I Like Your Style – Bold Humility
Sycamore Creek Church
Matthew 5:13-16
April 10, 2011
Tom Arthur
Peace, Friends!
Welcome to my new style! Last week I interviewed Susan Bigger about her fashion style and her lifestyle of shopping habits. Well, Susan gave me a thrift-store makeover and voila! While my outfit last week was upwards of $150, today I’m sporting an outfit that cost about $10 (minus the shoes and belt…we didn’t have any luck finding those two things at any thrift store). After going to one thrift store and one consignment store, I spent about $100 and walked away with four pairs of pants, 10 shirts, and one light-weight jacket. Wow!
So what was the point of all that? Well, Susan has a cool style, but her lifestyle is also cool. She dresses attractively, but she also lives simply. That’s pretty cool. When people look at you, do they see a lifestyle that makes them say, “I like your style?” Does following Jesus make any difference in the way you live your life? It should. This series, I Like Your Style, is a series about sharing your faith, and the foundation of sharing your faith is living your faith. As Michael Slaughter says, “You have to be the gospel before someone will hear the gospel.”
Today we move on to explore spiritual conversations with people. How do we have them? What should they look like? What do we say? Let’s begin with the same Bible passage we read last week. It’s part of Jesus’ most famous sermon: The Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew 5:13-16 (NLT)
“You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it useful again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. You are the light of the world — like a city on a mountain, glowing in the night for all to see. Don’t hide your light under a basket! Instead, put it on a stand and let it shine for all. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.
Salt and light. That’s what Jesus says we are supposed to be, but how do we share that faith with others? Growing up I learned several variations on what is usually called The Four Spiritual Laws. This was a faith sharing tract (a little booklet) that Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, developed for Christians to share Jesus with others. There are a lot of variations on this basic tract, but this is the one that I learned and have even taught at times.
God created us to be in relationship with God. The problem is that we have sinned and turned away from God. This creates a chasm between us. We all instinctively know and experience this separation from God so we try to do good things to bridge that gap. We serve at homeless shelters. We help out people on the side of the road. We give some money away. We go to church. The problem with each of these attempts is that they don’t quite make it across the chasm. We can never be good enough to repair the damage that was done to our relationship with God. Each of these things ultimately leads to death. God knew this and saw the problem and sent Jesus, God’s Son, to bridge that gap. Jesus did so by dying on the cross and breaking the power of sin and death. In order for us to receive this free gift, we each have to ask Jesus to be our forgiver and our leader. The only question left is, where are you at in this picture? Are you standing on the side of the gap looking across it? Are you putting your toe on the bridge to see if it holds your weight? Are you walking across? Have you already walked across? Where are you right now?
The helpful thing about this kind of a picture is that you can see it and easily remember it. The down side to it is that it often comes across like a sales job. And truth be told, while I have taught this several times, I’ve never actually found a time to use it with an individual. It always felt a little too canned. I don’t know that it is always bad, but I just don’t think it is really all that effective in our current culture. So what is effective in our current culture and context? I want to suggest that bold humility is an effective conversational style in our current culture. Let’s unpack that.
Humility
Jesus says that we are “the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13). Here’s the funny thing about salt. You don’t really need a whole lot of it to add a great deal of taste to whatever you’re eating. Just a little goes a long way. Takes French fries. Salt is great on French fries, but you don’t need a cup of it. Maybe a couple of teaspoons.
I had a friend, Mark, who came over to our house for a sushi night. I had just taken a class learning how to make sushi, and I was eager to give it a try. One thing you eat with Sushi is wasabi. Wasabi is basically horseradish. A little goes a very long way. Well, Mark, figured that if a little was good, a lot would be great. I warned him that when it came to wasabi, this was not the case, but he didn’t listen. So he dumped a huge dollop of wasabi on the top of a piece of sushi and threw the entire thing into his mouth mid-sentence. A moment later his face went red, he jumped up from the table, and ran to the bathroom! We all had a good laugh at his silly mistake.
Or take this classic scene from Dumb and Dumber. Lloyd and Harry show up at a charity ball wearing tuxes that are just a little bit too loud.
I think the property of salt is such that you don’t need to be loud about what you believe when you’re sharing it. A little bit goes a long way. Sometimes when we come to conversations about faith we think we have to absolutely explain and defend everything we believe. We don’t bring any humility to the conversation. We think we’ve got everything to say and all the other person should do is listen, but this is kind of like pouring a cup of salt on French fries, or a dollop of wasabi on a piece of sushi, or wearing a pink or orange tux to a charity ball. Nobody wants any of what we’ve got. In fact, they’d prefer if we just went away.
But what if we came to the conversation willing to listen and even be corrected? Do any of us have a monopoly on the truth? Can’t we learn something from everyone? I think that when it comes to spiritual conversations in our current culture and context, this kind of humility will go a very long way.
I try to always be open to being wrong. I try to be open to being wrong about just about everything. The small stuff and even the big stuff. I may be wrong about this whole God thing. I may be wrong about this whole Jesus thing. I may be wrong about what I think is the right ethic or moral in any given situation. It’s not that I’m a relativist and think that anything goes, I just realize how limited my own perspective can be. I’ve been wrong in the past, and I might just be wrong right now.
I think this is something of the spirit of what Paul is getting at when he says, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12, NRSV). Bring to every conversation about faith and spiritual things this basic attitude: that you know only in part and not the whole.
Last week I introduced you to a book I recently read called unchristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. Kinnaman is the president of the Barna Group, one of the largest polling and research groups in our nation. They specialize in issues pertaining to Christianity and faith. Kinnaman researched 16-29 year-olds who are “outside” (his language not mine) the church and found some startling results. These “outsiders” think that Christians usually act in unchristian ways!
One of those unchristian ways has to do with how we have conversations. In a chapter about being judgmental, Kinnaman says, “Human beings are attracted to acceptance and genuine respect; they are repelled by rejection and an air of superiority.” He provides us with some helpful suggestions taken from these “outsiders” themselves on how to have non-judgmental conversations. They are:
Listen to me.
Don’t label me.
Don’t be so smart.
Put yourself in my place.
Be genuine.
Be my friend with no other motives.
I think I can live into all of those. In fact, I can live into them because that’s how I want people to approach me too! Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Come to each and every faith-sharing conversation with the humility that listens first and is open to being corrected. But also be bold…
Bold
Right beside salt, Jesus says we are also “the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14, NLT). While a little salt goes a long way, light is pretty hard to do in subtle ways. Turn on a light in a dark room, and well, it’s impossible to notice. I think that Jesus is pairing together in the metaphor of salt and light both humility and boldness or a bold humility.
I’d suggest that when it comes to Sycamore Creek Church, we are probably pretty good at the humble side of this equation, but we all could learn a little bit about being bold. Our own church culture is one that is open to questions, open to learning from the “outsider.” We try to suggest that while we do think we’ve got some good answers, we don’t have all the answers. But how many of you have invited someone to church lately or have begun a spiritual conversation?
I’m not trying to suggest that you start a spiritual conversation to shove your beliefs down someone’s throat. I’m suggesting you start a spiritual conversation because you are so filled with the love of God that you can’t keep it to yourself. You’ve got to talk about it with others. The problem for most of us is how to start that conversation. Here are a couple of suggestions.
I learned this question from Barb Flory, the founding pastor of SCC. Barb loved to ask people if they had a church family. She didn’t ask them if they attended church. If they don’t attend church, the attendance question immediately brings up guilt and defenses. Barb told me that when she went to the ER one time in an ambulance, she asked all the EMTs if they had a church family. I thought to myself, if a grandma on the way to the ER in an ambulance can ask about a church family, I can do it too. I find that this question opens a lot of doors with people. Because many people consider a particular church their church family but they don’t attend, you can eventually get to the question of attendance, but you’ve built a bit of trust and relationship before you go there.
Here’s another great question to begin spiritual conversations: How can I pray for you? I’m not suggesting you ask this just to begin the conversation. You should definitely pray for whatever is shared, but I’ve only ever been told once that there was nothing that could be prayed for.
As a general rule of thumb, I consider that any topic brought up by the other person in conversation is fair game to ask another question about. Say you ask how you can pray and someone says, “You can pray for my mother.” Well, ask about their mother. Then ask another question about their mother. And another. It is obviously something that is close to their heart. People drop hints all the time about what they’d like to talk about. You just have to listen for them.
Another way to be bold in conversation is to share about your SCC experience. What are you involved in at SCC? What has gotten you excited about being a part of SCC? What great sermon did you hear lately? What great conversation did you have in small group? What great book is your group reading? What great mission project is your group doing? Talk about. Share it. Don’t keep it to yourself. Be bold!
And what about sharing the “Gospel.” When it comes time to share what you believe the good news of Jesus is, how do you sum it up? If I were asked to sum up what I believe in a nutshell I’d say one of two things. The first is that God became friends with us through Jesus Christ so that we might become friends with God. The second is the Apostles’ Creed. We just studied that and you just memorized it (you did memorize it didn’t you?). That is the Christian faith in a short concise statement. What great conversations could start from that?
Common “Debates”
I wonder if one reason that we aren’t bolder in starting conversations is that we’re afraid we’ll end up being asked questions that we can’t answer or in a debate that we don’t know how to respond. Here are a couple of common statements people make and how I might respond to them with bold humility.
All religions are equal.
There are many similarities among different religions, and Christians certainly can learn from people of other faiths. And all religions don’t teach the same thing. Take for example Islam and Christianity. Islam teaches that Jesus wasn’t really crucified while Christianity teaches that Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried. Or take the basic idea of God. Hindus believe that God is everything. Buddhists don’t believe in a god. Muslims believe in an absolute monotheism. While Christians believe that God is one God in three persons.
God doesn’t exist.
If this is true then life seems pretty hopeless and meaningless, and I’d rather choose hope and meaning than hopelessness and meaninglessness. And if God doesn’t really exist, I think I’m still living a full and joy-filled life. In fact, I think following Jesus is full of joy. It isn’t always easy, but deep down, there is joy.
“I like your Christ but not your Christians” (Gandhi).
Me too. Sometimes. Yeah, sometimes my Christian family really embarrasses me. But other times I’m deeply inspired by my fellow Christians. I think in any family you’re going to have people who you admire and others who you wish would just stop talking.
I’m a spiritual person. I don’t need organized religion.
God certainly works inside and outside the church, but I don’t see the church so much as an “organization” as a community who are sharing a journey of friendship together, friendship with God and friendship with others. Any friendship always requires a certain amount of “organization.” Friendship also challenges us, as does the church when we put together a lot of different kinds of people. The church is a lab for learning how to love people you wouldn’t necessarily be friends with. It provides an opportunity to learn to love people who even drive you crazy. What good is love if you only love people you’re like?
These aren’t all the obstacles that people experience in Christianity, but they are some of the big ones. I think that whenever you enter into a spiritual conversation, you can trust that God’s Spirit will be present with you. And it’s also OK to say, “I don’t know. In fact, I’ve never thought about it that way. Can I think about it and come back to you on this one?” That’s called humility, and it’s very attractive. So be bold! Start spiritual conversations. And be humble! Listen and be open to learning something or even being corrected. That’s the kind of conversational style that will make people say, “I like your style!”
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