[As I do
every year since 2010 I will re-post this article. Its hard to believe this is the sixth year. Ironically, every time I
post it, it changes a little as I seem to add to it a little as the Lord
continues to sanctify me. It seems to hit a familiar note with people and they
always seem to like reading it before Christmas. It is long so buckle in for
the ride...]
It is about
the unlikelihood of our faith from a human perspective. But that isn't what it
is really about is it? The human perspective? It is about God's perspective.
Some of the
"heroes" of the Scripture read like a list of toys on the
"Island of Misfit Toys" from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Misfits
one and all from a worldly and secular perspective. The rejects of society, the
rejects that the godless world doesn't want. I mean...good grief man! Look at
what they did to Jesus. Even our Messiah Jesus Christ was ostracized by his own
people who did not recognize Him as the Son of God. Rejected and sentenced
deceitfully to death by crucifixion in the greatest miscarriage of justice the
world has ever known.
We then have
people like David standing in for King Moonracer who has a dysfunctional family
an often times rebellious lot. There is also Abraham with his faith and
faithlessness the equivalent of Hermey the Misfit Elf who lives a double life
as a dentist and one of Santa's helpers. And of course we have the Apostle Paul
who reminds me of the big bruiser "Bumble" (abominable snowman) who
initially beats the living daylights out of mostly defenseless reindeer and has
a thorn in the flesh. Paul who fell off his horse on the road to Damascus and
bounced into the annals of Christianity as one of the greats in the Faith. I could go on with the comparisons but I
digress...so off we go into the land of misfit and rejected believers...
----------------------------------------------------
It is
through God's eccentric lot that we truly see the glory and the power of God.
“My grace is
sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will
boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest
on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults,
in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am
strong.” ~ 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
It is
through God's eccentric lot that we see the earth move and the sky catch fire.
I sit in bemused amazement after reading the Bible and the stories of the
societal rejects God picks to accomplish the amazing tasks we see in the Bible.
He has continued to pick the same type of person when he picked you and I to be
His disciples and to carry on the Good News. It is the very reason that he
picked them (and us) to do His work too. Flawed vessels accomplishing great
things in faith by the power of God. The very power that resurrected Christ
from the grave.
"For
consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the
flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things
of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world
to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the
despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the
things that are, so that no man may boast before God. But by His doing you are
in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and
sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “Let him who
boasts, boast in the Lord!” ~1 Corinthians 1:26-31
"For
God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our
hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the
face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this
all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." ~2 Corinthians 4:6-7
It was once
written by novelist Frederick Buechner that the absolute improbability of the
Jewish and then subsequently the Christian faith succeeding based on its
followers is astounding. It is exactly this reason though that brings all the
glory to our holy God, our wondrous Savior, Jesus Christ.
In what
other book besides the Bible would we read the story of the very first pair of
people who would violate the only thing forbidden to them? They would eat from
the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
"And
the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the
garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” ~ Genesis 2:16-17
That God
would select an old man in the middle of the desert where it had never rained
before to build a boat the size of a modern-day aircraft carrier. This same man
after having been afloat for months on a foul smelling cramped zoo on an
inundated world would immediately proceed to plant a vineyard, hit the bottle
and pass out stone cold drunk only to be looked upon naked by his son (or
possibly violated) to his great embarrassment.
We would see
Abraham the father of the nations have his faith accredited to him as righteousness.
He would also leave his wife out to dry by basically giving her away to Pharaoh
to protect his own skin...Sarah be damned. Very manly and chivalrous I must say
[sarcasm intended].
"As he
was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful
woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’
Then they will kill me but will let you live. Say you are my sister, so that I
will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.” ~Genesis
12:11-13
Who could've imagined God would not pick Esau
who was generally honest, capable, and a provider over the lying, duplicitous
and conniving Jacob who was essentially a snake in the grass?
“Was not
Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I
have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his
inheritance to the desert jackals.” ~Malachi 1:2-3
We see that
God would pick the line of Judah for His Forever King Jesus to descend from,
the same Judah that had a hand in throwing his brother in a well and then
selling him into slavery. The same person that ended up sleeping with his
daughter-in-law Tamar who he thought was a prostitute...two no-no's.
"...but its not as bad as it seems, I only slept with her because she was
a prostitute..." Ehhhh?
That God
would invariably pick David as a King who would become the archetype of every
king that would come after him until the advent of Jesus Christ to surpass him.
The same David who was a known adulterer, murderer and for all intensive
purposes a polygamist like his son would also be. He was man that really could
not keep his house in order because he had been cursed by God for what he had
done to Uriah the Hittite. This incident would drive him into exile from his
very kingdom by his own son Absalom. David would also take a census of his
military strength and not depend on the Lord in faith which would lead to the
death of thousands.
Solomon who
would be given the riches of a kingdom and wisdom from God that people would
come from other lands to witness. Solomon who couldn't seem to put a clamp on
what appeared to be a matrimonial obsessive-compulsive disorder. He also
couldn't stop collecting horses, overtaxing his subjects and in the end allowed
his nutty pagan wives to put a damper on things by introducing their false Gods
and idols into the promised land. Solomon who was a perfect example of how a
person can have wisdom but unless it is used correctly...it is worthless.
Then we have
Moses, who was a murder and was trying to outrun the homicide rap for
clobbering a man on the noggin and killing him in Egypt. If it weren't for a
twisted sense of honor he'd have also just as soon thrown his brother Aaron
under the bus by letting Aaron go back in his stead to take the heat from the
Egyptians.
We see the
likes of Rahab whom the Jews well into the New Testament (Hebrews 11:31) viewed
as a paragon of faith when she cooperated with the two spies from Shittim sent
by Joshua. Rahab who was also a prostitute/harlot who literally lived in a hole
in the wall of Jericho. After the walls fell, her and her family were the only
survivors.
...and who
could forget all those prophets of God both major and minor? The whole lot of
which were probably nuttier than fruitcakes based on outward appearances. They
wore camel hair shirts, leather belts, and ate bugs dipped in honey. Crazed
disheveled men that screamed at the top of their lungs often times with spittle
flying out of their mouths in the middle of the desert wilderness at everyone
and no one in particular.
Of
particular note in the Minor Prophets we should lightheartedly poke at Jonah,
the most miserable excuse for a prophet ever seen. Jonah who, other than telling
the Ninevites to repent, ended up serving God very little. The only other thing
we learn from Jonah is how to serve as a bad example. Jonah, who after having
be told to, "Arise, go to Nineveh" gets up and goes...in the opposite
direction (180 degrees) towards Tarshish. He is a prophet that nearly gets an
entire ship of mariners drowned because of his disobedience. A prophet that
literally sounds as if he is chronically depressed throughout the book named
after him. After telling the Ninevites to repent (and they actually do) he gets
angry about it because he wants them to be destroyed. Instead of having mercy
on them as God has done he still holds on to pent-up homicidal hostility.
Instead he cares more about a vine that gave him shade after it has died. A man
that clearly has his priorities mixed up.
Then of
course we need to look at God's chosen people as a whole. Of all the peoples or
races he could have chosen to be His "Nation of Priests" and His holy
people, he chose the Jews. As somebody once said, "The Jews who are just
like everybody else only more so like everybody else". When they were
religious, they were more religious than anybody else and when they were
piously hypocritical they were so pious and hypocritical that the term for
being too pious and hypocritical is to be "pharisaic". When they were
secular, they were secular as if they'd invented being godless."
The people
of the Covenant whom God said to them, "And I will walk among you and will
be your God, and you shall be my people" ~Leviticus 26:12. The very same
line of descendants of Abraham whom God said, "I will make of you a great
nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a
blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will
curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
~Genesis 12:2-3.
These very
people God was speaking His promises to would then apostatize and build idols
to worship literally before the last of His commandments had left His mouth and
had been delivered to them at the foot of Sinai. A stubborn and stiff-necked
lot of misfits.
Jump forward
to the New Testament and we have the thick-headed Peter who denies Christ not
just once but three times even after denying to Jesus that he would deny Him.
The same Peter who is the first to confess Jesus' true identity when Jesus asks
him, "Who do you say that I am?" and Peter responds, "You are
the Messiah, Son of the living God!" Then almost immediately needs to be
yelled at when Jesus tells of his coming death and Peter resists. Jesus'
response? "Get behind me Satan!" The bumbling disciple never seems to
get it right the first time. Even after Jesus' Resurrection Peter could've
waited to until the boat reached shore but impetuously decided to swim instead
in his impatience.
Finally, I
mention Paul. The great apostle Paul who wrote more books of the Bible that
anyone else (13) thirteen, (14) fourteen if we included Hebrews. Paul the
expounder of the faith...and a slayer of the brethren. Paul formally known as
Saul. Yeah, that Paul.
The list
from the Bible could continue for a while, Thomas, Gideon, etc. If we look
forward two millennium we now have similar situations in our church. Young
idealists decked out in jeans, piercings and tattoos, share the pews with
conservative white collar "suits". Teenagers and occasionally spouses
tuning out sermons that others are straining to hear from the back of the
congregation over top the whine of their children or other's children.
Recovered and reformed drug addicts preaching from the pulpits. Former
criminals, adulterers, miscreants and generally immoral people that have now
become champions of the Faith. Believers gather together methodically and move
through a centuries old ritual synchronized as dancers doing a waltz. Other
congregations construct close intimate communities and have little or no ritual
but tend to migrate together with herd mentality like the social creation they
were meant to be. They seem to exist in a perpetual state of koinonia/κοινωνία or
fellowship.
I often
shake my head in disbelief at what appears to be outward incongruities and the
absurdity of it all...but this is the way God has made it and this is the way
God wants it. God's power is made perfect in our weaknesses. It has been done
by his measure, for His pleasure, by His standards and according to His
timeline. The idea that all these misfits and societal rejects could fit
together often times near perfectly defies conventional logic. We begin to
understand how something this diverse and disparate could be this way when we
go back to a simple request from the Son to the Father...
"....Holy
Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that
they may be one as we are one." John 17:11
This is the
only possible way something this diverse and chaotic could possibly work. It
sometimes looks like a zoo put through a blender. When they all sing out of
tune it produces a cacophony of sound equal to that of a train wreck carrying
cymbals but this is exactly how God planned it and wants it. How else could all
these disparate beings become one in the
One? Only in Jesus Christ could these dissimilar cast-offs from society pull
this off in unity. We are all to be one in the One, Jesus Christ.
"You
did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and
bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the
Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other. “If the world hates
you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it
would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have
chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I
told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they
will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours
also." ~John 15:16-20
We become
indwelt by the Holy Spirit and we are made new. We become new creations. New
like a rewrapped Christmas gift that the world didn't want. But because we come
wrapped in the blood of the Lamb we are the perfect gift to the Father.
Ironically, it is only through faith that we receive "the gift" of
salvation given to us by the One the world rejected as a misfit also...and that
gift we accept makes us acceptable to the Father. God works in a joint effort
with us to make us more holy. Sure, we'll still be treated like Rudolph the
Red-Nosed Reindeer at a convention for nocturnal photosensitive animals by all
the "normal" people. It is because they won't know how to deal with
us so they will sit us off in a corner to make fun of us or stare at us warily
to see if we implode or spontaneously combust. Who cares? My question is this:
How many of them can say that they know Truth by name? Jesus. Jesus Christ. Mr.
Jesus Christ to you mister!
If God could
use all these offbeat characters this should give us reassurance that He can
certainly use us who are the same type of people. Rejects of the world. We will
be purified, cleansed and made holy for use by God...all of us misfits
together. For this we were made. For this we will be used. Hallelujah!
MISFITS AND
REJECTS OF THE WORLD UNTIE...UHH...UNITE!
[All images
in post from Rankin/Bass 1964]
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