Embrace rejection

I was working a part time, temporary job in which I asked people to apply for a credit card.  It was a job fraught with rejection.  I would stand outside a convenience store/gas station and approach EVERYONE to solicit him or her to apply for a credit card.  There were lots of reasons why folks rejected my offer of a credit card.  “I’m in a hurry.” “ I have bad credit.”  “ I don’t buy gas here often.”  My personal favorite, “I never use a credit card.”  To be honest, with an interest rate of 29.99% I wouldn’t want one of these cards myself.  Part of the job was rejection; lots of rejection.

After turning down my offer, one patron asked me, “How is it going today?  Getting many takers?”   I answered, “This is a great job if you need to learn how to handle rejection.”  For every 20 people I approached with this stellar offer, 19 would say no.  Most were polite, some engaging and conversational and more than a few were rude.  I also spent a lot of time with nothing to do but watch the shadow creep across the concrete.  But it gave me time to think, especially about the value of rejection.

Ours is a society with a growing sense of self-importance.  It is the age of pride, convinced of how important we are, in which the prime value is self-esteem.  Rejection is, therefore, especially hard to accept.  The greater our pride the greater our offense when we are rejected.

In a culture driven by consumerism and advertising, we are taught to do everything possible to avoid rejection; everything from buying mouthwash to having the ‘right’ clothes or cars or address.  To be rejected, to be the outsider, to not be included may be the worst fate we can possibly experience.   Parent to teenager, “If all your friends jumped off a cliff would you?”  Honest teenager, “YES.”  And in a sense we are a society of teenagers.

Wherever this pattern spreads the implications are bad.  We could talk for days about what it means in politics, respect for police officers, or sexual morays.  But when this creeps into the church, it can have eternally negative implications.   It appears that the church has become so afraid of rejection that we are beginning to act like an early adolescent obsessing in from of a mirror wondering what others think of us. Unless you have been living in a parallel universe, you cannot help but notice that we are living in a media craze about deviant sexuality.   From the first NBA player to come out, to the first openly gay football player to be drafted into the NFL, to the radical mutilation of a formerly Olympic athlete there is an explosion of sexually driven drama.  In the midst of this whirlwind of noise and pseudo news, the message I hear from the conservative church, not exclusively, but dramatically, is one of fear of rejection by culture at large and concern about image.

For those of you who have not unsubscribed from the blog on that last paragraph (I can embrace that rejection) let’s step away from that powder keg and look at a couple of areas where we might live in the tyranny of fear of rejection.  Using these examples we might find a template for a better approach. 

Worship:

No one is in favor of boring, monotonous worship.  But shaping our worship based on opinion polls to avoid being rejected or to shape our worship to suit people tends to shift the focus and object of worship.  How many times have the worship wars begun when someone says, “I want” this or that kind of music.  It can be traditional or contemporary; the same narcissistic spirit drives them both.  And we feed that spirit by trying to avoid rejection from either a segment in the church or the world.  We try to please as many as possible with our compromises and politically arrived at decisions. 

I understand that the forms of worship must have a cultural aspect.  What is dynamic, effective worship in an outlaw church in China will not be the same for a gathering of believers under an Acacia tree in Kenya.  I am not proposing that there is one form by which we all must worship.   But one story may illustrate the struggle.  I visited one church and when I was handed a bulletin I was offered earplugs.  I must have had a quizzical look on my face because the greeter volunteered, “We like our music loud.” The ownership statements in their reply told me more than they might have expected. 

It is time for us to embrace the rejection that comes when we refuse to make the worship, and especially the music, simply another choice to please me.  Is it time for us to tell demanding individuals, “You didn’t like something in worship?  GOOD!  Worship is not about you or for you.”?

Teaching:

I am not in favor of picking fights.  The methodology of the Westboro Baptist Church is clearly deeply flawed, if not demonically guided.  We will not develop the right to be heard by the lost world by yelling at them that they are lost.  But in our world today the anthem of compromise is sung loud and by a large choir.  We are advised that the prime virtue is tolerance and/or acceptance.  I do not know any preacher or Bible teacher that publicly advocates compromise or says, “I’ll gladly change my core convictions in order to be popular.”   I do know preachers that categorically refuse to address certain Biblical themes for those same reasons.  If pressed on the issues, these preachers would say they believed the teachings of scriptures, but because of past rejection these Biblical subjects have become a taboo they will not address.  A conviction that is held in the heart, but is not taught and lived is not much of a conviction. 

It is time we embrace the rejection that comes when we lovingly address the difficult statements of scripture.    

As I wrote this, I kept coming up with other areas where the cultural fear of rejection has impacted the church.  Given its head this list would be endless.  I would end up railing against all of my pet peeves and frustrations.  So, I will reframe from opening up the cans of worms associated with discipleship, evangelism, church discipline, etc. and ask you to look at your own life and ministry and reflect on where you need to embrace rejection. 

The better approach:

This better way is found as a lonely individual walks away from the seat of power on a lonely and deeply rejected path.   In the ancient Roman world, when a man carried his cross he usually did so alone.  There would, of course, be spectators, by standers, the accompanying guards, accusers, curiosity seekers, and even sympathizers.  In the case of Jesus, there was even a commandeered, temporary slave.  But, ultimately, the cross is for one alone, one rejected.  When we are told to take up our cross, we are told to embrace rejection.