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The Radically Normal Christian:
Part X: Entertainment
November 27, 2011
Christmas @TG
This year Christmas falls on a Sunday, which creates a really dilemma about whether or not we should have church service.
I know that many of you are immediately thinking “That’s obvious; of course we should~/shouldn’t!”
It requires us to choose between a couple of good things, all of which we value:
~* On one hand, emphasizing family and time spent together.
~* On the other, this church as our community and family.
Since we are having service Christmas Eve, we can demonstrate that there is no legalism about what day that we meet.
Or we can demonstrate that tradition of worshipping together on Sunday is a higher priority than other traditions.
There is no easy answer, but at the bottom, this requires one thing that we highly value as a church: Grace for each other, regardless of agreement – this is a secondary issue.
~* As a leadership team, we all had very different opinions, from strongly for church on Christmas to strongly against.
Here is what we decided to do:
1.
We are not going to have a regular church service on Christmas; however if there is interest, there will be a small, informal gathering Christmas morning at 10:00 am.
~* There won’t be Sunday School or a sermon, but a short time of worship and reading the Christmas story.
~* There is no expectation for you to attend; I am not sure how many of the leadership will be there.
2. Because we all agree that Christmas is centered on Jesus and should honor God, we strongly encourage you to set time aside on Christmas morning, here or at home.
~* We will have a handout that will help you have a Christmas service around the breakfast table.
Here is what I need from you:
1. Regardless how you feel about that decision, follow the example of the leadership team and respond to each other and us with grace – this is a secondary issue.
2. If you have concerns, please bring them directly to Micah or I.
3. If you are interested in attending or helping facilitate, please mark that on the communication card.
On that note, this is the first Sunday of Advent, the four weeks prior to Christmas when we read passages preparing us for Christmas:
Scripture reading: Isaiah 9:1-7 and Micah 5:2-4
Sermon series winding down; this week is based off of principle #4: God’s rules are for our joy, because we redefine holiness as what we don’t do.
~* Back to “Inscriptions” Jan. 1st.
Prayer
The Evil Smurfs
Q How many of you were not allowed to watch Smurfs?
Or play with He-Man?
Disney?
More recently, read Harry Potter?
As I grew older I promised that I would not be that parent.
But then I saw the Bratz – let’s give our kids dolls that are dressed like skanks!
Then there is the cartoon.
Sure, the creators say it’s just a show about friendship, but they are friends who are dressed like skanks.
Now I have a growing list of shows that I don’t want my daughters wearing, I mean watching.
~* I wonder if they will be laughing at my parenting 20 years from now.
But Marilyn and I have seen how the girls are affected by what they watch and what they play with.
Q But is it only kids who are affected by the shows they watch, music they listen to, and games they play?
R~/N~/RNX
It is normal in our culture to watch and listen to whatever you want, as much as you want; passively absorbing it without asking how it affects you.
Even suggest that something is inappropriate and you’ll get accused of censorship and book burning.
~* I know one guy who wanted to boycott Amazon.com
because they had the audacity to not carry a book promoting pedophilia.
It is radical to only watch Christian movies and listen to Christian music, preferably music that is outdated by at least 30 years.
Q How many of you watch “Hell’s Bells” in youth group?
~* I did and didn’t listen to secular music until my DTS.
Many of us grew up in the church and run hard from the legalism of the past, where my grandmother almost got kicked out of youth group for going to a movie.
~* I wonder if we have run too far from that and now are at the other extreme.
It is radically normal to purposefully and thoughtfully enjoy entertainment: There is so much packed into those three terms: “purposefully,” “thoughtfully,” and “enjoy” that the rest of the sermon will be spent on them.
1. Enjoy
When I was at Bible College, we were watching “The Simpsons” and some irreverent bit caught me funny and I began to laugh.
Another student abruptly spun on me and said, “Would you laugh if you pastor were here?”
~* My pastor would have laughed harder, to be honest.
But let’s think about this, let’s say you are watching some movie that is funny, even though crass, say “Austin Powers.”
Or listening to some catchy music by Lady Gaga.
~* Or something that is catchy and funny, like Christopher Walkin reading “Poker Face.”
Q Is that laughter or enjoyment a gift from God or Satan?
I have said early that all joy and happiness find their source from God.
NIV James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
Conversely, Satan in the father of lies, he doesn’t make anything good.
John 10:10 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
Satan doesn’t have any joy.
He is the joyless miser.
That enjoyment springs from something God put in you – a love of laughter, a passion of creativity, etc.
Here is what I am saying, we can work from one of two assumptions:
1. Entertainment (music, movies, TV, books, etc) is assumed to bad unless they are redeemed because they are “Christian.”
2. Entertainment is assumed to be good unless corrupted by damaging or ungodly content.
Q Which do you think takes God’s role as the “Father of lights from who all good things come?”
Polluted Good
Q Okay, so even if we agree on that point, isn’t’ everything nowadays so corrupt?
To be fair to the radical side, the idea typically isn’t “Only Christians can make acceptable entertainment.”
It is “everything else is polluted and unacceptable.”
The thought is that a little bit of poison can pollute a lot of water and a little bit of ungodliness make the whole thing unacceptable for a mature Christian.
Q But does line up with the Biblical example?
The problem is that there is no record of what TV shows Jesus watched.
What we do have are a couple of scattered reference to the entertainment of the day.
For instance – dancing and singing were the main entertainment in Israel (not just for worship).
The only time it is seen as a bad thing was when it was done in an ungodly situation – around the Golden Calf, etc.
And in the Greek world, theater was a big thing and it was no less raunchy then what we have today, which is why some of Early Church Fathers were against it.
But (to my knowledge) the only time it is referred to in the Bible is when Paul quotes from a prolific playwright, Menander:
1 Corinthians 15:33 Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”
That is like saying that Paul had access to all of the smut we see on TV, but the only time he talks about it is to quote from it approvingly.
~* This in no way means that he approves of it all, but:
1 Thessalonians 5:21-22 21 Test everything.
Hold on to the good.
22 Avoid every kind of evil.
The good and evil are typically mixed, hold on to the good, reject the evil.
By the way, this verse is frequently misquoted (because of the KJV’s poor translation) – we are told to avoid evil, not simply the appearance thereof.
But a better, though overlooked example, is sports.
Sports was as big of a deal in the Roman-Greco world, as it is today.
Many of the religious Jews condemned it because they were typically done in the nude and the games were dedicated to idols.
~* Sports were, in the religious Jew’s mind, like modern “R” rated movies.
Yet Paul freely and approvingly uses sports as an analogy of the Christian life.
He isn’t using “Christian sports” as his example – there was no such thing.
This is years before Tebow praying in the in-zone.
From all this, I draw the conclusion that the Bible starts with the positive assumption – that entertainment is a good gift of God’s but can be corrupted to become damaging.
~* We are welcome to enjoy entertainment; holding on to the good, rejecting the bad.
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