Faith Venture

Do you remember when you were an adolescent? That time of narcissism due to our developmental issues? That time that we recall and shudder at the stupid things we did?

This is a time when we should begin developing character–something that will define our life.

Does it seem like society over the past 20 years or so encourages adolescent behaviour well past 17? What are we teaching adolescents? Do we teach that they should continue the “me-first” mentality. Seeking to emulate the Kardashians rather than someone like, say, Gen. Colin Powell?
This article from Big Think caught my eye yesterday. “We Need To Develop Character Instead of Celebrity,” by Derek Beres.

In it, he says:

Language is our major form of communication. How we use it shapes our identities; we understand our societal and familial roles through the language we use. According to David Brooks, there are words we need to reinvigorate. They all have to do with better understanding our moral codes. By banishing words such as “sin,” “virtue,” “character,” and “evil” from general conversation, he claims “that does not make life any less moral.” In The Road to Character, he continues, 

It just means we have obscured the inescapable moral core of life with shallow language.

In his fantastic biography of important historical figures, Brooks repeatedly returns to the need of cultivating humility to overturn the sins of arrogance and pride. Children are being educated to succeed, but the focus of that success is monetary and status-driven. It has nothing to do with the singular trait Calvin’s father kept returning to during the decade-long life of Calvin and Hobbes. 

I think of Jesus’ encounter with the rich young man. Was it perhaps that the young man had just not matured yet? Perhaps he had not developed character? 

So I wonder, what example are we leaving as a legacy?

The small group is studying from the Gospel of John. There is something that John sincerely wants us to know. We perceive that because it is repeated…often.

I and the Father are one.

Or

I am in the Father and He is in me.

What does that really mean? Jesus was a human, a man. We have to understand that or the entire Christian faith has been a hoax. But what was it about Jesus and being “in the Father” that so impressed John?

John keeps writing in this middle part of his work about how people were struggling to understand Jesus. Not his teachings, well maybe that too, but who was he?

I’ve re-read chapters 6-10. He’s not speaking double talk the way John has it recorded. 

But the people couldn’t comprehend. When John often talks about the people being divided in opinion, I think he’s reporting that people just couldn’t figure him out. They sound like normal discussions. They don’t understand. Some people say, well, maybe this. And others say, well, not so sure, maybe that.

Was the problem that Jesus was not the Messiah (Annointed One) that they expected. He was the Messiah they deserved. The Messiah that God knew they needed.

Look at it this way, fewer than 40 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Romans sent armies and wiped out everything. Had Jesus been another King David, it would have been all over.

No, this was a different kind of guy. He took the discussion to an entirely different level. You see it in every encounter over the Scriptures. He took the discussion to a spiritual plane every time.

But even more amazing is how Jesus invites us into that relationship.

And how sad that so many people over the centuries have missed the relationship even while professing Jesus as their Lord.

“But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

And that life can start for you now (if you haven’t already started to really live).

So, the guy is just minding his own business. Just like any other day in his life.

Then a group of guys stop and talk about him just as if he weren’t there.

“Why was this guy born without sight? Did he sin in the womb? Or, did his parents sin?”

What, he thinks to himself. Do you think I can’t hear as well as can’t see?

Then someone with an authoritative voice rubs mud on my eyes and tells me to go to a special place to wash my eyes.

So, what the heck? I go to the pool and wash my eyes.

And I CAN SEE!

Wow! What colors. And that’s what those people look like.

Then some people grab me and take me to a room where the religious leaders were gathered in judgement. That’s what they do. Judge. Separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak.

And they ask, what happened that you can see? And I tell the simple little story. And they don’t believe, so they call the parents and drag them into the room. He’s our son, they say, and he was born without sight. But other than that, we don’t know anything. Kind of like Sgt. Shultz from Hogan’s Heroes TV series, “I know nothing! Nothing!”

They ask more questions. I’m getting perturbed, and starting to feel stronger.  I have nothing to lose. As a deformed person, I don’t have status in the synagogue anyway. I challenge the big guys. They don’t like that, of course.

Then Jesus, the guy who healed me, finds me and asks if I believe in the Son of Man. I’ve heard of the Son of Man. He’s predicted in the Scriptures and the Essenes have been saying he’ll come soon. So I say yes, but who is this Son of Man? I am, says Jesus.

Then I believe in you. Anyone who can heal like that must be from God.

As John describes in his Gospel in Chapter 9, this man went from the life of a beggar to a disciple one day when the extraordinary happened. John took us from a story of physical sight restored to spiritual sight restored.

But the dreams I’ve seen lately keep on turning out

And burning out and turning out the same.

So put me on a highway and show me a sign

And take it to the limit one more time.

–The Eagles

I’m not sure what the Eagles meant by the song. But how many of us try to take it to the limit?
There was once a soccer team who asked me to tell them how far they could go before it was a foul. Takin’ it to the limit. They obviously had no clue about the sport.

How many kids push their parents to the limit? How many of us as kids did it?

We have politicians all over the world these days taking it to the limit. Some go over.

Pushing against limits is good when we’re growing. I remember telling my daughter (many times) that my job was to set limits, her job as an adolescent was to push against them to find out how far was too far and yet grow by testing.

I had a professor in university who (I think) respected me because I’d push the limit, but never beyond.

We grow physically by pushing against the limit. Too far–injury. Hit limit, rest, hit limit, rest–you’ll grow and strengthen muscles.

I started thinking this thread that pushing the limit is a bad thing. But sometimes it’s a good thing.

Knowing the difference is wisdom.

Ever see someone you know who is well known in the area as a Christian who behaves in a disgraceful manner?

I heard this phrase, Christians behaving badly, from a speaker quite some time ago. It’s stuck with me, or on me. It’s a play on words from a TV show. It fits so many people.

These days, your picture could be forwarded around Facebook, Instagram, or even a news site while you are behaving in a manner that would draw a sharp rebuke from the one you are supposedly following?

There is a picture drawn for us in the letter to the Hebrews that begins, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses…”

Does that thought, the thought that someone is always watching you, make you uncomfortable? It does me.

I’m introverted by nature (slightly anyway), and there are times when it seems that I can recall every embarrassing thing I’ve ever done. Maybe others are not so afflicted. 

There is a reason that I seldom refer to myself as Christian. I prefer follower of Jesus or “Christ-follower.” It shows I’m trying. But it is also perhaps an inner way of dissociating myself from people I read about in the news or hear discussing things that just make me cringe.

What kind of witness to Jesus is that, I ask myself. Is that really going to bring someone into relationship?

I hope my picture never hits that “behaving badly” circuit, even though I know that I am capable of it. But I’d hope that I’d always overcome the urge and behave appropriately.