Here is the third Jesus video. Enjoy
Vintage Jesus #2 September 16, 2008
I remember as a kid, they would always have Baptist Men Day on Super Bowl Sunday, which meant my dad and a handful of others led worship in the Sunday evening service. It was torture, bad preaching, bad singing, and meandering testimonies all while missing out on the biggest sporting event of the year. I commend my dad and those other guys for putting up with it. But it was ridiculous.
Why compete with the Super Bowl? Why force that decision? To change the day to any of the other 51 sundays wouldn’t have been capitulation to culture: All it secured was bitter hearts and the utter failure of high participation in Baptist Men Day. Why not take advantage of the biggest day of the year for America’s most popular sport and get people together to watch? Why not engage this cultural event in some creative way to form relationships with men who necessitate creative ministries? Thankfully the idiots who did this have thought better of it for the past decade or so.
I thought of that as I watched this video. I love the rules Jesus lays out:
Rule 1 – Spend all your free time in church
Rule 2 – Never have any fun unless your making fun of how dumb the devil is.
Rule 3 – Wear stylish shirts with my face on them.
Rule 4 – Wear a stylish beard like mine.
So, the video kind of speaks for itself, so I’ll keep commentary to a minimum.
But here are a couple thoughts: Although Jesus’ voice is hilarious, the humor in this video is that we all (not just youth and young adults) can resonate with the attitude that prevails in this video. In the church we find unspoken normative behavior that has no biblical basis but still brings judgment if it is not followed (spend all your free time in church, never miss church again, dress a certain way, don’t watch the Super Bowl). Along with these are the unfair perceptions those outside of the church impose on the church (never have any fun…unless you’re making fun of how dumb the devil is)
This is no news to anyone who reads this blog. The church should be a gathering of people who are open, inclusive, who place the needs of others above themselves, who serve the needs of their neighbor, who are unified, and ultimately loving. We gather, with Christ at our center, to go out into the world and bring Christ’s blessing.
That is not what is presented in the video. I think, that is what they are poking fun at, how far below this bar we so often fall. So often we are about the opposite of radical openness and inclusion and love.
May WE live out our faith in the midst of community in a very different manner.
Vintage Jesus September 11, 2008
If you grew up in a church (or still attend a church) anything like the church I grew up in, you will remember somewhere in the building there being a certain picture of Jesus. A likeness taken probably sometime in the 1950’s of a very caucasian, somber Jesus with shoulder length brownish blonde hair wearing a white robe. Most likely the picture has a brown background and was shot with a filter that places an angelic glow around Jesus.
You know the picture I am talking about. The Church I served in Hubbard had one and it had been on the wall so long that the wall was a completely different color behind the picture. When we redecorted for VBS and put white and black checkered wall paper along the whole fellowship all, all pictures, posters were removed, but Jesus got placed back up over the VBS wall paper even for that week.
The picture may be an evangelical miracle. I have been in many churches of various denominations where this same type of picture hangs. Maybe it was the one thing that could bring us all together and we missed the opportunity.
Anyway, the man I believed posed as Jesus (spoiler alert: The man in this picture we all know is not Jesus) also starred in some Jesus videos evidently. A church has taken these videos and dubbed over them and have used them to teach their youth. They are hilarious. If you can’t poke fun at Church and our own misconceptions of Jesus’ ministry, mission, and our own faith, then don’t watch this.
For the rest of us…Enjoy. I will be posting three more of the coming days along with some commentary.
