Stick to the status quo
Remember the days when all you wanted was to be cool and hang with the “in” crowd? But if you weren’t in the “in” crowd, too bad, so sad, you’re doomed to eat lunch at a less glorious table all the days of your high school career. I’m sure you’ve seen High School Musical- the three movie series about the coolest high schoolers who ever existed. These movies came out when I was in 7th grade and high schoolers were the epitome of awesome. They carried a prevalent message, as they sing about the importance of “sticking to the stuff you know. If you want to be cool, follow one simple rule, don’t mess with the status quo.”
The whole movie is about keeping jocks with jocks and theater geeks with theater geeks, and braniacs with brainacs. Until one day where a jock falls in love with a brainac and they take the stage by storm, merging jocks, theater geeks, and brainacs once and for all in a spirited love story that teaches us we should break the status quo and be who we are and abandon all labels. High School Musical sang away the social norms and role expectations for groups in a very cute and sassy way, even though it’s a bit silly and if someone catches you singing the songs, they’ll probably make fun of you.
But High School Musical came out at the perfect time in recent history when the millennial generation of today was bracing themselves for the real world of high school and forming their worldview to fight cliques and exclusive groups, to seek individuality and personal interests above membership in a group.
I myself am very independent and an advocate of the individual. I shy away from being assigned a collective identity and get a sense of pride out of standing apart from the crowd. Not to say I’m a loner, because I’m not. I’m very extroverted and a lover of people, but I just want to remain as Emily Cotter, not a branch of a group. So I am all about the messages (and songs!) in High School Musical- banishing the clique, fighting the status quo, and changing the tide.
In this article I would like to examine several common group establishments that could do with a serious dose of individuality from a Biblical perspective:
Marriage
Cliques
You’ve heard them all, she’s “his better half,” “he’s what makes her whole,” “she completes him,” “soulmates,” “the one…” Marriage is a small group that is arguably the most exclusive social arrangement there is. (disclaimer: I am not vouching for open relationships, but for couples to have personalities, interests, friends, and areas of service as their own individual person as opposed to that couple who is attached at the hip and has no friends other than each other. That’s not healthy and that’s not outreach.)
So, marriage unites a man and woman and they become one flesh and it’s beautiful and fulfills God’s purpose (check out my other blog on marriage for a more rounded perspective on God’s plan for marriage- but for the sake of space, we’re not going to go in to the technicalities of it all and are going to move right on in to talking about how unhealthy it is for a husband and wife to be the same person. https://medium.com/christian-perspectives-society-and-life/romantic-relationships-does-god-care-e6e0de770d55#.8p64ep51r )
When we marry someone, we sign on to love them for better or worse, in sickness and health, for richer or poorer, until death says we part. We’re one flesh with this person, and being married is a beautiful way to love a special person in a way nobody else can love them, to have someone who knows their soul and can encourage and challenge that person for a lifetime. But being married does not mean you sacrifice every bit of yourself that doesn’t reflect that other person until you’re both mirror images of each other.
That would be sanctification, and that’s what we do with Jesus, not our spouse. We still need to have separate identities, interests, and responsibilities because we are each called to have a unique walk with God as an individual who is fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps 139:14). There is no verse that says “Thou shalt not forsake thoudst’s individuality when thoudst’s idst married but mudst clone into a singleth living creatureth,” just like there is no verse that states explicitly that we shouldn’t smoke weed. But there are precedences laid out in Scripture that we can use to filter our decisions if we don’t have a black and white direction laid out in chapter and verse.
The great historical figure Jeremiah shared his personal struggle with sin in Jeremiah 31:19: “After I strayed, I repented; after I came to understand, I beat my breast. I was ashamed and humiliated because I bore the disgrace of my youth.”
Hebrews 7:25 talks about how a person must go to God and ask for forgiveness for their own sins: Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.
In Revelation 22:17 we see a thirsty person called to repentance from sin, again, as a singular sinner seeking forgiveness for his own person. “The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.”
As we see from Scripture, neither sin or salvation are transmissible between spouses through osmosis or physical contact or if there should be a shift in the planets that alters the poles and the tectonic plates on our beautiful earth. Sin and salvation are 100% individual. Being “one flesh” does NOT mean a married couples’ sin and salvation morph into one. Sin and salvation are individual to each person. And so married couples need to preserve their own identity as individuals, not halves, not parts. We are complete and whole as our own individual human being and need to have our own distinct characteristics as a beautiful person complimented by their spouse instead of snuffing out our dissimilarities.
Moving on to cliques-
They’re mean. They’re rude. We’ve all been an outsider, and probably an insider. Christians need to have open arms toward other people. Open arms means opening the coffee circle at church. Opening the Bible study to that weird mom in the neighborhood who always talks too much. Opening your schedule so you have time for not just your “preferred” people, but so you can have a conversation with a lonely person who wants to engage you.
Mean Girls is another movie about high schoolers and cliques. But unlike High School Musical, I can’t stand Mean Girls because the clique in this movie gets completely out of hand and it’s full of crude humor and harsh words and horrible family dynamics! I cringe through the whole movie and it takes me back to my own very terrible high school experience and in the end, they really don’t learn their lesson. Instead, this clique of mean girls continues to be a clique, and they continue to be mean, and the whole movie adds some marginally interesting quips and calls it a wrap.
How is a Christian supposed to effectively reach out to the world if they are wrapped up in popularity and excluding people if they don’t fit in?
They don’t.
Matthew 28:16–20 commissions us as Christians to reach out to the lost world. And we need open arms to reach out to the world.
“Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
