For the next three months, they will be living in a specially designed eighteen-hundred square foot house on the CBS production lot in Studio City, California. There will be no newspapers, no televisions, no radio, and no internet access. Electronic items like CD players and cell phones will be strictly forbidden. They will also be denied the convenience of appliances such as dishwashers and washing machines. Outside activity will be restricted to working in a vegetable garden and collecting eggs from a coop of seven chickens. There will only be a small exercise area and a dinky swimming pool.
Over the next three months, the viewing public will be given the chance to have a microscopic view of the lives of ten people, up close and personal. With twenty-eight cameras and sixty microphones capturing their every move, they will be watched twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There will be absolutely no privacy. Even the bathrooms are rigged with four cameras, lest cast members meet to conspire against each another. Every conversation, every facial expression, every emotion, indeed, every interaction will be scrutinized by millions of voyeuristic viewers.
As you may guess, the show "Big Brother" is stirring up quite a bit of controversy. In his book The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America author Jeffrey Rosen says, "It's not really clear whether we care about privacy." Last week a KMOX radio broadcast asked, "What will be next?" Many others have pondered the ethical implications of programming that has in recent weeks been labeled reality television and voyeur television.
Whether we are talking about MTV's "Real World", CBS's "Survivor" (which TV Guide calls survival of the most liked) or CBS's "Big Brother", I think the question at the end of the day will be,"With everything out in the open, with everything out on the table, with all privacy stripped away, will we be able to find acceptance?" With everything exposed, with all our warts, scars, emotions, frailties, and feelings out in the open, with all our thoughts, values, mistakes, dreams, and hopes laid bare, with all our insecurities, shortcomings, weaknesses and vulnerabilities, will there be acceptance? And if so, what kind of acceptance?
These programs are simply a new way to ask the same century-old questions. For centuries, mankind has been wrestling with this issue of acceptance. We continually push our limits to test the waters of acceptance to see whether they are warm and affirming or cold and rejecting.
The drive for acceptance is powerful.
Now perhaps you have observed how powerful our drive for acceptance is. Virtually every place you turn in society, someone is crying out to be accepted. Children will push themselves in sports, music, and academics in the hope that they will find acceptance from their parents. Kids will join gangs and commit atrocious crimes and take drugs or do anything to find the acceptance they have failed to find in their home or school. Some people will join cults and even sacrifice their lives in order to find acceptance, as we saw with David Koresh in Waco and most recently with the Heaven's Gate cult. Adults will work atrocious hours in environments where they feel valued. The elderly will take enormous risks with their health and do things they shouldn't to make a statement about their value and acceptability. Still others will join clubs and change their entire lifestyle to mix with certain groups.
One year, UCLA football coach Pepper Rodger remembers being in the middle of a terrible season. Things got so bad, they began disrupting his home life! At one point, Pepper Rodger recalls, "My dog was my only friend. I told my wife that a man needs at least two friends. So she bought me another dog."
No one is exempt from this drive for acceptance.
In fact, the more you pay attention to it, the more you will notice that most of what we do is done in the hope of gaining acceptance. Sometimes we develop a kind of martyr complex and slavishly work to make ourselves indispensable. We think that people will accept us when and only when they realize how dependent they are on us. Sometimes we put on a mask to gain acceptance. We pretend to be something we are not. We conform to the group we're with or want to please.
I knew a high school kid who changed his outfit three to four times a day, depending on who he was with. One moment he would be the cowboy with boots, buckle, and hat. Another moment he would be the jock with the sports shorts, tank top, and Nike shoes. He would be the preppy school boy with Dockers, buttoned down shirt, and carefully combed hair. He would be the construction worker with torn pants, stained shirt, and beat up boots. What he really wanted was to find his identity and be accepted.
Sometimes we may play the victim to woo the support and affirmation we crave. We try to make people feel sorry for us, and in so doing deceive ourselves into thinking they are, in that moment, truly accepting us. Other times we gloss over our faults and hold people at arm's length lest they discover who we truly are and reject us.
When it comes to acceptance, we find ourselves in a real pickle. On the one hand we crave acceptance, yet on the other hand we do not know how to achieve it.
Jesus accepted others unconditionally.
Luckily for us, we have God's word and Christ's example to guide us in this very important area. Jesus Christ knew how to genuinely accept people. The biggest insult the religious leaders of Jesus' day could throw in his face was that he was a friend of tax collectors and sinners. On a regular basis, Jesus had fellowship with those people the religious leaders and other people of his day deemed unacceptable.
Jesus wasn't afraid to reach across the gender barrier and help people like the woman at the well and the woman caught in adultery. Jesus wasn't afraid to reach across racial and social barriers to minister to Gentiles and Samaritans and people of other ethnic backgrounds. Jesus wasn't afraid to spend time with the poor and the needy, with those who were dirty and unkempt, or with those who suffered with demonic possession. Jesus accepted the untouchables and the disease-ridden outcasts of his day. Jesus let people that we'd just as soon forget about invade his personal space.
Jesus wasn't normal. He made the comfortable uncomfortable. He made the rejected feel welcomed. He accepted everybody and anybody that came his way. The religious elite of his day despised Jesus because he made them feel guilty and ashamed. His example pricked their seared consciences. In the end, they crucified Jesus because he reached out and accepted all people. Now it is my belief that Jesus modeled the kind of acceptance we are looking for. Jesus Christ's acceptance is genuine and true.
Jesus accepted the woman at the well.
For example, let us consider the story of the woman at the well in John 4. Jesus is cutting through Samaria on his way to Galilee and he decides to rest near a well on the outskirts of Sychar, a Samaritan village. As Jesus rests and his disciples run into town to fetch some food, a Samaritan woman appears at the well to draw some water for herself. Typically the women traveled in groups, but this woman was alone because she was an outcast.
As the woman works, you can imagine Jesus sitting there paying close attention. In Jesus' day Jews didn't talk to Samaritans. And, they most certainly did not ask Samaritans for drinks of water. It was taboo. But Jesus is different and to everyone's surprise inJohn 4:7(NIV) he asks the Samaritan woman, "Will you give me a drink?" The woman is floored. In John 4:9 (NIV) she replies, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?"
Jesus crossed every imaginable barrier to accept people.
Now in talking to this Samaritan woman Jesus has already crossed three barriers. He crossed the gender barrier because he, a man, was talking to a woman. He crossed the cultural barrier because he, a Jew, was talking to a dirty Samaritan. And he crossed the religious barrier because he was a follower of Judaism and she was a follower of some watered-down form of Judaism that accepted just the first five books of the Old Testament and denied that Jerusalem was the proper place to worship God.
As they entered into a conversation about religion, I might add that Jesus crossed a fourth barrier, the stomach barrier. In John 4:16 (NIV) Jesus tells the woman, "Go, call your husband and come back." After explaining to Jesus that she didn't have a husband, Jesus confronts the pattern of sin in her life. In John 4:17 (NIV) he says, "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is quite true."
Long before Jesus ever asked the woman for a drink of water, he knew she was an adulterer. He knew she had been with five men, and that she was now working on a sixth! Jesus knew everything about her life, and yet there was nothing about her life that kept him from accepting her.
How many people would accept me?
Now just let that sink in for a few moments. How many people would accept us if they knew everything about us? How many people would accept us if they knew our every thought? Who would accept us if they knew our past, our mistakes, our frailties, and our fears? How many people would accept us if we let down our hair, took off our masks, and laid everything out on the table? How many people would accept us if our lives were monitored twenty-four hours a day, by twenty-eight cameras and sixty microphones? How many people would pass the stomach test and accept us as we truly are?
Jesus, the Son of God, fully knew this Samaritan woman and accepted her anyway. He knew about her infidelity. He knew how immoral she was. He knew every disgusting sin she ever committed, and yet he accepted her and forgave her and welcomed her into his kingdom. He gave her a chance to be restored to God and to respond to his call.
In the very next scene in John 4:39 (NIV) we find her running through the village telling the townspeople, "He told me everything I ever did." I believe that John is only telling us a small part of her testimony. I believe her full testimony was, "Jesus told me everything I ever did, and he accepted me anyway. He welcomed me just as I am!"
One thing is for sure. Because of her testimony, Jesus had to spend an extra two days in her village, proclaiming the good news.
Accepting others just like Jesus.
If I may take just a moment, I would like to tie a few things together. In Romans 15:7 (NIV) Paul says, "Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God." Because Jesus Christ fully knew us and accepted us anyway, we ought to accept others so that God will be praised. Because Jesus Christ crossed the stomach barrier, we ought to cross the stomach barrier and accept those people who our culture rejects.
Some time back I was studying 1 Corinthians when God opened my eyes and showed me something I never paid much attention to before. In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (NIV) Paul, in typical fashion, is denouncing the wickedness that existed in Corinth. He says, "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."
But then he adds the clincher in 1 Corinthians 6:11 (NIV). "And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, and you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God."
What is implied in 1 Corinthians 6:11 is that the Corinthian Church had learned to accept people who our culture would just as soon forget about. The Corinthian Church became a place where the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexual offenders, thieves, the greedy, drunks, slanderers, and swindlers found acceptance. The Corinthian Church became a place where people could be both fully known and fully accepted. The Corinthian Church became a place where Christ's acceptance could be experienced and genuine forgiveness received.
This morning as we reflect on Christ's acceptance, may we respond to Paul's admonition in Romans 15:7 (NIV). "Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God."
May we become a place, a church where like the Corinthian Church, people can come and be both fully known and fully accepted. May this become a place where people will hear these words, "Come. We welcome you as you are."
In Jesus' name, Amen!