Not Doing Me Any Favors

I work in youth ministry.

You can tell, because the other day I realized that I say "Awesome." Not ironically. Sincerely.At least once a day.

Yes, I sincerely believe that there are things in my everyday life that are so wonderful, so literally full of wonder, that they deserve to be called Awesome, and I call them that. To other adult humans. Out loud. And occasionally in emails. More than 7 times a week.

(I also use it in text messages. But for some reason, it's usually sarcastic when I use it in a text. Hmmm.)

Anyway, part of my (awesome) job is writing lessons for our kids on Sundays.

This month, we'll be trying working on empathy, trying to grind into their tiny little heads what Jesus said in Matthew 7:12 - "In everything, do to others what you would want them to do to you," (as it says in the flat-footed but exceptionally clear New International Reader's Version.)

So: The Golden Rule.

How do you get pre-schoolers to begin to recall scripture? Well, the same way you get adults and teens and centegenarians to - by singing a song.

Google Golden Rule Song.

I dare you.

Oksy, I don't dare you. I can't be responsible for the effect on my tender-hearted friends. or my under-18 friends, and I have plenty of both. You know, because youth minister.

The top result - the top PAGE of results - involve a parody rap song from Lonely Island, vocals by Andy Samberg, joined in this number by Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga, some humiliating fake beards, and a bunch of clothes from Chess King.

The specific golden rule in the song is not the sum of the law and the prophets. It's an etiquette rule about is specific to a form of adult recreation, about which a woman might text a gent*, after which he would hop a transit bus to her house, with a 6 of Bartles and James.

It's not subtle, but it's pretty funny. Now I want to listen to some of their other songs, but I can't. Because I am now at home with my child. Not in my office at church. Right.

SO not what I was looking for. 

[*Spoiler alert: OR TWO.]


:Bonus:  if you'd like to see a Golden Rule song that is possibly even more inappropriate for a pre-school Sunday School class, Google: Jack Black Golden Rule Song.

6 ideas

1. Sundays aren’t important
That is to say: Coming to church on Sunday does not make you a Christian or constitute a spiritual life. A Sunday isn’t our one chance to save souls or glorify God. It’s not the one place to learn about God, commune with the Holy Spirit, or be challenged. In many ways, as we spend time, sitting still, thinking about or listening to people talk about God, Sundays run the risk of being the least spiritually forming day of the week.

2.Sundays are important
They’re our front door, our chance to host strangers and long-lost friends. They can give us a chance to reflect, which most of us rarely get (or take) during the week. They tell us how to make direct contact with God. They provide a chance to consider new ideas about God and the world; the combination of time with God and new perspective may open the door for transformation.

3. A journey together, not a presentation to an audience
We are not in the business of trying to sell anything, convince anyone of anything, or impress anyone, with our logic or with our artistry. Including God. A worship gathering has a bunch of living humans making contact with a living God, and even though we do our very best to plan things well and have a destination in mind, we cannot anticipate or control everything that happens. I don’t think we should want to.

4. It matters that we are all together in one place
There has got to be a difference between coming to church and hearing a sermon on a podcast, listening to Passion CDs in the car, praying in the shower. It has to matter that we can look one another in the eye, touch one another, and actually converse rather than monologue. Our bodies have to matter, and our proximity has to matter.

5. some things are beyond words
Not only is God beyond our logical comprehension – we are. The mundane world is. We need to make peace, deep in our souls, with the idea that God is worth a lifetime of study, service, prayer, digging, listening – and that we are not going to get to ‘answers’. Ever. Much is lost when we try to make God ‘make sense’. It’s not even a good marketing ploy, because smart people can see right through it.

6. The only decent ‘selling point’ in favor of a life with God is that you get to have a life with God.

what we've done to Christmas

The most accurate portrayal of the nativity that I've seen is in the film Children of Men. The movie tells of a not-so-distant future where people are no longer fertile, and humanity is gradually dying out. There are no babies, no children, and no hope.

As inevitable anarchy descends, communities and their cities are destroyed; allegiance and faithfulness fall away. Friendship, forgiveness and trust are quaint relics from the past. Then one day there's a whisper, an impossible rumour of a woman who is pregnant. As the rumour spreads, the world fights for ownership rights to the baby.

Towards the end of the story, the protector, mother and the crying newborn make their way to a place where the baby's survival can be guaranteed. The people fighting in the street hear the cry of a baby.

They can't work out what could be making that noise. They haven't heard that cry within living memory. But when they recognise it for what it is, they drop their weapons, they drop their guard, they even drop their determination to survive. Just for that moment, the world stands still.

Don't let a Christmas carol tell you otherwise: the cry of a baby when the world has been holding its breath is the most beautiful sound imaginable. It's perhaps the only sound that can ever change the world. Whatever chance we get, in whatever place we can, whether we choose Christianity as our faith or whether we visit it twice a year, all of us are called to seek out that cry and find where it might be born in the world.

Cheryl Lawrie works for the Alternative Worship Project in the Uniting Church in Australia

go read the rest - The Age is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia; Cheryl Lawrie's blog is [hold :: this space] where she posts amazing liturgy and poetry from her work creating worship in prisons and hospitals.

Reading her blog reminds me that this work is real...that facilitating worship and bringing people the sacraments is really precious, not just to me, but in reality. That communion isn't, you know, the garnish on the spiritual meal (where the meat is service and study...)

Hmmmm.

...I was taught to be skeptical of the body, its aptitude for failure, its tendency toward disappointment and even danger. Don’t love your body—love your mind, your good will, your spirit. Your body, left to its own designs, will lure you into too much leisure, too much pleasure, too much selfish living. And at this time of year especially, resolve to tame the body’s undisciplined wildness.

And then fail. Feel shame. Make an uneasy peace. Buckle down and try again. I’ve always wondered, when Jesus’ closest friends began to be thought of as his body, was it a punishing, distrusting relationship they had in mind, or a depth of love for self and the rest of us that I can barely imagine?

Kayla’s typical body resolutions:

1. Lose weight.
2. Walk more.
3. Eat healthier.
4. Take the stairs instead of the elevator.
5. Blah, blah, blah….

Jesus’ typical body resolutions:

1. Have a radically loving relationship with my body.
2. Treat my body as both treasure and vessel.
3. Be a faithful companion to my body as we act in ways worthy of who God created us to be.
4. Enjoy my body. Stretch us beyond what we think we’re capable of.
5. Let my body take me even where I’d rather not go, if God calls us there.

- My Body, for You by Kayla McClurg

On Church of the Savior's lovely and thought-provoking blog, Inward/Outward.
(You should get their daily email feed.)