It was a dark and stormy noontime. Rain was pouring outside the brick elementary school. I was in fourth grade doing an excellent job tormenting my teacher Mr. Sealy by calling him Mr. Walrus. We has just finished lunch and Kevin Gregory and I were about to enjoy our “inside day” by playing doggie dog in Mr. Joy’s Gym. But first, we stopped in the bathroom to relieve some of the excess Capri-sun from our bladders. As we were about to leave, something so terrifying happened: Freddy entered the bathroom. Not killer slice you up Freddy from the boiler room, but retarded Freddy from special ed. Somehow Freddy, who had severe cerebral palsy, had gotten away from the special ed teacher and decided to go to the bathroom. Now in retrospect I realize that I wasn’t in any real danger, however when you’re 9 and a guy is coming at you with no supervision drooling, limping, and making the ahhhhh noise, you really have nothing left to do but scream and run for your life. Now so you know, screaming and running for your life has a tendency to aggravate someone with severe cerebral palsy. Which essentially made Freddy start running after both Kevin and I. So there we were, running in the 10x10 boy’s bathroom both screaming and trying our best to juke the very agile handicapped boy. Finally, we managed to find an opening in the chaos and dart to our safety out the door and around the corner. With a deep breath we realized what just happened and proceeded to burst into laughter. From then on, because of the events of that day, our hearts would beat a little faster when entering the bathroom on inside days. And even though those events would never be repeated again, the sheer exhilaration of that day compelled me to continuing to enter the bathroom on inside days.
And to this day I am still invigorated by viewing the retarded. Now I don’t necessarily actually mean people with cerebral palsy, in fact, people with that disability aren’t as amusing to me any more. The retarded that I’m talking about is brilliantly messed up. I’m talking Jerry Springer type of shit. You know flip on the television and watch someone who has a lot more personal issues then you. It just does something to make me feel better about myself. I watch that and go; whoa I thought I had problems.
And I do… In fact, I pay someone to listen to my problems. And if I really took a good step back, I could make the case that if I televised my life, it could possibly make someone else feel better about themselves. They might say to their friends, “Dude did you see what that retard Geoff did last night… oh my god I thought I had problems.”
I don’t think that me saying that is self deprecation (OH whoa is me, I’m going to go flog myself), rather I think it is pretty realistic. I am a retard (basically, in the brilliantly messed up sense I’m a retard), and despite my tone of voice, I’m not necessarily OK with that. I don’t want to be a retard, but nobody wants to be a retard. The sheer fact that I’m using the demeaning term “retard” other then the safer more ok words “someone with problems.” Shows you that I’m not OK being a retard. I’m going to counseling so I can be less of a retard. Do you guys know where I’m going with this? What if I wasn’t going anywhere… how retarded would that be.
I am going somewhere. This church is a very special place. And when I say special, I mean retarded. GASP! Oh yes the church community by nature is retarded. And I’m not just talking about the bridge where we’re called to the disenfranchised; in fact we might be more realistic about the fact that we’re retarded then our friends in the suburbs. Because it’s more readily viewable, we can’t necessarily hide it as easily. But nevertheless, if you’re a part of a church community, just by going on a regular basis, you will begin to find out how retarded it actually is. Oh I know that the catholic church has gone to great lengths to elevate the mind towards heaven by the beautiful architecture, and wonderful liturgy and beautiful mass, but the community is as Jerry Springer as the rest of us.
Why is that? Shouldn’t the church be the ultimate place of solace and community. Shouldn’t people who “have Christ” be the penultimate people that do perfect things? Shouldn’t God make the church a beautiful example for the rest of the world of what community is supposed to be? Why is it that the PTA has far less problems then the church with the same people involved? I don’t know could it be Satan…
Maybe in some special circumstances, but I would say normally probably not. I would love to attribute our retardedness to someone or something that is causing us to be retarded. But the fact is, the reason why there is a sense of dissatisfaction with the church, wherever you go is because to be in community means that you have to deal with people. And people…in general…are retarded. They don’t want to be retarded, but they are.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was an underground seminary builder that was killed by the Gestapo in Germany 1945. From a German jail he writes some interesting incites about life together as a Christian fellowship.
“We would love to believe a dream of perfection in community. Coming into a church, the serious Christian is likely to bring with him the very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate ourselves.”
Are you tired of those around you being absolutely retarded? Bonhoeffer says it’s by the grace of God that you get pissed with community, with Christians, and whooo if your lucky even yourself.
What does that disillusionment look like… Well it looks like drama, hardship, problems, getting thrown in jail, has anyone ever felt like their plate was full, or they didn’t want to deal with the bullshit of people any more. Hmm its nothing new… there was this guy Paul who felt the same way in the early first century.
II cor 11:25 I've worked much harder, been jailed more often, beaten up more times than I can count, and at death's door time after time. I've been flogged five times with the Jews' thirty-nine lashes, beaten by Roman rods three times, pummeled with rocks once. I've been shipwrecked three times, and immersed in the open sea for a night and a day. In hard traveling year in and year out, I've had to ford rivers, fend off robbers, struggle with friends, struggle with foes. I've been at risk in the city, at risk in the country, endangered by desert sun and sea storm, and betrayed by those I thought were my brothers. I've known drudgery and hard labor, many a long and lonely night without sleep, many a missed meal, blasted by the cold, naked to the weather.
And that's not the half of it, when you throw in the daily pressures and anxieties of all the churches. When someone gets to the end of his rope, I feel the desperation in my bones. When someone is duped into sin, an angry fire burns in my gut.
If that stuff wasn’t enough…12:7 …I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan's angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,
My grace is enough; it's all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size--abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.
Whoo what a gift… Paul thinks of his weakness as a gift… are you seeing how being a Christian can make you retarded? Bonhoeffer says a little more about this:
By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of emotions but a God of truth. Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God’s sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it.
Supposedly it is by God’s design that drama occurs in the church. Thanks God. Why is that? What sort of benefit is there to having a community that rivals the Jerry Springer show?
First of all it seems to be one of the main idioms of the Christian faith. Perhaps you’ve heard about it in another setting.
21But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement,[i] through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished– 26he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
All people are retarded and aren’t perfect, and God made a way for us not to be
Or another one would be:
6You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
While we were still retarded God looked past that and decided to do something about it because he loves you.
Because there was one of us that wasn’t retarded. One by God’s design who by him we might live. One, that by having faith will start to cut through the fact that people piss you off. One, in which this entire community is based. Jesus Christ.
Oh you can try to look past all of the retarded people that go to church here, and out of your own soul decide to love them. And maybe you’ll do an excellent job, for a time. But soon you’ll wear thin, and someone will get your goat, and in that instant, the community will be over for you.
I hate to break it to y’all but this isn’t an ideal community, but a divine reality. And it is only in existence because of Jesus Christ. We are here, able to not erupt into complete and total chaos because of Jesus. If I wasn’t talking about Jesus… I wouldn’t be here.
And that weakness that Paul talks about… That retarded gift that he was so cleverly given by Satan’s angel…he does actually view as a gift. Why? Because it shows him how much grace God has for him.
And as he gets rocks thrown at him, and as people in the church badmouth him because he’s not qualified, or simply talk behind his back… he doesn’t necessarily take it and go OOOOH peace of Christ go with you. You look at the letters Paul writes in the New Testament and you will see that Paul is as pissed at the Jerry Springer Church of the first century as we are. He believes and so do I that the grace of God is not something to take liberties with in your community. Nobody likes a retarded community. So he did something about it.
We shouldn’t let the grace of God give us an excuse for poor behavior. If I said I’m OK with you hurting me in any way, I would be even more retarded then what I claim to be. The moment that I’m OK with myself or others being extremely messed up is the moment I’ve given up. It is an effective response not to want to be retarded, and it is an effective response to feel dissatisfied with people that are retarded. It is self preservation to escape, change, manipulate, and hate when drama is happening. It is also by design that that drama will happen in the church. Maybe you didn’t know this when you signed up to be a part of the Lords army, but the ranks are rank. Because it is by design that you look through Jesus’ eyes in order to provide the answer to living life together.
Right here is the point where spiritual love begins. This is why human love becomes personal hatred when it encounters genuine spiritual love, which does not desire but serves. Human love makes itself an end in itself. It creates of itself an end, an idol which it worships, to which it must subject everything. It nurses and cultivates an ideal, it loves itself, and nothing else in this world. Spiritual love, however, comes from Jesus Christ, it serves him alone; it knows that it has no immediate access to other persons…essentially Man’s love is contingent on its own agenda, and God’s love is.
What is spiritual love? It is to view the other through the eyes of Christ. One fraction of my own retardedness is the fact that I’m being pre-emptive in telling you that I am retarded so that you might think that I’m less retarded then I actually am. And therefore, you might like me. But you see, by me covering up my retardedness, I do myself and you a disservice. I do myself a disservice because I have to keep up appearances of not being as retarded as I actually am, and I don’t have the opportunity to better myself, I simply push it away. And I do you a disservice by not getting to know me for who I really am, and more importantly you have no ability to utilize your faith in Jesus to stay in relationship with me once you see that man behind the curtain.
If we rely on mans love to keep this church together, we will become a church of bitter self involved pretentious dreamers that only hold to an ideal that is simply a pipedream. Our song of friendship will be contingent on what people do for us and as we get to know them better this is what we will sing.
You are my friend you’re retarded,
You are my friend you’re retarded to me
But let’s look up. Let’s have the true reason why we’re here resonate within our souls so that we can truly live life together as God intended us. Through the eyeglasses of Christ we might be able to have a smidge of the God given grace of being for our community. And as a result we might be able to truly sing from who we are:
You are my friend
You are special
You are my friend
You're special to me.
You are the only one like you.
Like you, my friend, I like you.
In the daytime
In the nighttime
Any time that you feel's the right time
For a friendship with me, you see F-R-I-E-N-D special
You are my friend
You're special to me.
There's only one in this wonderful world
You are special.
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