February 28, 2010

Back in the Bronze Age, when I was in middle school, I had a group of girlfriends and we all lived in the same neighborhood.  We rode the same bus and were in the same classes.  We played volleyball together and on Saturdays, we would walk to the mall. We’d get milkshakes and shop in this one funky gift store.  One Saturday, one of the girls said, “We should each take a pair of earrings.”  Another friend said, “What are you talking about?”  “Yeah, we should each take a pair, one pair, one time. It will be a thing for us.”  Someone else said, “We shouldn’t do it all at once.  A couple of us should go this week, a couple next week and a couple the week after.  It’ll be an adventure we spread out.” 

I don’t know how my other friends felt, but I was confused.  This wasn’t “our thing.”  We weren’t those kind of bad, wild girls.  There must have been some weird tension in the group that day.  Somebody must have been feeling slighted or left out.  Somebody must have wondered about their place or power within the group.  None of us was wise or experienced enough to understand the dynamic at the time.  Instead, some got on board and the rest of us stayed silent.  At least one of us got anxious.  I was thinking, this is a really bad idea.  We’re not “taking” some earrings.  We’re stealing earrings.  There’s no way around that, and there’s no way this isn’t wrong.  My mind was racing fast, trying to construct a plausible justification.  No one’s starving, this isn’t a loaf of bread.  There’s no crying baby to be fed.  There’s no ransom to be paid for a kidnapped brother.  This is flat out stealing for fun.  I knew through and through this was wrong and that alone extinguished my enthusiasm. 

In addition to my pricked conscience, I thought about the consequences.  How mortifying to be accosted by the store manager, detained by security, told to stay out of the store, then banned from the mall, forever!  How utterly gruesome to be picked up in some office by my parents who would look at me with those incredulous disappointed eyes.  Every second of my deliberation became more and more torturous.  While I was still contemplating my bad ending, two girls said they’d go first.  I was horrified and relieved.  I couldn’t believe this was actually going to happen and I couldn’t believe my luck.  By tomorrow, we’d be talking about boys, by Monday we’d be at volleyball practice.  The whole idea would be forgotten and the episode would never be mentioned again.  I was saved!  Later, walking home, I tried not to think about my friends or my silence.  I was counting on moving on.

Tuesday, on the bus, one of my girlfriends asked, “Do you know which earrings you’re going to take on Saturday?”  Are you kidding me?  I thought I was safe.  I thought this ugly thing was over.  “No, I haven’t thought about it,” I answered.  No need to panic.  It was only Tuesday, plenty of time to be forgotten.  Maybe the world would end on Friday.  But Thursday morning, someone else mentioned “the caper” again and I felt queasy.

For study hall, I worked in the guidance office because I was basically reliable and it was a sweet gig because you got a hall pass to go get people out of class.  That afternoon, sitting in the office, I saw that Mrs. Weaver, the 7^th grade counselor, was alone.  Mrs. Weaver was the least cool person I had ever known.  She was prim.  She had gray ringlets, gray lips, gray clothes and gray shoes.  She always spoke in platitudes.  She said things like “Safety is always in season.”  “Time will pass, will you?”  Desperation or God’s grace sent me to her office door.  Without specific details, I outlined my dilemma.  Prim, gray Mrs. Weaver listened and then said, “Dear one, you are in a really hard place.  You have a very difficult choice to make and what you decide has lasting consequences.  What you decide to do now will inform the choices you make in the future.  What you do on Saturday will put you on a path and that path will take you towards another and another and another decision and away from other possible options.  Yes, you are in a hard place.  It seems to me that you have three responses.  You can say no, that this “activity” is against your principles, that you will not participate and that you will remove yourself from the presence and companionship of those who go down that road.  If you decide on this option, you’re sure to avoid trouble.  You will have an easy conscience.  You will also set yourself up to be alone.  You’ll put yourself outside your group of friends.  Maybe you’ll find other ones.  Maybe you won’t.  Maybe finding friends who think just like you will be easy.  Maybe you won’t care because being steadfast in your beliefs is better than company.

Option two is for you to go along with your friends.  You’ve been with them a lot of years.  You’ve had good times with them.  You share a lot of memories.  Maybe this one bad thing won’t be so bad.  Maybe it will blow over and everything will get back to normal.  Maybe you shouldn’t be so picky about doing the right thing.  Maybe there are advantages to being flexible. 

The third response is for you to try to maneuver between one and two.  Try to stay connected with your friends and stay true to your principles.  Tell them the truth about what you’re feeling.  Tell them you care about them, but that you don’t want to do this thing.  Ask them to give you a bye.  Ask them to reconsider.  Try to walk the line between cutting them off and being carried along to where you don’t want to go.  See if you can stay connected and be a positive influence.  I can tell you this is not easy and there are no guarantees that you will be successful.

An isolationist, a co-conspirator, a truth teller, - prim, wise Mrs. Weaver outlined my options and probable outcomes.  What I didn’t recognize at the time, what I didn’t connect in my middle school mind was that Mrs. Weaver had described the proverbial Christian dilemma.  She was teaching me the same lesson Paul sent to the Philippians.  As a follower of Jesus Christ, we know where we belong.  We are citizens of heaven, but we are living as alien residents.  We are alive in a foreign land, far from home.  The ways of this place are not the ways of heaven.  Everything here is not good and clear.  Even our good friends will sometimes lead us astray.  Our desire to belong, to be connected, to be thought well of will pull us off the right road.  We are citizens of heaven, but that is not our current address and we must make our way in this strange and sometimes hostile place.

Making our way means making the hard choice.  There are Christian folk who take the Isolationist approach.  They say, these are our beliefs, we are sure and steadfast in them.  The world does not support what we believe, therefore, we will remove ourselves from its bad influence.  We will live within ourselves.  We will build safe walls around ourselves and keep their dangerous ways outside.  We will build our own church and our own school and our own life center and, if you pray and believe exactly like us, you can come inside.  We will be right and safe.  We will be untempted and uninfected by the rest of the world. 

There are Christian believers who live as the co-conspirators.  They say yes, we are followers of Jesus, but living in this land, this place called the world, we must make accommodation to fit in.  In heaven, we will live differently, but while we’re here, we’ll follow the local customs.  People living out this option check the Christian box when they go into the hospital.  They come to church on Christmas and Easter.  They know the parables and Ten Commandments.  They even know the great commandment, but it doesn’t get in the way of their worldly identity.  Tithing and serving, communal prayer and private devotion are not priorities for them.  Diversion (fun), broad acceptance (popularity), acquisition (stuff) are their primary concerns. 

Then there are the Christians who live as truth tellers.  They understand their dual citizenship.  They know they are living in two worlds.  They have a home in heaven where everything is as they would want it to be and they have a home on earth where much is broken.  They wake up each morning with a foot in two competing realities.  Every day they try to stay true to their identity.  They live as a follower of Jesus Christ in a place that doesn’t always value or understand their beliefs.  Every day they go among people who threaten or dismiss their faith in small and larger ways.  They do not stay safe behind a “God is on our side” compound.  Every day their maintain relationships with people of conflicting values.  They go to parties and on vacations with nominal believers.  They befriend and work beside folk who live to themselves and not for God.  They laugh and cry with faithless friends.  And, as these Christians live as participants in this world, they do not renounce their homeland allegiance.  They wear the colors of their true country.  In their words and their actions, in their attitudes and behavior they represent heaven.

Just as Paul admonishes, every day they try hard to “stand firm in the Lord in this way.”  Some days are harder than others.  Some days they topple and fall under the influence of the world and its broken people.  Some days they trip up others.  But as Christian truth tellers, they admit their fault, they claim their weakness, they apologize, they make amends, they return to God and begin again.

Dear friends, as followers of Jesus Christ, we are citizens of heaven and residents of earth.  How will we live into that dichotomy? 

Isolationists, co-conspirators, truth tellers, the choice is ours to make.

Amen.