Running With Watermelon Shoes

Mike Leake

2663358332_27264f64bdThere is a phrase from the comedy, Mystery Men, that I think perfectly describes my relationship with the Lord. In the scene Ben Stiller, who plays Mr. Furious, is frustrated with the new leader of his ragtag band of superheroes, The Sphinx. The Sphinx majors in formulaic phrases like, “when you care what is outside, what is inside cares for you.” Or “He who questions training only trains himself at asking questions”.

In one particular scene Mr. Furious, balancing a tack hammer on his head, questions The Sphinx’s methods. The Sphinx responds with another formulaic saying: “When you can balance a tack hammer on your head, you will head off your foes with a balanced attack.”

The camera then pans to Mr. Furious questioning why he is wearing watermelon on his feet. To this the Sphinx says, “I don’t remember telling you to do that.”

And there it is.

“I don’t remember telling you to do that.”

Wearing Watermelon Shoes

I wear watermelon shoes.

How many times have I set for myself an imaginary standard, failed to meet that standard, and then end up feeling guilty before a holy God for not accomplishing the goal that I set?

This is why a true understanding of the sufficiency of Scripture can be so helpful. I say “true understanding” because there is much being paraded around these days on the doctrine of sufficiency that is foreign to it’s historical meaning. I digress. One aspect of the doctrine of sufficiency is that we do not have the right to call something a sin which is not forbidden by Scripture either explicitly or by strong implication. And we are not required to do something unless Scripture requires this of us.

I want to finish 100 books this year. I believe reading good books helps me to grow as a person. I don’t know if I’ll make my goal, though. So, what happens if I don’t? Track the logic here:

A. Reading good books helps you grow as a person.
B. God desires for you to grow
Therefore: God desires you to read good books

Okay, maybe.

A. The more you read the more you’ll grow
B. Reading 100 books is a good goal
C. God wants me to be faithful and have integrity in accomplishing my goals.
Therefore: God wants me to read 100 books this year.

That’s simply horrible logic. 100 is an arbitrary number. There is nothing in Scripture that defines these parameters. God wants us have integrity in our person and to be consistent in obeying his law, and not the ones we make up for ourselves.

I can picture it now. I take my reading list to God at the end of the year and say, “I’m sorry that I didn’t get to 100. Please forgive me.”

And God responds, “I don’t remember telling you to do that.”

Freedom

It’d be helpful to kick off those watermelon shoes. What areas in your life do you feel a weight of guilt? Is that because of something which God has explicitly stated and you are falling short in this area? If so, repent and believe the gospel. Trust in Jesus for healing, change, and forgiveness.

What if you are breaking rules that you’ve made up? What if the shame and guilt that you feel is not imposed by God but instead by either your own standards or that placed upon you by the world? It wouldn’t be uncommon for you to be carrying this weight. Consider these words of Jesus:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 NIV

If his yoke is easy and his burden is light and yet we are weary and burdened it has to mean that we’re loaded down by things that we aren’t supposed to be. We’re trying to run the race with watermelon shoes.

So, kick those off today and rest in His finished work.

A Pastor, A Christian Counselor, and an LGBTQ+ Affirming Advocate Comes Upon A Hurting Survivor…

Mike Leake

view of two persons handsTrigger warning: sexual abuse

A woman was journeying and fell among a youth pastor. He groomed her, making her feel special for one of the first times in her life. Eventually the special attention moved into sexual touch that culminated in intercourse. It was confusing to the young woman when he soon discarded her and then threatened her not to tell. Did he not love her? Was she not actually special? When all was said and done she felt stripped, beaten down, and left half dead.

One day when she was a bit older, through a pastoral counseling session, she told some of her story. The pastor responded by rebuking her for having carried on this affair. He warned her that if she told anyone else this story she could ruin this young man’s thriving ministry. She would do great harm to the body of Christ by telling people what she had done.

She remained in the ditch. Half dead.

As she still found herself in the ditch of despair she decided to see a counselor. Her counselor began to talk to her about the need to forgive this youth pastor. He said she was clearly holding onto bitterness and it was eating her alive. She needed to release her attacker and move on from the situation. But there was no need to confront him and risk harming his young family. Forgiveness is choosing to bear the consequences of another. The counselor told her that Scripture demanded she forgive.

She continued in the ditch. Almost entirely dead.

But an LGBTQ-affirming sexual abuse advocate found her and had compassion. She understood all the dynamics of abuse and for the first time was able to name what happened to this young woman. It wasn’t a consensual affair. It was abuse. She had been groomed and manipulated into these actions. This youth pastor knew what he was doing. This LGBTQ+ affirming advocate walked with the young woman through reporting the abuse, finding helpful counseling, and pursuing justice. For the first time in a long time she was climbing out of that ditch.

Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the woman who fell among the youth pastor?

He said, “The one who actually helped.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”  (Adapted from Luke 10:25-37)

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If an organization is LGBTQ+ affirming but actually helps a survivor where the “priest” and the “Levite” left her on the side of the road our response is not to refuse their help. Our proper response is to ask why didn’t we respond appropriately.

LGBTQ+ affirming organizations are often leading the industry in sexual abuse response, training, etc. They are “doing mercy”. They are trauma-informed and survivor-centered. They are helping.

The Samaritan likely had deficient theology, but he was being a good neighbor. As such he did far more than the priest or the Levite in this story. Their theology wasn’t of such that could pull people out of a ditch. If you’re a priest or a Levite who doesn’t like that, then listen to this parable. “Go and do as the Samaritan”.

Just because an LGBTQ+ affirming organization does better at being trauma-informed it doesn’t mean that trauma-informed and survivor-centered responses are somehow deficient or ungodly. The Samaritan’s helpful care isn’t rejected in this parable because it came from the hands of someone who had deficient theology. Rather than questioning the “Samaritan” care to find deficiency, we’d do well to question our poor responses.

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Photo source: here

Crushed, But Not That Way

Mike Leake

pexels-netaly-reshef-191070

An angel, we’ll call him Clarence because that’s what you’re supposed to name angels, descends from heaven and lets you know that in your future you will be crushed to death. But you are being given an option as to how you’d like to be crushed.

Option A: You will be crushed in a way similar to how the Beatles were crushed by a mob of adoring and rather delusional fans. You are meeting a need in them and they cannot contain their excitement and you end up squashed.

Option B: You will be crushed because people hate you and think that you are a fraud. They will dream up an excruciating means of a slow and torturous death, beat you to an inch of your life and then use this brutal instrument to squeeze your body to the point of death.

Which one do you pick?

If I’m going to be crushed, then I’d rather be crushed because people love me. I don’t think I’d pick option B. That sounds horrendous.

—

“Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him…”

“he was crushed for our iniquities…”

And how would Jesus, the Suffering Servant, be crushed? It would be through the brutality of a bloody cross. But there was a point when he could have been crushed by popularity.

“And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him…” –Mark 3:9

Crushed, but not that way. Jesus will not pick the path of celebrity. He will avoid this type of crushing death. It does not please the LORD for his son to be crushed by popularity, and so he makes plans to avoid this dangerous devotion of fickle followers. Instead he will be crucified as a criminal.

There is a lesson for us in this path which Jesus chose. There is a type of celebratory martyrdom. Popularity can be crushing even in our day. And those of us who know that the path of Jesus is marked by suffering can be tempted to pick this type of suffering as if this is somehow what it means to die to self.

It’s not just any kind of cruciform life which Christ calls us to embrace. We aren’t called to be crushed by our own adoring platforms but rather our blood to be quietly spilled outside the city gates, among the vulnerable and for even our enemies.

Crushed, but not that way.

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Image source: here

Of Basketballs And Jesus’ Rescue

Mike Leake

Spalding basketball in courtWhen I was a little boy, and reader I mean little boy, I was at the park playing basketball by myself. A group of bigger kids came and took my basketball and started playing a game, quickly edging me to the sidelines. I think I just accepted it. “This is your place,” I told myself in ways a child communicates to his own soul.

But then something happened. A bigger kid than the big kids used his strength to give me my ball back.

There I stood, basketball back in hand, with an important choice.

What do I do with this rescued basketball?

Do I go to the other end of the court and start shooting baskets alone? It’s my ball. This would ensure that I was able to be the center of the game. I could once again escape into my imaginary world where I was both Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley in an epic battle.

But something told me that when the bigger kid gave me my ball back it somehow was no longer my ball. It’d been transformed somehow in that moment. Was it our ball now?

The only other option I could see was to reject the rescue and give the power back to the bullies. “It’s alright you guys can play…I was enjoying just watching and playing with this worm over here in the dirt.” That’d be a lie. But it feels like the safer option. I guess sometimes it’s more comfortable being the victim than it is to risk being an active participant.

That’s the way you think when you’ve been told repeatedly that you are “less than”. A bigger guy stepping in to give you your ball back doesn’t immediately fix those things. Deeper work is required. His initial rescuing action doesn’t automatically communicate that you’re worthy of rescue. So it’s understandable if you give the bullies the ball back.

At the time these were the only two options available to me. I want to change the story and make myself a wise sage at a young age—one who chose a third option.

I didn’t.

If my memory isn’t too blurry, I think what I chose was a little of both. I started by playing alone but that option, I quickly realized had been shattered. Alone wasn’t a thing anymore. So, I capitulated. I gave them their ball back and went and played something else. I thought myself noble for letting them make my ball their own.

It wasn’t noble.

The noble option would have been to use the basketball the way it’s meant to be used. Basketballs are meant to bind. To build community. A basketball used correctly will value the 3 point shooter, the rebounder, the tall one who plays closer to the basket, the passionate defender, the passer.

That rescued basketball held power. But I used it on myself. And then I gave it to a group of bullies to use it on themselves. The rescued basketball wasn’t really rescued until it was used for the right reason.

—

I’m sharing this story because I have an image in my mind this morning.

I’m picturing a group of women who’ve been battered and broken by men using God’s Word as a club. They’ve taken her Word and pushed her to the sidelines. But it’s worse. This Word has been used to abuse her. Making her sit on the sidelines is bad enough—but this would be like throwing a basketball at her face repeatedly. And then using the Word to tell her not to mop up the blood but to let it dry as she sits on the sideline and watches the boys play.

And I’m picturing Jesus stepping in and telling the bullies (dare I say us bullies?), “Give it back to her!!” The Word isn’t meant for those things. “Give MY Word back to her!”

I think that’s what Jesus was doing with that woman caught in adultery. I don’t know what he was writing in the dirt but I know that he was giving her life back to her. They were using God’s Word to pick up stones and wreck her. He was using God’s Word to restore and redeem her. He always used God’s Word how it was supposed to be used.

I also know that when Jesus was doing battle with the devil in the wilderness, and Satan was using the Word to try to manipulate Jesus, Jesus was also giving us the Word back. He didn’t capitulate. And He did what you’re supposed to do with a rescued Word—rebuild community.

I’m grateful that there seems to be a movement afoot where Jesus is stepping in and saying “Giving it back to her!” And when she is holding it in her hand, I’m hoping she realizes that third option.

But it’s her rescued basketball to use now. 

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Photo source: here