I See you, I am For
You” (Colossians 3:12-14)
Sunday, May 19, 2019
“Pastor, if I raise my finger, will
God know which one I’m going to raise even before I raise it?”
Thirteen-year-old Steve attended
church every week and this particular Sunday, he asked the pastor this question. “Yes,” the pastor answered, “God knows
everything.”
Steve then pulled out Life magazine, with a photo of children
in another country starving to death. He
asked the pastor who had just told him ‘God knows everything,’ “Does God know
what’s going to happen to these kids?”
The pastor said, “Steve, I know you
don’t understand, but yes, God know about those dying children.” If you were Steve, would you be satisfied
with the pastor’s response? Steve
wasn’t. He walked out that day and never
again worshiped at a Christian church.
When Steve was troubled by the
question of starving children, he went to his pastor. I don’t know what answer the pastor could
have given, but in the case of 13-year-old Steve, the answer he did give drove
the boy from church. He didn’t feel the
pastor respected him. He was asking a
serious question, one that troubled him, one that should have troubled the
pastor, and should trouble all of us. If
God is all powerful and God is good, how can there be suffering in the
world?
He
felt that the pastor dismissed him with a trite answer and the degrading
assertion that he “wouldn’t understand.”
That inquisitive boy grew up and founded a company whose products you
might have in your pocket. Steve Jobs created
Apple, the iPhone. When he was a kid trying to work through pain and big
questions, he felt like all his pastor and his church did was tussle his hair
and tell him he didn’t understand.
Imagine
if that conversation went differently.
Thirteen-year-old Steve, clearly troubled, asks, “Pastor, does God know
there are children starving to death?
What’s He doing about it?” What
if instead of a simplistic answer to a complicated question, instead, the
pastor invited Steve to sit and talk.
What if Steve’s big question became an “on-ramp to a deeper discussion
about faith?”[i]
We
can’t go back in time to change the interaction between adolescent Steve Jobs
and his pastor. Maybe the pastor was
ready to talk, but nothing he could have said would have made a
difference. We’ll never know. Here is what I do know. I have spent time with the teenagers in our
church. The middle and high schoolers in
our youth group, the young adults, and some of the older elementary students
ask questions every bit as big as those Steve Jobs asked his pastor.
We
have the opportunity to respect them when they ask big questions. We can dive deep into those question with
inquisitive young people. When they ask
big questions, we adults can allow ourselves to be reminded to ask big
questions too. We can allow ourselves to
be reminded that there aren’t always easy answers and we don’t always agree
with each other on the answers. But, we
can care about each other enough to listen to one another, go to the Bible
together, prayer together, and seek answers together.
If
our church is to successfully grow young in our mindset and in our spirit, we
need to say to our children, teens, and young adults, “I see you. I feel you.
I am for you.” We need to be so genuine in adopting a
posture of understanding, presence, and respect, that young people hear us and
know that we mean it. We really do see
and respect them. We are for them. And if we practice this stance when our young
people bring big questions, we’ll find that we’re treating our older people
with similar generosity because we realize we all have big questions. It’s just that some of us have become old and
jaded, and we’ve become afraid to ask.
The
church is essentially a gathering of people who each are in Christ as individuals, and together are united in Christ. In
Christ, we welcome all people. Every
seeker and inquirer, every child and intrepid teen, everyone looking for a
second or third or tenth chance after life has repeatedly broken them – all are
welcome and invited in.
When
we have declared Jesus “Lord” and receive forgiveness, we receive the Holy
Spirit. We are in Christ, new creations.
Colossians 3:12 gives three names to all who are in Christ: they are
God’s chosen ones; they are holy; and they are beloved. If you have received Jesus, that means those
are your names; chosen, holy, and beloved.
Those
in Christ should live differently than those who are not Christ. You could easily see if I changed my
shirt. You should be able to see just as
clearly if I am in Christ or am not. In
Christ, I put to death fornication, impurity, uncontrolled passion, evil
desire, and greed. In Christ we get rid
of anger, wrath, malic, slander, and abusive language. We examine our lives and make the changes to
put to death in us the things that need to be killed and to get rid the things
that cause hurt and come between us and God. We strip off the old self.
But,
we don’t prance about spiritually naked.
As the Spirit works in us, transforming us, it says in verse 10, we
clothe ourselves with the new self; verse 12, we clothe ourselves with
compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience; and verse 14, we clothe
ourselves with love – the love that binds the church together.
Of
these garments that signal to others that we belong to the Lord, compassion,
and patience are especially important when we talk about helping young people
in our church become disciples of Jesus.
We can only help young people grow if we are in relationship with them –
eliminating the us-them divide. That
relationship only happens when we identify with the struggles young people
have.
Here’s
one example of how we have to learn empathy and understand that without it, we
won’t connect, we won’t grow young, and we’ll actually lose the youth and young
adults who are here. I come from the
school of thought that we overmedicate kids.
I don’t remember kids when I was growing up taking medications for ADD
or ADHD or anxiety or other things. So,
like an out-of-date curmudgeon I grumble about it. Well, I was discussing this with a
psychiatrist who prescribes meds in her practice. I was ready to go off on my “kids these days
rant,” when she, with genuine compassion in her voice said, “Imagine how hard
life is for him without the medication.”
Ouch! I don’t know if that psychiatrist is
Christian. I know I am supposed to be
one. I know I just read a passage from
the Bible that’s supposed to my authority.
That passage said people in Christ clothe themselves with compassion and
patience. I, Mr. Christian, was already
to grumble about the behavior of teenagers.
This “secular” psychiatrist felt the young person’s pain. She wore the compassion that is supposed to
be my clothing. I wore that anger that
Colossians 3:8 says I am supposed to get rid of.
Showing
compassion for today’s young people takes effort. We have to put on patience, not just being
patient with the young person I want to love and nurture, but also being
patient with the process. A woman
recently wanted to introduce me to her teenaged daughter. The kid wanted no part of this
interaction. As her mother tried to make
introductions, the teen never removed the earbuds from her ears. When I said, “Nice to meet you,” she said nothing,
but just looked at me with eyes that told me to … well, I won’t use the crass
phrase she communicated with her seething glare. Her mother told her to take the earbuds
out. She snapped, “I can hear you.”
If
all I do is think, “What a rude kid!” I’ll
never reach that young person. I need
patience to get past that initial encounter.
Young people today, are on their phones all the time. They want instant stimulus and immediate
feedback they can control. We have to
stay present, open and ready to gently enter their lives when they invite us
in.
We
also have to be patient with the process.
Kids today are entering puberty a younger age and marrying at older
ages. That’s a long time to wait and
many aren’t. By 18, 75% of unchurched
young people and 53% of church-going young people have had some kind of sexual
experience. Usually it is emotionally
unhealthy experience. Add this distorted
sexuality to the way social media has opened the world to kids, and you have a
much earlier starting point for entry into adulthood.
At
the same time, these digitally connected, sexually confused young people stay
home later. Parents today are provide
more financial help to their grown children than 40 years ago. More American young adults are either don’t
move out on their own, or do, but then move back home. In terms of adult maturation kids are behind
where they used to. Twenty-five is the
new 15. And 15 is the new 25. Both are true.
We
aren’t going to solve this. It isn’t a
thing to be solved. This is the world in
which we are called to bear witness to Jesus.
He is Lord. In him people have
salvation. All people need salvation. We
are called to share this news and help people become his disciples within this
world. We have to put on compassion and
patience every day.
To
be announcers of the gospel and makers of disciples, we have to work hard to
understand our young people. When they
hear us say, “I see you; I am here for you,” they have to be convinced. We have to say it in a way that they know we
mean it.
We
have to get rid of phrases like “back in my day,” and “when I was growing
up.” Nowhere does the Bible tell us that
nostalgia is a mark of discipleship. We
can honor the past and appreciate and learn from it. We must not idolize it. Relating to young people is messy, but we’ve
got to be willing to go right into that mess, neck-deep.
If
we do, we’ll see the difference. People
come to Christ in a church that makes space for them the way Jesus made space
for tax collectors, beggars, prostitutes, sinners and people deemed unclean by religious
authorities. If we convey the compassion
the lost found in Jesus, the lost will come to us. His Holy Spirit will effect transformation in
them and in each one of us. We don’t
need to change people. We need God to
work change in us, making each of us more like Christ.
We
do that, and we’ll be ready when 13-year-old Steve comes with big
questions. We won’t rub his head as we
condescendingly mutter, “Oh you’ll understand when you’re older.” We sit with him and say, “Thank you for
raising big questions. Let’s explore it,
reading the Bible, praying, and thinking together. We can learn together and meet God
together.” We do that and this will be a
church where seekers become disciples no matter their age.
AMEN
[i] K.
Powell, J. Mulder, and B. Griffin (2016), Growing
Young, Baker Books (Grand Rapids), p.89-90.
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