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The Detroit Free Press reports
that, “The nation’s biggest geek parade—known more formally
as the American Idol auditions—began Tuesday night
with a spectacular array of the misbegotten.” You know it’s
January and you know you are “Living in Prime Time” when
American Idol returns. Now in its seventh season, 30
million viewers per week make it America’s most-watched
show. So last week it took off again, with (as USA Today
says) “sniping judges, petulant contestants and delusional,
off-key auditions.” Some were downright scary, others
just plain weird. But in the midst of a writers’ strike, it
makes for fascinating television and water-cooler
conversation.
Biblically speaking, an idol is something else altogether.
Biblically, an idol is something we
worship in place of God, a center to our devotion, a figure
or image given divine status. If we were to get serious
about “American Idols,” they would not be a set of ambitious
pop stars. My guess is the list of American Idols would look
more like:
-
Power and
prestige—think Dallas, 24, Terminator
-
Money and
wealth—think Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous or
even The Jeffersons, “moving on up to the east
side, gonna get a piece of the pie.”
-
Certainly youth would
be right up there in the list of American Idols. Can’t
you just hear the sound of aging baby-boomers going into
their sixties kicking and screaming?
These are more likely the real American
Idols, the things we worship when we aren’t worshiping God.
But I digress. Let’s go back to prime time and the making of
American Idol. This will be its seventh season, with
millions of fans, nine finalists who have each sold more
than a million albums…and who will ever forget Sanjaya’s
hair!
So what is it about American Idol
that so captivates us? Is it Simon’s cynicism or Paula’s
sweetness? Or is it the sideshow of the untalented who are
more than willing to make fools of themselves for the sake
of fifteen seconds of notoriety?
I would suggest it’s something deeper.
Maybe it has to do with something deep inside us—the desire
to find our idols among the ordinary, to see folks like us
who will do anything to make dreams come true; to find among
us, not larger-than-life heroes, but down-to-earth,
bite-size heroes we can all identify with. Maybe there is
just something inside us that wants to see a farm boy from
Oklahoma or a Michigan mother become an American Idol.
The Arbon Dennis group is currently
reading Tony Dungy’s book, Quiet Strength. Dungy is,
at least for the moment, coach of the Indianapolis Colts. He
says, “Champions are champions, not because they do anything
extraordinary, but because they do the ordinary better than
anyone else.”
I
would say it is more like “ordinary people doing
extraordinary things.”
St.
Paul says it this way:
Not many of you were wise by human
standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble
birth; but God chose to use what is foolish in the world to
shame the wise…so that no one might boast in the presence of
God.
(I Corinthians 1:27)
It’s not just the big name heroes, not
just the larger-than-life idols, it is the ordinary folks
who do extraordinary things by the power of Jesus Christ who
make the difference. Let me give you some examples.
1. This week I attended the annual Friends of Estonia
meeting.
Every year we come together and hear the
stories of these small congregations in a nation where less
than 16% of the population claim to believe in God and an
even smaller percentage participate in any form of religion.
As one of my friends said, it’s like carving a church out of
solid rock.
In the town of Kunda, where our work team
will go this summer, the building is not much more than a
broken-down barracks, but a fledging congregation led by a
courageous pastor has a vision. On the parking lot, they
have painted a white cross and the bold witness (in
Estonian, of course): “Jesus Christ is King of Kings.”
Frankly, right now it doesn’t look like much, and it doesn’t
look like the throne for the King of Kings. But through the
work of ordinary folks like us, it will become a center for
Christian ministry. Ordinary people doing extraordinary
things through the power of Christ.
In the rural village of Vitka, four years
ago we visited a broken-down farm house which had been the
center of the Communist party and the communal farm for the
region. In the closets were stacks of records, payrolls and
accounts from the communal farm left behind when the Soviet
Union crumbled. And today, through the work of ordinary
folks on mission work teams from across the country, it
stands as a fresh, new center for ministry built on the
wreckage of the Soviet system, because ordinary people were
willing to be used to do extraordinary things.
South of Estonia, in the small nation of
Latvia, the Methodist Church was entirely lost
during the Communist years. There was literally nothing left
except two widows of two Methodist preachers, but they held
on to the faith through those dark years until the new day
of freedom came. And now, from nothing more than two widows,
a new church has been born—ten congregations in just ten
years. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things through
the power of Jesus Christ.
The same stories could be told by our
mission teams which will go to Costa Rica in February, to
Ghana in March, and to Louisiana and Lapeer after Easter.
Almost every week, as we send teams to Cass and Baldwin and
Focus: Hope, ordinary folks do extraordinary things for the
kingdom of God. These are the real heroes, the idols of our
faith.
2. Second, a personal idol.
I’ve shared stories about my dad before,
an auto parts salesman with a small business in a small
town. I never came to the Detroit Auto Show, but I grew up
counting spark plugs and dusting tailpipes in the warehouse
of Clarion Automotive Supply Co. It wasn’t until after I was
in seminary that I learned that when Dad came back from the
war, he thought he might go on to college, but he went into
business instead. And at that time, he thought he might even
go into the ministry, but he got into business and decided
to serve Christ as a layperson instead as a Sunday School
teacher, a lay speaker, and a worker in the United Methodist
Men. His business was auto parts, but his mission was to
live for Christ. I can remember Sunday mornings when one of
his customers—mostly from one of the gas stations in
town—would call saying he needed a part for someone broken
down on the road. And Dad would say, “I’ll meet you at the
store after church.” Always after church.
In going through some old papers, I came
across a letter Dad received from a friend in New Jersey
after one of the Methodist Men’s meetings. It doesn’t have a
date on it, but it’s got to be at least fifty years old. I
don’t know what transpired that weekend, but from his
friend’s comment, Dad must have told him that story. Ken
wrote:
We thank and praise God for this weekend.
We are especially grateful for you and all you did to make
it a blessed weekend. Ves, I thank the Lord that up until
now He hasn’t led you into the ministry. If He had, I’d
never have known the joy of knowing another “Christian auto
parts man.”
And I am so thankful for business men and
women, auto parts men and engineers, lawyers and
teachers—ordinary folks who carry the love of Christ with
them in their offices and classrooms, their kitchens and
computer stations, their homes and high rises. Ordinary
folks doing extra-ordinary things for the sake of Jesus
Christ.
3. The third story really is
about the true American idols.
Today, we celebrate Martin Luther King,
Jr., the great, larger-than-life figure of the civil rights
movement. But we also celebrate ordinary folks who, in their
ordinary lives in the corner of their ordinary world, make
the difference in the work of racial reconciliation,
breaking down barriers, building bridges, opening doors,
creating the new community of Jesus Christ. Bite-size,
down-to-earth, human-size heroes; ordinary folks doing
extraordinary things through God’s spirit.
Timothy Tyson tells the true story of
growing up in small town Oxford, Mississippi and the death
of a young black man that has troubled the town for decades.
His book is called Blood Done Signed My Name. His
father was a Methodist preacher in Mississippi in the days
before Martin Luther King and the groundswell of public
support for racial reconciliation. Just a small town
preacher, he says his daddy got run out of more than one
church because of his witness for equality and integration.
He says his daddy was never well known, but he took his
stand in a day when it was unpopular to do so. He writes:
The truth is, neither ideology or
sociology moved my family; instead we found our footing in
the Scriptures we were raised on. It was not that they were
crusading heroes or political leaders so much as they were
passionate, willful, stubborn Christians responding to the
world around them. They heard the Spirit of God within them
and they tried to obey.
(Blood Done Signed My Name, page
169)
And those of us who fill pulpits in these
days can’t help but wonder if we would be as courageous as
those unknown, unnamed, courageous preachers who spoke out
for justice and paid the price. Ordinary preachers, ordinary
people doing extraordinary things for all of God’s people.
4. And finally, that brings us to
the scripture for the day.
Since we know the whole story—the
teachings and miracles, the cross and the empty tomb—it’s
hard to really grasp this moment in the scriptures. Can you
put yourself in the crowd that day when the 12-year-old boy
Jesus stood in the midst of the teachers? Nothing much to
see, nothing but an ordinary boy getting ready for his bar
mitzvah. Some kid from the boondocks, first time in the big
city, a little smarter than the average perhaps. But who
would have believed, who could have known what was to come?
He was just an ordinary kid, just an ordinary child, not
much in their eyes. But look what God would do.
Or put yourself in the synagogue that day
when the young buck preacher returned home to preach his
first sermon. Oh sure, they thought, “Isn’t that nice…nice
boy, proud to have a preacher coming out of the town, sort
of patronizing pride. But who would listen to his message of
justice for the oppressed and good news to the poor? Who
would have believed, who could have known? After all, he’s
just Mary’s son, just Joe’s boy.” Nothing special, just an
ordinary son of us, just one of us. But just look, just look
what God was going to do through him.
And so
it goes throughout scripture:
Abraham and Sarah were too old
Jeremiah was too young
Moses had a speech defect
Joseph was an ex-con
Rahab was a prostitute
David was an adulterer
Elijah was depressed
Gideon panicked
Thomas doubted
Peter was ADHD
Martha was obsessive-compulsive
Paul wasn’t exactly Dale Carnegie in the
tact department
Jonah was directionally challenged
Sampson was sartorially challenged
Zacchaeus was vertically challenged
Just
ordinary people, but God used them all to do extraordinary
things.
When I was in Dexter, our youth choir was
called “True Spirit,” a wonderfully talented group of kids.
Their theme song said:
Just
ordinary people.
God
uses ordinary people.
He
chooses people just like you and me
who are willing to do as He
commands.
God
uses people that will give Him all,
No
matter how small your all may seem to you,
Because little becomes much when you place it
in the Master’s hand.
—Danniebelle Hall
And twenty years later, one of those kids
is a family doctor in Colorado and another is with the
diplomatic core in Uzbekistan. One is a hydrologist in
Buffalo and another is a professional soloist. One is a
father raising nine kids and another is a German language
specialist. And my son is building a home for AIDS orphans
in South Africa. Just ordinary people doing extraordinary
things.
Those are the real idols, the heroes…the
ordinary people who do extraordinary things through the
power of Jesus Christ. |
