Sunday, May 22, 2011

God Loves a Loser

Americans don’t really like losers. I mean, that’s probably a pretty obvious statement. Our society doesn’t like people who lose - and we don’t like losing very much ourselves. American lives are, to quote Charlie Sheen, about winning.

There are people whose entire careers are dedicated to avoiding loss. It’s not called “not losing” of course – we call it risk management or “shrink avoidance” or industrial security. Or, as I’ve come to appreciate – insurance adjusting. Some people will spend their entire lives calculating risk vs. reward. In other words – if we try this, what’s our chance at losing?

Our societies avoidance of losing goes beyond the business sector, however. Ask one of our teenagers about the last time they “lost” a video game? It actually can’t be done. Video game producers have taken the chance of losing out of games entirely. You can quit, sure. You can just stop playing the game. But you can’t lose. And if, by chance, you do almost lose (that is, the game gets too hard) there are a number of websites and books poised to help you win by revealing the games secrets. It’s is virtually impossible to actually lose a video game.

All of this is because Americans don’t like losers. When people lose, we avoid them, we degrade them. Our society is structured so that we can always be winners.

This winning obsession is not so bad, except for when we turn to the Bible. God’s redemption story is all about people who are screw ups, who make mistakes, who – in essence – are losers. God loves the loser.

And nobody is a bigger loser than Stephen. Stephen is known for many things – perhaps Stephen’s most famous for instituting a vital ministry in Jerusalem dedicated to caring for the poor in money and spirit. Stephen was one of the first Christian mission workers – a losing cause to be sure. How could one person possibly feed all of the hungry in the world?

I guess you could say that Stephen was a sucker for a lost cause. And so, when the chief priest’s bring him in front of the court – when all they want is for Stephen to say, “you know what? Maybe I didn’t really mean that the way it sounded.” Which would have been the risk conscious way to respond– As soon as the Chief Priest appears, there’s a sense this situation isn’t going to work out well for poor Stephen.

And in the end, as the reader knows must happen, Stephen loses. I don’t know that there is a definition of winning in the world that includes being stoned to death by an angry mob. Angry mobs are usually a sign that someone’s not on the right strategy. And Stephen, from a risk vs. reward perspective, was definitely not on the right track. In the end, he lost. Stephen dies, beaten, bleeding, dragged down a street by his friends and neighbors.

God’s redemption story is all about people who are screw ups, who make mistakes, who – in essence – are losers. God loves the loser.
Which leaves us, the church, somewhere in the middle. We in limbo between a society that preaches safety – personal, financial, emotional, psychological safety – and a God who says “Risk everything. Take a chance at losing.” It’s a choice, between a society of winners and a God of losers.

Many of you may have been following the rapture story this week. Harold Camping, an evangelical radio host and “pastor”, had decided he could calculate the exact date – and time – of the rapture using both biblical and archealogical evidence, despite there being almost no reference to a rapture in the Bible (It’s 1 Thess 4, if your interested) and literally thousands of scholars contradicting his assumptions.

Mr. Camping was convinced.

So, His church promptly went out and put up bill boards. Behold, the judgment day is here – they said – be prepared. Like a weird town crier, this church declared
The Rapture is coming! And They stuck by their account. May 21st, 6pm. Kiss your loved ones goodbye – cause the rapture is upon us.

Now, looking around this morning, I’m going to boldly predict that the rapture didn’t happen. Or, it did – and we were all left behind, in which case this should have been a different blog post.

It’s easy to poke fun, to ridicule the idea and the people who have it. The jokes almost write themselves.

And yet, the rapture believers persisted. The whole world – literally – was laughing at them, ridiculing them. And yet they stood by their belief, perhaps misguided, they stood up for what they believed to be true.

I wonder how willing we are to do the same. I wonder how many times in a day we diminish or downplay our faith. How many times do we hide or disguise what we believe to make others comfortable, so others won’t lump us in with the losers like this doomsday cults or the idiots who handle snakes.

Are we really that afraid of risk?

Are we really that afraid of being called names?

We don’t even believe anything that radical, really. We’re Mainline Protestants! Our church reflects the mainstream of religious belief. Few of us are declaring rapture. Yet, we hide.

It is safer to hide then it is to venture out into the world.

We are less likely to lose if we stay inside our four walls.

But it not losing actually winning?

Stephen lost.

Stephen lost big time.

We won’t lose if we don’t play the game.


God loves the loser.

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