Listening to my teenager during 2014.

2014 is the year I have a teenager.  I feel like I already have one.  One of the things I notice most about having a teenager (almost) is - Oh how the tables have turned!  I was once the teenager who had parents who did not know anything, but now I am the parent who does not know anything.  I was once the teenager who had parents who did not understand, and now I am the parent who does not understand.

I have a tendency to tell my almost teenager to stop talking, pardon my language, to tell him to shut up.

Why?  Watch the first episode of the Cosby show.

He says things that make no sense.

Some of you reading already know this - I am the one who needs to shut up.  One of my worst faults is not shutting my mouth.  So this year in 2014 - the year of the teenage fatherhood, I seek first to understand, not to be understood.

I am setting as a big goal to actually listen to my teenager in 2014.

What is your ides for 2014?

Pants on the ground

“Pants on the ground, pants on the ground, looking like a fool with your pants on the ground, pull them up” was the song going through my head as I saw the man with his pants at his knee and all of his underwear showing.  I thought to myself, “Doesn’t he realize that is shameful, and that shame is something to avoid?  Doesn’t he know that the lifestyle of pants on the ground is one that leads to incarceration, where they take all your clothes, aka – all your clothes are on the ground?  So it begins with pants on the ground, a wasted life.”

Such were my thoughts as Jesus tried to speak to me.  I say tried because it took some time before I listened.  But faintly I began to hear Jesus say something to me.

“Danny, you are judging him based on only what he looks like.” 

Then Jesus said, “Let me show you something.”

He took me back 2000 years ago to where it started for him, a wasted life.

It started with the Pharisees judging him (Luke 5) much like I judged the man with the sagging pants.  Then Jesus was incarcerated (Luke 22) and he was shamefully stripped of all of his clothing three times (Matthew 27) and as he hung on the cross and his clothing on the ground being bartered for, they mocked him with songs similar to “Pants on the ground, pants on the ground, Jesus, you are looking like a fool with your pants on the ground.”

If Jesus died today in your town or state or country, what would the crowd say about him?  What would the Facebook posts say, or the twitter feeds?  We would say the same things we say about the people who are being executed today by lethal injection and all other means around the world. 

Jesus dying on the cross was the “foolishness of God which is wiser than the wisdom of men” (1 Corinthians 1).   In fact, this foolishness of God is the wisest thing that exists, and the only way by which we may become wise.  The weakness of God, Jesus Christ with his pants on the ground, is the only way for us to have strength.  The condemnation of Christ is the way we have no condemnation.  The incarceration of Christ is the way our prison bars are swung open.  The shame of Christ is our honor, the stripping of Christ clothes us with righteousness, and it is by His stripes we are healed, and it is through His death that we have life.  What Jesus wanted to show me is that the man with his pants on the ground was really a picture of Him. 

“God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise” (1 Corinthians 1:27).

The Pharisees said, “He has a demon, he is a blasphemer.”  God said, “He is my chosen son.”

I said, “Looking like a fool with your pants on the ground.”  God says, “I choose him.”

We say, “She is too sick.”  God says, “I choose her.”

We say, “He is a worthless alcoholic.”  God says, “I choose him.”

We say, “He is a sex offender, unfit to live.”  God says, “I choose him.”

What do they say about you?  God says, “I choose you.”

Why does God choose me?

Because He loves to show how strong the weakness of Christ is.

Because He loves to show how wise the foolishness of Christ is.

Because it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with Christ, and Him crucified.

“I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).

Paul added nothing to the gospel, the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ and him crucified.  We must add nothing either, not “pull up your pants,” or sag them, or drink, or don’t drink, or be circumcised, or be uncircumcised.

When we add one thing to the gospel of Jesus Christ and him crucified we poison it.  For if we add one thing we say that Jesus Christ and him crucified is not enough.

What if people take the grace of God for granted, what if they abuse the love of God? . . .

It was then that I realized. . .

Oh, the foolishness of God to love us without condition, whether we respond to your love or not, for abused you were, and taken for granted you were.

The foolishness of God.