The cognitive dissonance of this world astounds me. All our lives we are told to venerate the risk takers, the thinkers, the rule breakers, and odd balls who broke new barriers. We peer at Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, marvel at Einstein’s theory of Relativity, and peruse Emily Dickinson’s poetry. All the while we are told the greats were exceptional, went against the flow, took risks, and defied the status quo. Then after burning incense at the altars of the rule breakers and regaling one another with their genius, we then are told to be normal and desire a status quo life. What the Farik? After you learn and hear your literature teacher worship Shakespeare and Emily Dickenson who broke the grammar rules of their day, you are then told to follow strict high school and college grammar and composition rules.
Why are the greats we venerate allowed to break the rules and defy conventional living expectations, being labeled genius and artist, but the rest of us must conform to a drone existence with the same cars, same neighborhoods, same 401k, and same white picket fence? Why do we tell children you can be anything, the next Einstein or Jane Austen, but then pressure those same kids when they grow up to conform, and submit to the societal standards and status quo?
Our Lord and God Jesus defied the conventions of His time. Firstly, he was a Wayfarer or Homeless, “Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20). He stayed at people’s homes, “So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days,” (John 4:40), and slept in Gardens or on ships (Mark 4:48). He didn’t pick the seminary graduates from Jerusalem to be His apostles, He picked Fishermen, Zealots, and other misfits from Galilee. The status quo of the day was to hate your enemy, but Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” (Matthew 5:43-48). The rule of the day was you couldn’t eat pork or unclean, non-kosher foods, but Jesus spoke differently, “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)” (Mark 7:18-19). In almost every way Christ our Lord was a revolutionary, breaking the staunch rules of the society and showing people the Truth. We are called to be like our Savior, not to conform to this world’s standards of how we ought to live our lives, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God,” (Ephesians 5:1-2), and “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2).
I am not speaking of anarchy. Jesus wasn’t an anarchist, He is the Alpha and Omega, the Immortal God made flesh who reforms and raises to the ground the wisdom of the world, “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness"; and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” (1 Corinthians 3:19-20). Our Lord calls us to be our unique selves, not to imitate our neighbors and become Stepford Husbands and Wives. All of us have capacity to be a Da Vinci, and Princess Diana of our own life. We don’t have conform to expectations and pressures from those who tell us to be normal. There is no normal. To quote the movie Tombstone:
“Wyatt Earp: I just want to live a normal life.
Doc Holiday: There is no normal life Wyatt, there’s just life.”
Don’t waste your life trying to live up to someone else’s expectations. Instead partner with God almighty and delight in him, “Delight yourself in the Lord (Jesus, see Romans 10:9, Philippians 2:10), and he will give you the desires of your heart,” (Psalm 37:4). Amen.
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