It’s been construed as so many things; a team, an army, a kingdom, a family. And, by “it,” I mean, church, or whatever name you choose to give to that gathering of people who have collected themselves together under the umbrella of Jesus. All the afore-mentioned names are valid in their own right, but valid as they are, they still miss something… Something gets lost in translation and there is a world that doesn’t see any place for itself under the umbrella.
I was never on the football team at school, just with the kids on my street at that age when you think you might actually grow up to be a football player. I thought maybe I’d be on the Bengals because I liked tigers and they had really cool helmets with tiger stripes on them. I once went to this school that was so small that there weren’t even enough guys to have a full basketball team. So they begged me and my friend… we were in a band… to be on the team, so there could be a team. Even then I wasn’t really a part of the team; I just filled a spot so that the other people could play. So, it never helped me to think of the church as a team. And plus I was always scared of being on teams because there always seemed to be a locker room involved somehow, and the thought of being naked in front of a bunch of other guys, didn’t really get my attention.
I was born a misfit. I identify myself as a misfit. I am intentional about mis-fitting. If I were to find myself in a crowd of people who all look, talk, dress, act and smell like me, and I couldn’t find any way out, I would absolutely need to change something about myself quickly. I have the nature of a wolverine when it comes to not fitting in; I will chew my arm off if that’s the only way I can distinguish myself! I am sure there were times when I actually wanted to fit in, but my destiny wouldn’t have it, so I learned to embrace it. It’s actually pretty easy. For the most part, you just have to be honest.
Do you remember that Claymation Christmas TV special with Rudolph and Yukon Cornelius and the elf who wanted to be a dentist? Well, as the story goes, Rudolph and the elf ran away from the normal world to find a place to fit in. It just so happens that they end up on the Island of Misfit Toys. There was a toy train with square wheels; a Jack-in-the-box named Charlie, and a doll with abandonment issues. The Island was where all the misfits seemed to “end up.” They weren’t planning on going there; they maybe never thought they’d even want to, but at some point, always through a series of unexpected, unplanned, and usually unfortunate events, that’s where they found themselves. This is, in my experience, what brings people to God. Oh Yeah, and the ruler of the Island was this lion with wings, named King Moon Racer, who flies around every night looking for unwanted toys!
The thing is, we are all misfits. Some of us just don’t see it yet. Maybe things are going well for them in the normal world or they are just really good liars… or perhaps, naïve enough to believe their own lies.
But the truth is, none of us were meant to fit into what has become of this world…
Let’s think about it. There are corporations that search and search for someone, anyone, who they think would be the next archetype. They choose someone, for some reason, and pay a lot of money to make sure this person is in our face as much as possible. And they make a lot of money doing it! Try to count the amount of times, in one day, during your normal travels that you lay eyes on a poster, internet ad, tv commercial or whatever, featuring the latest pop idol. And some or most of us, like sheep, believe subconsciously that we should look, talk, dress, act and smell like this creation. We tend to judge ourselves by the degree to which we are similar to these people. This phenomenon has been discussed and written about many times by people more fit than I to do so, and everyone has their own opinions about it.
But, you know what? This isn’t real. This isn’t life. This can’t be what the world was meant to be like… This is what has become of the world. This is what we’ve done to the world. There is an entirely new world to be experienced and it starts with taking an objective step back. Dare yourself to think there might be something else out there other than succeeding here and rising and falling in popularity or escaping when we realize we can’t fit in…
To be continued…
