, after watching Mr. Stevens draw Spider-Man a few times, I decided that I wanted to give it a try.  I started with Spider-Man’s eyes and head followed by the rest of his body, very carefully making sure everything was drawn to scale.  I finished with the web and the tall Manhattan buildings in the background.  It was a masterpiece.

Mr. Stevens had inspired me to create something that took detail and time, and it was the best picture that I had ever drawn (and to this day still might be).  But it wasn’t perfect. I still remember the blue mark that I accidentally scratched onto the paper.  The drawing got partially crumpled in my classically unorganized backpack.  And there were some other spots where I had gotten a tad careless and colored slightly outside of the lines that I had created.

When I look back on that time now, I realize that this seemingly insignificant art class experience was actually teaching me something past how to draw a bomb superhero picture.  I learned that creating something is exciting, worthwhile, and takes time.  I also learned that everything we create will have its blemishes.

In Genesis, our Creator God creates humankind in the Image of God.  Our creative God created creative people.  God then blesses them and commands them to create:

“Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”  Then God said, “Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—everything that has life.”

In the Bible, the first thing God tells people is essentially this: “I have created all of this for you. Be creative, fill it, take care of it. Go enjoy creation.”

So we know how the story goes, in their creating, they make some mistakes.  They had to leave the Garden, and we call that whole tiny part of the Bible the “Creation Story.”  But God was far from finished creating, that was just the beginning.  Since then, God has continued in the task of creating and so have God’s creative people.

Since the Garden, people have created all kinds of things and very rarely gotten it right the first (or second) time!  Someone at some point figured out how to create fire and then someone found what to use it for.  People created wheels, irrigation, chariots, and now motorized vehicles, running water, and iPhones.  Each person on earth has been given both the ability and the need to create in one way or another.

I have several friends who create their own music.  That is a truly amazing thing to me.  Not only do they have to be able to play an instrument or instruments, but they have to be able to put the different sounds in an order that sounds good and also an order that hasn’t been done before.  A couple months ago I asked one of my musician friends if he thought that someday there would be no music created because everything had already been done before.  He said that he believes new music will always be created because there will always be more fusion and influence and creative people.

I like to write occasionally.  I don’t always have much to write about, but there are rare times like tonight when I can’t sleep because I have to get a thought out.  Writing is a challenge in creativity.  Much like music, I have wondered if someday there will be no new literature because there will be no more creative original thought, but the nature of God’s creation is to be creative.

When I create, there are blemishes.  No matter how well I did in English class in high school or Freshman Composition in college, when creation is involved, mistakes will be made.  Looking back at some essays and posts that I’ve written in the past, I see typos and misspellings (I literally just misspelled “misspellings” three times in a row).  I see ideas that I would word differently now than I did then, and I see posts that I simply wouldn’t write at all now.

I suppose that’s how life is too.  We move through life, and if we do it right, we create amazing and beautiful things.  We create relationships, we create systems, and we create things we’re passionate about.  But the creative process is a messy one.  As we go on living and creating in life, we’re going to make mistakes.  We are going to say something we shouldn’t have said to someone we care about.  We are going to go a little overboard and show a lack of self-control.  And we are going to end things too soon or hang on to things for too long.  These are the blemishes of life.

Often we feel the need to cover up our blemishes, but blemishes are signs of creation and life.  Others need to see our blemishes so they know that yes, we are a masterpiece, but we also are still learning and growing.  We are still being created by the Creator God who sees and knows every time we’ve accidentally scratched the canvass, crumpled things up, and colored outside the lines.  Though God sees our blemishes, God also sees and loves the larger masterpiece that we are creating.

We have been created by the Creator God to be creative people.  Don’t be afraid of messing up.  God is in the business of creating light in darkness, wholeness in brokenness, and masterpieces out of our blemishes.

Faith, Uncategorized

the blessing of wrestling

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This morning I was having breakfast with a few dear friends at Chick-fil-a.

Have you ever heard a more delicious beginning to a story?

We were sitting there communing over spicy chicken biscuits, frosted coffee (it’s ice cream you can have for breakfast!), and other delicious cuisine when we began discussing something that we mutually decided that we didn’t fully understand.  Apparently we must’ve not been too quiet because a man came up to our table and began to “explain” the topic that we had been wrestling with together.  He was speaking very confidently and using large hand gestures to reinforce his point.

In that moment, we did what people do when someone gives them unwanted explanation.  We waited until he was finished and nodded saying “that’s interesting, thanks.”  As he began to walk away, he looked back and said, “I’m a minister to men.”  I guess what he probably didn’t realize was that the four guys he was talking to are also identified as ministers by church title.  Of course, all followers of Jesus are called to be ministers to others.  Stating that he was a minister as he was walking away seemed to be his way of expressing that he was some sort of authority on the matter.  It was frustrating to me, but I couldn’t really understand why in the moment.

Whether or not this man was correct in his explanation is beside the point.  I guess I was bothered because sometimes we, especially those of us who are referred to as ministers, pastors, or teachers, can try and explain away the mystery of God.

Growing up in church is different than growing up outside the church and coming to faith later.  For me, growing up in church was an exercise in knowing about God.  I believed that I could know everything about God.  I believed that there was someone out there in the world who knew more about God than anyone else, some sort of super Christian or God’s right hand man.  In a way I believed that God delighted in people knowing his stats much like how I can recite the names and numbers of obscure former Tennessee Titans players.  I looked at my dad and thought, “He probably knows more about God than most anyone else, after all, he has a couple degrees in the Bible.  He carries around a Bible with an ancient language in it.”  I looked at my youth minister and thought, “He must know a lot about God, he teaches us twice a week!”

So going to a Bible college myself to study the Bible seemed like a great way to fill my brain with knowledge about God.  Surely that was pleasing to God.  A few years in to my studies in college, I had a harsh, semi-painful realization.  More study of the Bible was not answering all my questions, it was providing more difficult questions that were not as easy to answer.  There is a difference between knowing about God and knowing God.

Looking back, I can identify this as a period of some faith “deconstruction.”  Deconstruction is a word that I had never heard used as a healthy thing regarding faith.  Wouldn’t you want your faith to be constantly constructing!?  Always building taller and taller so that it may reach new heights?  I think this period of deconstruction is natural and happens to all of us in one way or another.  Luckily for me, I did then and still do find myself in communities that are affirming of my questions.

Think about all the times people asked questions of Jesus.  Time and time again people come to Jesus asking questions.  These questions have all kinds of motives, some seeking, some to trap him, and some rhetorical.  Time and time again, Jesus does not answer these questions with a concrete answer that removes the mystery, but instead Jesus answers with another question, tells a story, or remains silent.  Jesus was not a cookie cutter, fill-in-the-blank teacher.  Jesus was a teacher who asked probing questions with which His followers wrestled.

As a community of Christ followers, we must give both ourselves and each other space to have questions and not have answers.  Naturally this is terrifying because we are an anxious people who need to know everything all the time.  That’s why Google is a thing, right?  So we can just Google anything that we don’t know.  And even more than in other realms of our life, our churches can seem like groups of people with whom we are uncomfortable expressing doubt or posing a tough question.  Here’s the thing about that: people will wrestle with doubt and questions regardless, but will they do that in the context of a people who believe that God is big enough for our questions, or will they have to leave our faith communities to ask their questions? 

We cannot place God in a box.  I am a minister who works in a church, and guess what?  I don’t have all the answers.  I went and got that degree in “Theology and Ministry” and guess what?  I am right there wrestling with everyone else.

So let’s try something.  And I’ll try and do this as well.  Next time someone expresses a question or doubt, let’s not be so quick to answer.  Life following God is a mystery.  Let’s spend some time in awe of the mystery of the Almighty God.  I think we will find that there is a blessing in wrestling with God.

-Michael

 

 

 

 

AN ASIDE:

What is it with Chick-fil-a and people trying to explain deep mysteries of God with lackingly short and easy quips?  I once overheard a man at Chick-fil-a attempt to explain the Holy Trinity to a 12-year-old using the metaphor of a buffalo sauce packet.  Don’t get me wrong, I love buffalo sauce, but I think even buffalo sauce in all of its splendor pales in comparison to the Holy Trinity.

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COMMUNITY. WE NEED IT.

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So this summer, I’ve learned a lot. A lot about youth ministry, about life on the inside of a church, and a whole lot about myself. I’ve learned some of my strengths, that some things that I thought were strengths of mine are not quite to strength level, and I’ve discovered a lot about how I interact with people. I’ve also learned a lot about doing things on my own. Being away from home for a few months will do that. The more I have been on my own, the more I have realized that is not what God intended. God made us to be relational beings. From the beginning of time on this Earth, that has been evident.

 Genesis 2:18: “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.”

In Genesis 2, God was talking about a woman, but I think this rule applies in every case. Not just that every man needs a woman, or wife (in fact, I really feel like the church does a terrible job with singleness, but that sounds like a different thought for a different time), but that every person needs another person. AT LEAST ONE. Some people need more than that.

Luckily, I have found people here in the area with whom I have gotten to share in community with. Everyone, wherever they are, needs people who care about them, and people that they care about. I have been fortunate to find that here in California, and I am even more fortunate to have the awesome support system that I have back in Nashville. That is what I look forward to most about returning to my homeland in a week. If you ask, I would tell you that I’m excited for the fall semester to start. That doesn’t mean that I’m excited for the 8 am classes, the tests, the papers, and the absurd amount of books I’m supposed to read (which reminds me, I still need to purchase those). What I’m excited for is the opportunity to build on the relationships that have already begun and to form the relationships still to be created.

Acts chapter 4 lays the blueprint for the life of a church.

“32 All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had. 33 The apostles testified powerfully to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God’s great blessing was upon them all. 34 There were no needy people among them, because those who owned land or houses would sell them 35 and bring the money to the apostles to give to those in need.

36 For instance, there was Joseph, the one the apostles nicknamed Barnabas (which means “Son of Encouragement”). He was from the tribe of Levi and came from the island of Cyprus. 37 He sold a field he owned and brought the money to the apostles.”

What we have is not our own. Living in community with others helps us realize that. It’s one thing to hold on to your possessions when you don’t have any friends who go without. We (speaking to myself here) need to be in conversation and in life with those who are in need. It’s easy to help our friends, not as easy to help those we don’t know.

Over the weekend, I got to hang out with an awesome group of guys. On Friday we hit up Santa Cruz and San Francisco on Saturday. These guys are like me – they’re not perfect. It was great being around 4 other guys for those two days. Yes, we were seeing awesome sights and experiencing amazing places, but I would’ve still had a great time if we had just sat in the living room and hung out for two days. The constant good-natured teasing and joking, the conversations only a group of college age guys have, and the comradery among us was just what I needed.

In conclusion, we need community. We need other people to care about. We need other people to care about us. But above all, we desperately need Jesus, or none of this matters.

ALSO.

I have a great friend, Drue, who authored a beautiful piece on his blog regarding this same topic. You should check it out if you’ve got the time. “I was created to… COMMUNE“

Also, I have grown quite fond of the band Rend Collective.  On their 2013 album, Campfire, they filmed a video on the making of their album and the community brought on by a campfire. It’s about six minutes long, so you should watch it if you haven’t. “The Campfire Story“