Rewriting the Rules

"The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made. All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your faithful shall bless you. They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom, and tell of your power, to make known to all people your mighty deeds, and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations. The Lord is faithful in all his words, and gracious in all his deeds. The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down." -Psalm 145:8-14 

      How do I love you, God? Let me count the ways. You are gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, you’re good to all, you’re compassionate, everything you made will thank you because you’re so great, and all those who are faithful to you will bless you (they’ll be evidence of how wonderful you are)… and the psalm goes on. But it gets interesting around the last verse we read today, verse fourteen: “The Lord upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down.”

      Many of us have heard something about God at some point or another about God helping us get back on our feet (amIright?). Even praise songs refer to this image of God picking us up off the ground. Maybe you recall singing the song “All in All,” and singing at the top of your lungs, “when I fall down, you pick me up, when I am dry you fill my cup, you are my all in all.” This idea of God picking us up when we fall isn’t new to many of us. But that isn’t exactly what this verse says here, is it? It doesn’t say when I fall down, God picks me back up. Instead it say, when I am falling God holds me up. The psalmist isn’t talking about after we’ve fallen, they're talking about about the very moment when we trip, we stumble, and we begin to fall, and in that moment, God catches us on the way down.

      Parents and kids out there know that kids get lots of bumps and bruises, lots of scrapes, lots of injuries from falling. While I'm not a parent, I'd bet that most parents, if standing close to their child and could stop them from falling when they tripped by grabbing them and steadying them, would do just that. I can remember driving in the car with some friends and their mom when suddenly their mom slammed on the breaks. One of my friends was sitting in the front seat and her mom’s arm immediately swung out in front of her to stop her from going forward too fast (apparently that’s common… my friend called that ninja move the “mom arm”). If we can, we keep the ones we love and those in our care from being harmed before they get too deep into trouble – that is, we try to stop the scraped knees and falling into the front of the cars.

      We’re in God’s care. God does this for us. God holds up those who are falling, those who trip. And lots of things trip us up, don’t they? We walk along doing well, going to church, being kind to people, going to bible study, inviting a friend to church, then BAM! Out of nowhere we trip up on something (maybe calling someone an ugly name). God catches us, and we’re forgiven, but we still remember, and we walk a little less tall than we did before. But we do keep walking and get back on track, we do the right things, say the right things, then BAM! Another tripping spot (maybe a loved one dies and we turn into ourselves and drink just a little too much to try and forget). God catches us, and we are forgiven, but we don’t’ forget. We remember, we carry that weight and the weight of former tripping places, and we bend under that weight just a little bit more. The cycle continues. And when we get tripped up by enough of whatever it is that is our own personal stumbling block enough times, we become ashamed of ourselves for tripping over and over again, whether it’s brought on by circumstance, by choice, or by accident. We’re ashamed, we’re bent over, we’re bowed down. Our shame becomes a part of who we are, even though it’s not who we always were and it’s not who God made us to be.

      This happens to all of us. It’s inescapable because we’re not in total control of our lives; other peoples’ decisions, good and bad, effect us and what happens to us. As much as other people can be blessings in our lives, other people can also be stumbling places in our paths. As much as we can raise others up, we can be tripping points for others too. (1 Corinthians 8:9) Sometimes we're aware of it, and sometimes we're not. For me, this image begs the questions, "where are we causing others to stumble" and "where have we participated in shaming other people?"

      I saw this video (it’s a commercial) on Facebook last week and things just clicked… I thought this is a very real way that we continue to trip and continue to trip up others, maybe in a way we haven’t even considered or realized before.

      Sometimes we become ashamed of who we are, we become bent over because the world gives us a set of rules, some written and some understood, and people in the world play by those rules and perpetuate them. We all do, whether we're aware of it or not. This doesn’t just apply to little girls and learning that doing something “like a girl” means they're doing it in a way that's less than. All the time we tell little boys to “be a man,” meaning hold in your anger, your frustration, don’t show your emotions, suck it up. “Be a man” and “like a girl” are only two examples of how rules are set for us and we perpetuated by us, even though they hurt all of us. We become ashamed of who we are. We become bent over, and the weight that we carry gets heavier every time we’re told to be a man or told that we do something like a girl. These sort of rules, these words, can cause us to stumble from the path God has for us, the way that Christ teaches us – walking as a beautiful child of God, the path that Christ sets for us. 

      But the rules can be changed. At least, that’s what this commercial suggests at the end when across the screen it reads, "rewrite the rules." God can show us the way to begin that change, that rewriting of the rules. Not only does God catch us as we stumble each and ever time, but God also helps us to stand up straight again, unashamed of who we are, a forgiven people (over and over and over again). And God helps us to have the strength not to buy in to everything we’re taught in society, but to change, to rewrite what's expected of all of us.

      The rules are there for us, but they are not set in stone. God is constantly catching us as we fall. God doesn’t let us hit the bottom, no matter how often we trip and no matter how bent over and ashamed of ourselves we become. God catches us and helps us to straighten up. Often, God does this through other people even though sometimes other people are the very things that cause us to stumble. It’s complicated, isn’t it? This world we live in, these people we are, and these people we know. People are complicated, situations are complicated, and there are lots of jagged edges on the sidewalk of life that we can trip on. But no matter how rugged our path, God catches us when we trip, we are not allowed to fall all the way, in life or in death. Romans 8:35-39 reminds us of this truth: 

"Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution,  or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, 'For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." 

We will be never be fully separated from God in Christ. We will never fall all the way. God will not allow it. God calls us to remember that we are beautiful, to not be ashamed of who we are and the places we have tripped up in the past. Instead, God calls us to live as a forgiven people who forgive ourselves and change the rules of life to be this standard – that we love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. (Matthew 22:37-39) We are to live in God’s image, standing up straight, doing what God does for us -- catching others when they stumble. We are to be people through whom God works to straighten others up, to remind others that they are not to be ashamed of who they are because they are beautifully and wonderfully made, like us.

     The question remains, "how can we be those people that God uses to straighten others up?" Stop buying into and reinforcing the messages and rules of the world that men and women are supposed to be one thing or the other, that being “like a girl” is less than being like a boy and being like a boy means “being a man”. It means not giving in to everything that society tells us – we’re not pretty enough, masculine enough, fat enough, thin enough, fast enough, smart enough, creative enough… that we are not enough. We are enough. God made us beautifully so that we might be able to walk upright, unashamed, proud of who we were made to be, and so that we might help others to see God’s magnificent work in themselves. Be aware of how you treat men and women differently, of how you treat each other in general -- people of different colors, people of different incomes, people of different ages, people of different able-ness, people of different orientation, people of different genders, people… we are all people. Treat others and yourself as if you are made fearfully and wonderfully, a beautiful creation made in God’s image. Change the world’s rules so that they do not continue to bend us over and cause us to stumble. God catches us so that we might catch others. God loves us so that we might love others. Let us live as forgiven people who walk tall and straight, who are proud of the human beings we are made to be, who know the grace of God, and who live sharing that grace with the rest of God’s creation. Let's rewrite the rules.