Oddness

Introducing Bob Murphy (my dad's boss), who each week writes these really cool devotionals for his Shang Ti Kempo class. Something about this week's message struck a chord in me, so I decided to share it. Enjoy!

My Dearest Friends and Loved Ones,

Greetings on this fine day. This morning I'm in one of the best moods I've been in, in a long time. It's an odd thing really. Yesterday, it dawned on me that I had really reached the end of my primary career path in my company. My company reorganized, and a new Director's job was created. Normally I would think that I was the obvious choice for advancement, but this new job isn't in any way related to my experience and background. There probably won't be another position above my current level that opens up for the rest of my career at this company. You would think that I would be terminally depressed, and I must admit that I did suffer from some depression when I realized that the VP of my division didn't reorganize with my own personal advancement in mind. However, it's odd that on the other side of that initial depression I have found a sense of peace that is very rare in my own experience.

I have been able to realize, in the past few days, how truly blessed I am and what really matters in my life. My career is important, I do need to provide for my family, but there are other things that are more important. My wife is wonderful, I love her more every day. My kids are marvelous and beautiful. My friends are a joy. Other than my MSU basketball team stinking it up right now, everything else that I care about brings me great joy. Most importantly, I have God in my life and that relationship has really allowed me to grow more in the past three years than at any time in my life.

So, as you can see, I'm in a rare mood today, and this leads me to write an odd and quirky message. I hope it makes some sense, and I pray that it has some meaning and relevance in your lives.

The Gift of Oddness:

It occurs to me that what characterizes Christianity in the modern world is its oddness. Christianity is the home for people who are out of step, unfashionable, unconventional, and counterculture. As Peter says, "strangers, aliens." Young Christians even understand this. At my youth group meeting, this past weekend, one of the teens confidently stated in the context of the discussion, "We are to be in the world, but not of the world." All the kids in our youth group seem to understand this concept better than many adults do.

Many of our churches are not glistening cathedrals filled exclusively with beautiful Cinderella's. Many churches are noisy, rollicking mad-houses filled with yelping, dancing, singing characters who follow the real Cinderella wherever He goes. Many churches are not only awe inspiring; they are odd inspiring, attracting an earthy assortment of Jesus' followers. Some of the stained glass is extraordinary, but it is covered with ordinary fingerprints. You might imagine dirt from the fields scattered on a glistening marble sanctuary floor. Hanging in the air throughout the body Christ is the heavenly smell of incense mingled with the piggy fragrance of sweaty, commonplace messy disciples.

Someone once said, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd." I don't remember where I heard that, but it stuck with me. Whoever made that statement understood what it means to be a follower of Christ. Followers of Christ are odd. Oddness is important because it adds color, texture, variety, and beauty to the human condition. Christ doesn't make us the same. What he does is affirm our differences. Oddness is important because the most dangerous word in Western culture is sameness. Sameness is a virus that infects members of industrialized nations and causes an allergic reaction to anyone who is different. This virus affects the decision-making part of our brains, resulting in an obsession with making the identical choices everyone else is making.

Sameness is a disease with disastrous consequences--differences are ignored, uniqueness is not listened to, our gifts are cancelled out. Life, passion, and joy are snuffed out. Sameness is the result of sin and does much more than infect us with lust and greed; it flattens the human race, franchises us, attempts to make us all homogenous. Sameness is the cemetery where our distinctiveness is buried. In a sea of sameness, no one has an identity. But Christians do have an identity. We're aliens! We are the odd ones, the strange ones, the misfits, the outsiders, the incompatibles. Oddness is a gift from God and sits dormant until God's Spirit gives it life and shape. Oddness is the consequence of following the one who made us unique, different, and in his image!

I've got a special observation for PB. I was waiting until he finished his C. S. Lewis sermon series to see if he made the same connection, but he didn't, so here you go. I think it relates to today's message.

In C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the White Witch has turned many of the inhabitants of Narnia into stone, but Aslan, the Christ figure, jumps into the stone courtyard, pouncing on the statues, breathing life into them. Last weekend, Pastor Bruce talked about him being like a kitten in this part of the story:

"The courtyard looked no longer like a museum; it looked more like a zoo. Creatures were running after Aslan and dancing around him till he was almost hidden in the crowd. Instead of all the deadly white the courtyard was now a blaze of colors; glossy chestnut sides of centaurs, indigo horns of unicorns, dazzling plumage of birds, reddy-brown of foxes, dogs and satyrs, yellow stockings and crimson hoods of dwarfs; and the birch-girls in silver, and the beech-girls in fresh, transparent green, and the larch-girls in green so bright that it was almost yellow. And instead of the deadly silence the whole place rang with the sound of happy roarings, brayings, yelpings, brakings, squealings, cooings, neighings, stampings, shouts, hurrahs, songs and laughter."

Lewis's summary of what is happening in Narnia is a brilliant description of what the church should look like: "The courtyard looked no longer like a museum; it looked more like a zoo." It is the incongruence and the oddness of our disjointed spirituality that ought to characterize every church. For God so loved the world, that whosoever believes in Him will, from that point on, be considered weird by the rest of the world, which means to me that the church should be more like a zoo than a tomb of identical mummies.

I hope this doesn't offend any of you. I think if you look at what I'm saying today, you will celebrate your unique character and recognize your value to God.

Have a God filled day,

Your Brother,
Bob