Never aggravate an old bear!
Last week someone rolled their eyes at me. Not just a quick arc of the eyes from one corner to another, this eye roll had a Stevie Wonder head sway with it. It was as if his eyes couldn’t roll significantly enough on their own; they needed some help from the neck.
At the time, I was serving as a guest lecturer in Dudley Chancey’s Introduction to Ministry class at Oklahoma Christian. I enjoyed it. Thirty young men and women sat in the class, alert and taking notes (their quiz grade for the day was based on the quality of their note taking). It was a good opportunity to talk with them about the challenges of working with at-risk children, and their questions were interesting and insightful.
Toward the end of class, Dudley interviewed me about various aspects of ministry. After several questions, the topic shifted. Because Dudley was aware of several ministers who had lost their jobs in the last couple of weeks over sexual issues, he asked me about ways to maintain sexual fidelity as a minister. I gave a couple of suggestions which stirred no more reaction than a few pens moving over a piece of paper. But when I got personal, and talked about a personal practice I find helps me keep my heart right, I saw a young man in the back row give the eye roll. I don’t think that he really meant for me to see it, but I did. After all, you see a lot when you teach a class. When his eyes finished their half orbit, my eyes were there waiting on his.
Now, I didn’t get mad, but I wasn’t exactly amused either. Someone asked me a question and I gave an answer. If you don’t like my answer, okay. If you don’t want to practice the practices I practice, then don’t. I’m good with that. But don’t minimize me with an eye roll. Don’t minimize an issue like sexual fidelity by not considering simple, every day practices which can help prevent it.
I didn’t say anything to embarrass him, but a point which I would normally make and move on now required me to hammer it home. The annoyed young man thought that I didn’t get it, that I don’t understand contemporary culture, that I wasn’t aware of the world as it really is. I hammered the point because the young man didn’t get the fact that sexual sin could kill his marriage and ministry, that contemporary culture is oversexed, and that the world seems to expect us to live like hormone-driven animals instead of spiritual creatures making free-will choices with their intelligence.
Afterwards Dudley and I shared lunch. “They think we’re just a couple of dirty old men,” Dudley said. “They just don’t get how quickly this stuff can bring anybody down.” I think that Dudley is right. A couple of them just didn’t get it.
The whole episode reminded me of what happened in 2 Kings 2:23-24:
He went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, "Go away, baldhead! Go away, baldhead!" When he turned around and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.
I need for you to understand that I had no hopes for a bear to come along and maul the young man listening to my lecture. No finger pointing. No curses. Perhaps it would be better for that to have happened, though, and for him to have learned something from it, than for him to go blithely on and find out the hard way, ten or fifteen years into a marriage, that he isn’t sexually invulnerable after all. Our sexuality, after all, is more powerful than we can manage on our own. Never think, “It couldn’t happen to me.” Only with the help of God, through persistent spiritual disciplines, and hopefully with the partnership of a loving spouse, can we be holy people.
May God help us to learn from those who walk alongside us. May their wisdom and insight help us, guide us, and shape us so that we don’t have to learn everything the hard way.
Grace and peace,
Ron
