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November 9, 2023 • 19 mins

What if embracing your unique 'weirdness' is the key to experiencing God's glory? Take a leap of faith with us as we draw inspiration from the strength and endearing awkwardness of pop icon, Taylor Swift, to explore a faith journey that's anything but ordinary. We speak straight from our hearts about embracing God's glorious diversity, the beauty of being fearfully and wonderfully made, and the calling to be a beacon of God's light in the world. Together, we ponder on the empowering question- do you let your faith paint you a shade of brilliant 'weird'?

Let's take a radical detour from societal norms and discover how adopting the path of Jesus Christ can revolutionize our values, priorities, and relationships. We uncover the resilience of the Jewish people and their authentic faith journey, challenging the church's inadvertent support for conformity. We reflect on the freedom to be ourselves in the church and how it enables us to express our faith uniquely. As we wrap up, we invite a thoughtful conversation with God, as we contemplate on how our faith-tinged 'weirdness' can glorify Him. So, dare to be different, dare to be 'weird'. God's glory awaits!

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to Resilient Faith, the podcast.
Opportunities to find deeperresilience within ourselves can
come when life seems mostchallenging.
This podcast is to help youdevelop that resilience and
connection with God.
Being resilient and havingpower starts with faith.

(00:32):
Welcome, friends, to theResilient Faith podcast
sponsored by BrentwoodPresbyterian Church in West Los
Angeles.
We are sharing our sermons fromour recent series, the Gospel

(00:52):
According to Taylor Swift.
This was a six-week sermonseries in the fall of 2023.
It's important in this day andage to talk about current events
and pop culture in our worshipand be in dialogue with
Christian perspectives andscripture.
Using Taylor Swift's lyrics andsome of her songs as a

(01:15):
launching pad, we are discussingsome of the important issues
and looking through them with aChristian lens.
Thanks for listening and wepray that the Holy Spirit
reaches you through this series.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Listen to this from Psalm 139.
You have searched me, o Lord,and you know me.
You know when I sit and when Irise.
You perceive my thoughts fromafar.
You discern my going out and mylying down.
You are familiar with all of myways.
Your word is on my tongue.

(01:53):
You, o Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and beforeand you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderfulfor me, too lofty for me to
attain.
Where can I go from your spirit?
Where can I flee from yourpresence?
If I go up to the heavens, youare there.

(02:15):
If I make my bed in the depthsof Sheol, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of thedawn, if I settle on the far
side of the sea, even there yourhand will guide me.
Your right hand will hold mefast.
If I say surely the darknesswill hide me in the light,
become night around me.
Even the darkness will not bedark to you.

(02:38):
The night will shine like theday, for the darkness is as
light to you.
For you created me in my inmostbeing.
You knit me together in mymother's womb.
I praise you because I amfearfully and wonderfully made.
Your works are wonderful.

(03:01):
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden fromyou when I was made in the
secret place.
When I was woven together inthe depths of the earth, your
eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for mewere written in your book before
one of them came to be.

(03:21):
How precious to me are yourthoughts, o God.
How vast is the sum of them.
This is the word of God for thepeople of God.
You know, I thought it was alittle bit strange.

(03:42):
In the New York Times columnistBrian Sieber chose to begin his
review of Taylor Swift's Erastour at Sophie Stadium by not
focusing on the four hours ofmind-numbing energy she put into
that concert, or the parade ofnonstop number one hits from

(04:03):
nearly two decades of music, orthe eight and a half minute
deafening standing ovation thatshe got at the concert, but
chose instead to focus on howawkwardly she dances.
Of all the things that he couldhave highlighted, he talked

(04:24):
about her being a little bitstiff and uncoordinated when she
dances on stage, that she's noBeyonce or Shakira and instead
is forced to strut around on thestage a lot and strike a lot of
poses and flash a lot of smiles, but then, just as you're
starting to think that this guyis an absolute jerk, he spins it

(04:48):
around by saying that it'sprecisely her awkwardness that
is maybe one of the mostendearing and empowering things
about Taylor Swift.
She doesn't care that she's notthe best dancer, she actually
embraces it, strutting around onthat stage like she is having

(05:12):
the time of her life, like sheis the most beautiful and gifted
creation God has ever made.
And this reviewer goes on tosay and the magical thing about
that is that in doing so, shefrees all of her fans to think

(05:34):
and act the exact same way,which really, in my mind, puts
her in a long line of greattheologians like Mike
Giacchanelli, many of thegreatest writers of the old and
the new testaments, who go outof their way over and over again
to say each one of us isfearfully and wonderfully made

(05:58):
by God, knit together in ourmother's wombs, in the depths of
the secret place, createdspecial and unique with the
image of God.
The amago day emblazoned insideof us created exactly the way
God intended for us to be, andit reminds me how, in youth

(06:23):
ministry, we were always tryingto tell the kids that, if God
loves you and created you justas you are.
Who are we to question our ownvalue and beauty?
Because, as we were to remindthem over and over again, god
don't make no junk.
But it doesn't end there,because in this video, with its

(06:45):
parade of hip hoppers andballerinas and cheerleaders and
break dancers, it takes a stepfurther, affirming one of the
greatest truths of our entirefaith, a truth that our world
desperately needs to hear rightnow, and that is that it is not

(07:06):
just okay for you to bedifferent.
God actually needs us to bedifferent.
It is not in spite of ourdiversity that this world is
such a beautiful place.
It is because of it, it is inour diversity that the full
glory of God is completelyrevealed.

(07:28):
And the differences between us,that's what we need in one
another and that's what Godneeds.
If God's masterpiece is goingto be whole, it needs all of us
In every aspect of God'sbeautiful creation.
So not only does God not expectus to be like everyone else.

(07:51):
God actually needs us to standout and be a little different
Dare, I say, be a little weirdIf we are going to be God's
light in this world and showthis world a better way of
living and loving and beingtogether, and so I want to take

(08:15):
this morning as we launch ournew year of programs and
ministries and service to ourcommunity in the world.
I want to take a moment to askyou a very important question
Are you at least a little bitweird?
Do you allow your faith to makeyou a little odd, a little

(08:36):
offbeat, a misfit in this world?
Because it should.
If you are going to take yourfaith seriously, if you are
going to be a real disciple orfollower of Jesus Christ, it
causes you to be a bit out ofstep, a little bit unfashionable
and unconventional.
The more I study Scripture, themore obvious it becomes that

(08:59):
this gospel that we preach andstudy and claim allegiance to is
a call to a radical,revolutionary, counter-cultural
movement that, if takenseriously, puts us squarely at
odds with the status quo and thepowers that be in this world,

(09:21):
whereas Taylor would say withthe liars and the dirty, dirty
cheats of this world.
It's been said, you shall knowthe truth and the truth shall
make you weird.
Paul put it like this in 2Corinthians Therefore, if anyone
is in Christ, the new creationhas come, the old is gone and

(09:46):
the new is here.
In his book to the Philippians,paul says that when we become a
disciple of Jesus Christ, webecome citizens of an
incompletely new commonwealth, anew kingdom, the kingdom of God
.
When you begin taking JesusChrist seriously, it changes you

(10:07):
.
It ruins you in the very bestsort of way.
It's an invitation to be a partof God's upside-down kingdom,
where the values and thepriorities of this world are
turned on their ear.
Following Jesus Christ messeswith you, messes with your

(10:28):
relationships, with your valuesand your priorities.
It messes with the way that youdefine and measure success, the
way you conduct your career andyour job, the way you spend
your time and your free money,the friends that you choose, the
jokes that you're willing tomake and willing to laugh at.

(10:50):
It changes what's important toyou and what you value.
It changes the way that youunderstand your social status
and your politics.
The truth is that as we startto put God's kingdom and all of
God's children as our toppriority, it messes with our

(11:14):
politics, whichever politicalaffiliation you have.
You start to realize that Jesuswould support some things in
each party and not support otherthings in each party, which
makes you set a little bitadrift.
It makes you not quite easilyfit in, because that's what

(11:35):
Christians are supposed to bepeople who don't easily fit in.
We're supposed to be a littlebit weird and in an odd sort of
way that's both a comfort and achallenge, isn't it?
It's a comfort because itdoesn't matter who you are.

(11:57):
If you look the right way oryou're talented or powerful or
successful.
You don't even need to benormal to be loved and accepted
here.
Your worth as a person doesn'tcome from what you do or don't
do, or who you know or how wellyou fit in.

(12:18):
Your value is a given becauseyou are a uniquely made, dearly
loved, beloved child of God.
Out there, the things that makeus different and unique are

(12:40):
typically frowned upon, but inhere, our uniqueness is a cause
for celebration.
It's what brings color andtexture and variety and beauty
to life, because the churchdoesn't value the same things
that the world does.
To be a Christian and live outthis authentic Christian life is

(13:05):
to stop being afraid that wedon't look good enough or look
the right way, or trying hard topretend that we're something
that we aren't.
In the church, we are given thefreedom to just be ourselves.
I'll never forget the firsttime I walked through the church
, I thought that I had steppedinto some kind of alternative
reality.
They were welcoming at me andaccepting me just as I am.

(13:29):
I didn't need to be cool orpretend I was cool.
I didn't need to be popular orimportant or look any certain
way.
They welcomed and loved me justas I was and it changed me.
It really changed me.
So this calling is a callingthat brings comfort, but it also

(13:55):
brings challenge.
I mean, let's face it, most ofus in this sanctuary, our big
struggle is to look anydifferent from the world around
us, isn't it?
There is a lot of pressure outthere, explicit and implicit, in
our society, in our culture, tofit in, to become just like

(14:16):
everyone else, and the realityis that most of us in the
mainline Protestant church,particularly Presbyterians, were
very good at fitting in.
There's a lot of payoffs and alot of perks to not challenging
the status quo, but Jesus tellsus that if we fit in too easily,

(14:37):
that something is wrong.
Even the church gets caught upin this pressure to conform.
The truth is that the Christianchurch throughout the centuries
, particularly the mainlinechurch, we have been just as
much about creating andindoctrinating good, respectable
citizens in the cultures andthe countries that we are

(14:59):
operating in as we are aboutpreaching the revolutionary,
radical, subversive gospel ofJesus Christ.
In his book Resident Aliens, thedirector of the Doctorate of
Ministry program that I'm in thefirst reader for my thesis,
william Willamon, argues thatthis cooperation that cropped up

(15:21):
between the church and thestate, working together to try
to create some kind of sharedbut compromised vision of a
Christian culture, began back in313 AD when Emperor
Constantine's Edict of Milancame about.
And it didn't start to end herein our country at least, until

(15:43):
a hot, sticky summer afternoonin 1963 when the Fox Theater in
Greenville, south Carolina,going against the blue laws of
that city, opened up their movietheater on a Sunday afternoon,
god forbid.
And since that day the churchhas been slowly losing its grip

(16:06):
over our culture and our society.
And while many bemoan the lossof status and privilege and
power in our society, willamonand many other scholars actually
applaud this chance, thisopportunity for us to examine
and address some of the waysthat we have tended to well sell

(16:30):
out our beliefs in order toremain the darling, the pet of
our society's dominant powerstructure.
The Jewish people have alwaysbeen so much better at this than
we are.
Throughout their various exiles, they're well acquainted with

(16:51):
what it means to live asstrangers in a strange land, to
be a colony in a hostile culture.
This has always been anintegral part of the Jewish
faith.
What rabbis have told theirpeople through the years?
It's tough to be Jewish in oursociety telling their children
that's fine for everyone else,but not fine for you, because

(17:13):
you are special, you'redifferent.
You're a Jew.
You have a different story anddifferent values.
That should be our story everybit as much as well.
Willamon would argue.
This is what we've been missingfor the last 1700 years.

(17:33):
This loss of prestige and statusthat we're experiencing now
gives us a chance to recapturesome of our uniqueness, to take
some stands, to stick out alittle bit, to be a little weird
.
So let me ask you again arethere things about your life

(17:55):
that don't quite fit in?
Do you allow your faith tocause you to stand out a little
bit, to stick out like a sorethumb?
As we launch this new year atBPC, I want to challenge you to
take some time this week toenter a conversation between you

(18:18):
and God, to spend some timepraying, if you are willing, and
to simply ask God, god, in whatways are you wanting me to be a
little weirder, a little odderwith my circle and my life and
my friends?
In what ways would you like tosee me fit in a little less,

(18:42):
stick out a little more, shakeoff the expectations of the
world around me in order to be abit weirder for your glory?
Is that a conversation you'rewilling to have?
Would you do that for me thisweek?

(19:04):
Well then, let's together sayamen.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
Make sure to subscribe on your favorite
podcast platform, and thanks forlistening.
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