When you begin to "trend" up just walk away.

As you may have heard there is an effort by some Africian American pastors to organize a boycott of the NFL unless Colin Kaepernick is given a job with one of the NFL teams.  It is my opinion that Kaepernick’s unemployment has more to do with his on field performance than his politics.  The fact that his quarterback rating is down considerably from several years ago should not be lost in this conversation, rather than improve, his QB rating was down 20 points in his 5^th year from his 3^rd year level.  A quarterback that is inconsistent is deadly to his on offense and his career.  His lack of improvement may indicate lack of coaching and/or lack of focus or some other factor.  It is my firm opinion that if you can produce, the NFL is utterly unconcerned with what you are or what you believe.  Nevertheless, if people want to boycott the NFL go ahead.

Maybe all Muslim people should boycott the NFL until Az-Zahir Hakim is picked up from the Las Vegas Locamotives and returned to the league.  Maybe all homosexual people should do the same until Michael Sam returns to a team.  And no list of perceived snubbed players would be complete without Tim Tebow.  Would such a boycott be organized for evangelical Christians, white people, homeschoolers, or people who never drink Coke-a-cola? And if Manti Teʻo ever leaves the NFL all of us who had pretend girl friends ought to stop watching football.  That will certainly close down the league.

In a society that has developed a narcissistic epidemic everyone wants to be the center of attention.  Maybe we are organizing boycotts and social actions to gain attention for ourselves and for our opinions.  We have forgotten that our Lord seemed to take the opposite approach. 

Mark 1:5 speaking of John the Baptist says,

The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

Later we read in John 4:1-3,

Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

John was baptizing everyone and Jesus was gaining even more disciples.  Faced with growing crowds of listeners Jesus walked away.  He left the crowds and headed to a single conversation with a semi-single woman beside a well.  While His fame was trending up Jesus did the very opposite of what we teach, practice, and hope to accomplish. 

I am deeply concerned about what it means that we are forever trying to find a way to the top of the twitter feed, or the Facebook likes.  I fear that we are losing the ability to have the one on one conversation with people without the aid of or the insulation provided by social media.  We have become pretty good at picking sides and quarrelling for our side and doing it in such a way to get attention or likes.  As a 10 year old, little girl said, “When you get lots of likes you feel good about yourself.”  Clearly technology has its place.  But if virtual approval is what we are after we are in real trouble.

Let’s walk away from the crowd, especially on social media, and focus on the individual.  It will do more good for society as a whole and us as disciples.