Month: October 2019

Can you be anything you want?

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When I was a kid growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, my Dad told me that I could be anything I wanted to be, and I believed him. He wanted me to be a doctor, or a CPA, or an Army officer. I became an Air Force officer. Close. Dad’s generation had won the greatest war in human history and times were good. What could possibly be wrong with dreaming that you could be anything you chose?

Well, Dad would never have imagined that his boy might dream of growing up to be a girl.

Now, I never dreamed that, but a lot of folks like my late father might be surprised by the conversations parents and kids are having today. But here’s the thing. While the greatest generation won the great war, it went on to lose the culture war back home. Society started replacing the concept of the transcendent with the concept of self. As churches started shrinking, some replaced the biblical narrative of Creation—Fall—Restoration with “God just wants to bless you and make you happy.” Still other churches replaced cultural engagement with finger wagging.

So, why should we be surprised that a new generation thinks it’s OK to switch genders, or even define “gender” for oneself? Aren’t they just taking us at our word, like I did with my Dad, that they can be anything?

But this is about more than choice.

A small number of people experience a mismatch between gender given at birth and how they understand themselves, and that leads to anxiety and distress. Some churches have treated these folks with disdain; others with unquestioning affirmation. Neither approach is right. The good news is that the historic Christian faith has lots of resources to help.

We are all made in God’s image; “fearfully and wonderfully made,” the psalmist said. Every single one of us is someone for whom Christ died. But we’re fallen, and that means the image of God in each of us needs to be restored.

Jesus didn’t come into the world, become one of us, and die a painful death just so we could be anything we want to be. He did it so he could restore his image in us; so that we could become the persons he created us to be.

God’s idea of what we can become is infinitely greater than any category we were born into, or any new category we create for ourselves. Every person you will ever see is someone loved by God; someone you could spend eternity with.

We really don’t have the power to become anything we choose.

But as the church, we do have the power to give the world a glimpse of the unconditional love of Christ.

Bullied

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Monica Lewinsky is a producer and spokesperson who was on the Today Show this week to promote a public service announcement about bullying. Lewinsky might be the most famous victim of bullying ever. She said that while she was producing the video, she met a woman who had a young relative who had been bullied. When the girl missed school, someone texted her, saying “When we saw you weren’t at school today, we thought you were dead, and were happy.”

October is National Bullying Prevention Month. A majority of students surveyed say they’ve been bullied, but victims often suffer in private, too ashamed to tell parents and teachers how they feel.

People bully because they feel powerless themselves or because someone has bullied them. Bullies are often jealous of the person they’re bullying; they lack empathy, are looking for attention, or a have a need to be in control. They often come from dysfunctional families. They have trouble regulating their emotions. A victim goes on to victimize others, and so the cycle goes on.

The most famous bully in the Bible may be the Philistine champion Goliath. Day after day, Goliath came out from the ranks of the Philistine army and taunted the Israelites, while the king and the whole Israelite army quaked in fear. Only one person wasn’t intimidated—a young shepherd boy named David.

If you google “bullying,” you’ll find all kinds of resources to help fight the problem. But the best resource is the Gospel, which affirms our ultimate worth in the eyes of the creator. The Gospel says that God loved us so much that he sent his son to stand up for us, so that nothing could ultimately separate us from his love.

On our own, we’re not strong enough to stand up to the bullies in our lives.

But there is one who was. And he still stands up for us.

Encouraged

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I’ve been a city-center minister for going on eleven years now. I’ve said many times this was not something I ever imagined. I had lots of assignments in my life, and I approached each one as a personal mission. Get things done, meet the challenge.

Fix it, move on.

But city-center ministry doesn’t lend itself to that, and it took years to appreciate it. Sometimes, the mission is to walk with hurting people over time.

For about eight years I’ve served on the Clean and Safe Committee, a function of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership (PDP). The Clean and Safe Committee brings together business owners, city agencies, police, non-profits, churches, and residents. In the last year, Pittsburgh, like nearly every other city, has experienced an increase in homelessness, drug use, aggressive behavior, and more. As the PDP, residents, and the media focused on the problems, the city responded with more police and stepped up enforcement of laws against drug dealing and aggressive behavior.

Things have gotten better lately.

But even more encouraging is that the church’s message of walking with hurting people across time has been getting through. More people seem willing to volunteer and serve. More people seem to understand that those suffering from addiction or mental illness are human beings who are precious to God. More understand the need to walk with hurting people over time.    

When writing to a hurting church in Corinth, whose members were tempted to give in to the pressures of the world, the Apostle Paul encouraged them by saying, “God is faithful.”

Because Christ was faithful to walk with us, we can be faithful to walk with others.

Mega-forgiveness

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“If you see your friend going wrong, correct him,” Jesus said. “If he responds, forgive him. Even if it’s personal against you and repeated seven times through the day, and seven times he says, ‘I’m sorry, I won’t do it again,’ forgive him.”

The Bible uses the number “seven” the way we use the word “mega.” It means “a whole lot, more than you can count.” In the example of the friend who wronged you, Jesus means someone who’s done something terrible and personal, who’s “mega-hurt” you.

Forgive him.

The apostles were “mega-bewildered” by the impossible requirement. “Give us more faith,” was all they could say.

Jesus responded that they didn’t need more faith. Faith isn’t quantifiable in any way we understand. Faith the size of a mustard seed comes with power enough to rearrange the landscape.

Jesus explained further with an even more enigmatic example. Suppose you were a master who had a servant who worked all day in the field. At dinner time, would you say, “take a break, eat with me?” Would you, the master, thank the servant for doing what he was told?

The answers, obvious to Jesus’ hearers was, “Of course not.”

The reason the answers aren’t obvious to us—we want to be seen as being kind to the servant and have him eat with us—is that we don’t understand the culture of Jesus’ day. People who had enormous debts they were unable to repay often sold themselves to a master for a time, rather than being thrown into prison.

The servant here was working off what he owed in a way that he had agreed.

The servant cannot then become the master and give the orders. But Jesus is saying that’s exactly what we do when we don’t forgive.

We know the ultimate master who came to us; who became our servant; who forgave us at infinite cost to himself. That’s mega-forgiveness.

And he requires it of us, too.