DON’T TALK TO STRANGERS

My students recently read a piece from the Power of Nonviolence, a personal narrative about a man named John Lewis who participated in sit-ins during the 1960s. A lot of kids questioned the notion of nonviolent protest, said they seemed to lead to violence because the Gandhis, Throreaus and Kings of the world ended up assassinated and/or jailed. Jesus Christ is also in this category of misunderstood leaders whose earthly life ended because of suspicion, fear and brutish corrective measures.

And so in reading with the kiddies, I naturally was led to think about how the unfamiliar scares people to death, literally throughout world history. When movements, particularly the nonviolent sort, are squelched, it is often at the hands of weapons and because of a latent fear. Someone or some entity is afraid of losing power, money, status, etc. but the consummate preventive solution is always manually silencing your opposition.

When all else fails, you shut people you don’t understand up with force…I guess. And so it resonated when I read a devotion prescribed to me by Prudence Dancy (Renewed Living Ministries), a friend whose very life revolves around spiritual formation. Her prescription started me off in I John 3:1 and the second half of that  verse says, “…The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” And I thought, shoot…seems like people malign what they don’t fathom. It’s like the sixth grader who thinks math is dumb because he’s rockin’ a D-minus.

Tim Tebow (Denver Broncos) professes faith in Jesus Christ, clearly exposes a motive bigger than football for his lifestyle and people find him perplexing. And honestly, people just found him intriguing because when a rabbit foot is on a roll, people want to know where they can buy one. He was 6-1 as a starter and most recently had helped his team when a slew of games in unorthodox fashion. But he’s not that interesting at all, just unrecognizable because when people listen to him talk, it sounds like mumbo jumbo, gobbledygook nonsense. But truth be told, it’s not maniacal, especially if it drives a millionaire to espouse charity, compassion and mentoring. What’s weird about that? But it is uncommon and strange enough for a cynical world to cry foul when they see individuals willing to risk reputation and well-being for core belief.

I think the unfamiliar can be immediately polarizing like the issue of segregation pre-1964. But strangeness can also be faddish and cult-like as people lift their glasses while watching admirable people proclaim truths that should govern us all. But whether the culturally virtuous weirdos of past and present arouse violence or entertain, I realized that this tendency of people to make fun of morals and debunk spiritually driven people is based in fear.

Loving enemies, forgiving, ridding your thought life of adultery and poisonous anger are the types of things our society says are ridiculous. Because what would life be like without our self-medicating? We legislate our arrogance, our right to comfort, our right to remain silent on controversial issues, etc. We’re afraid of making people mad at us or jeopardizing illusory ease we conjure up for family. But the strangers of history probably weren’t trying to create a pantheon of Hall-of-Fame martyrs. God makes no sense to most people but neither does a V-8 engine for most of us. I get it now. “…The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” If you’re going to stand for more than situational ethics like the heroes and heroines of history, you’ll have to be outfitted with the grim truth that you will not be understood. Why should you be? The guy who invented truth didn’t make it to his 34th birthday.