Called to be a "loser"?

“Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser.” Vince Lombardi

  Okay, I’ll confess, it was a little too hard to not tease friends who are Bear fans last week. Even the sportscaster on WBBM joked, “The Chicago Bears won...the coin toss” after last Sunday night’s 55 to 14 shellacking by the Packers. Of course, it could be worse. At least the Bears are 3 and 6. You could be a Tampa Bay fan at 1 and 8. Even the Detroit Lions are more popular than the Bears right now, though both cities are very familiar with mediocre teams. And while I’m a lifelong Atlanta Falcons fan, with a 3-6 record, a Falcons’ jersey isn’t on my Christmas list.

  Americans love winners and so does the Church. We’re attracted to the successful, trendy, hip and cool. It’s hard not to be. After all, it’s the message we’re weaned on – winners win, losers just lose.

  While the media’s caricature of Christians being oddballs really bothers me, I have to admit that there’s some truth to it. Have you ever noticed that churches seem to attract more than their fair share of odd people and odd pastors, too? So have you ever wished that Christianity could be cooler, have a better image, and perhaps even wondered why it wasn’t and didn’t?

  Why aren’t churches seen as exciting, happening places where normal people would want to be seen hanging out? Why is it so much easier to post on Facebook that we’re at the gym or some swanky restaurant? How often do you see someone post that they’re at church? Ever notice it’s easier to post a selfie with a beer in your hand than a Bible? Why is that? Most of us are more comfortable videoing our bad karaoke (is there such a thing as good karaoke?) rather than singing in church? Many of us sing so softly in church that unless you’re within our personal space, you can’t even hear us. Maybe it’s whisper praise instead of a joyful noise?

  Even when we talk about our faith, it’s usually with a “getting” focus rather than a “losing” one. Much of our Christian talk revolves around “gaining.” God gave me this…He gave me that. Much of our Christian life is focused on what we’ve received: freedom, hope, peace, a future, etc.

  Don’t get me wrong. All of those are worth being excited about, yet the Christian life is also about giving up things. It has a Cross as well as a crown. That’s the part most of us are a lot slower to talk about. Yet, as we read the Gospels, we quickly discover Jesus talked much more about losing than winning. He calls us to “lose our life.” If you call yourself a Christ-follower, you must be prepared to call yourself a loser. The Cross means losing. The Cross isn’t only about gaining a new life in Christ, it’s also about losing your life to find it. Every believer has things that we had to lose in order to follow Christ. We lose our past, complete with our sin and guilt. Oftentimes, though that also includes friends, family members, memories, even a spouse. We lose our security, as Christ draws us into unfamiliar territory and calls us to walk by faith. The talkative, assertive person must lose and learn to be quiet and listen. The quiet, shy person must lose and speak up even when it’s tough. We all lose our “rights.” We’re to submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21). A Christian wife must lose what the world calls her “right” when she submits to her husband. A Christian husband must lose himself, his desires and agendas, when he yields to the Lord and leads his family. He’s to love his wife sacrificially. The motivated, driven person loses when God says “wait…be still.” The pensive, cautious person loses when God says, “Go now. Act.”

  The Gospels make it clear that Jesus was never concerned about His image. He never felt the need to associate with the cool people or do cool things. He was completely free of such worries and had a very different set of criteria for what was worthy of admiration. He wasn’t interested in or impressed by human posturing, presentation, play-acting or power-plays. He was more interested in humility, integrity, kindness, compassion, contrite hearts and merciful attitudes.

  Let’s be honest. All of us are to some extent misfits and oddballs deep down. Some of us are just better at covering it up than others. 

  Jesus had great compassion for those who were looked down on by society for being uncool, weird or odd; those who didn’t fit in. He didn’t exclude them and won’t tolerate our exclusion of them. His Church is to be open for the least, the unlovely, the social outcast and outsider. If we can’t accept them, we’ve failed His mission. And we need to be reminded of this because it’s tempting to try to sweep embarrassing people under the carpet and out of sight. We must not forget that we’re all image-bearers, even those who seem a bit odd.   

  Jesus doesn’t just want symbolism or mere conformity to social conventions and norms. His ways and will are far bigger and better – and much more freeing – than that. For that very reason, those we see as embarrassing can sometimes be far freer and far more likely to take risks to do things God asks, regardless of whether they might be humiliating. The biblical prophets, John the Baptist, even some of Jesus’ disciples, all had some traits which probably didn’t make them great guests at most dinner parties. To be frank, they were a bit weird, even a bit ridiculous. But they were chosen by God and He was pleased to work through them.

  Of course, I still cringe when I see a nut job preaching on a street corner. Personally, I don’t think it’s the best way to share Christ. Yet, I need to remind myself that God chooses the weak things of this world to shame the strong; the foolish things to shame the wise. God’s foolishness is greater than human wisdom. Even Jesus wasn’t cool in any worldly sense. This world still thinks of Him as a loser and His followers as losers, too.

  I’m not saying that Christians can’t be cool or that Jesus loves you more if you’re a weirdo. We don’t need to deliberately make church embarrassing or uncool, any more than we need to deliberately go out seeking to suffer. What I am saying though is that Jesus is for losers. If we want to walk the way of Christ, we need to get used to that and we’d better make sure our churches aren’t too cool or uppity to include weirdoes, saddoes, oddballs and the socially awkward.

  Ted Turner, was right, “Christianity is a religion for losers.” Being a Christian follower is a call to be a loser. That’s because our Lord was the biggest loser of all. He sacrificed His life for each of us who were losers, that we might be losers in Him and gain everything. Yet, being a Christian carries much more shame than being a Bear’s fan. In January the football season is over and they can start talking about “next year.” For the believer, it’s a lifetime calling. The world won’t know the score and that Jesus wins until the end of the age. Until then, from a lost world’s perspective, we’re on the losing team.