Too Taboo to be True!

With the Super Bowl fast approaching, many people are planning parties. It’s the time of year for get-togethers, snacks, and good times.  Yet this year it will change in St. Louis. It seems like more and more passionate articles are coming out about St. Louis boycotting the NFL. The bitter ending of losing the Rams is a sad day for many fans. Brentwood Spirit’s own Steve Bowman posted an article voicing his disappointment.

I honestly had to hide my joy. I felt like I was finally free. I had tried to stick to my soapbox about rooting for the teams in my town. When someone roots for a team of an odd city I never looked at it as a conversation starter but more of a question of why. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake that I am a Chiefs fan through and through. Now with the Rams departure, I know I can proudly wear my Cardinals hat and my Chiefs sweatshirt if I want. Right now, though, I still tread lightly. The wound is still fresh, and there are far more hurt feelings than I expected. After finding out the news, I did not run out with joy or even dare to make a statement on Facebook. I didn’t even respond to other posts asking how we felt in St. Louis. I knew it was a taboo subject. Watching the many posts and hurt feelings, I felt for the fans that had watched the Rams win the Super Bowl. In Kansas City we only got a post-Rams Super Bowl winner, Dick Vermeil. I also saw a beat up Trent Green come to Kansas City. But I never experienced what many did in St. Louis as they watched the Rams win a Super Bowl. To be honest, the team I am most passionate about won the Super Bowl so many years ago that Jacob asked me the other day while they were interviewing Len Dawson, the Kansas City quarterback of old, how can he still be alive?

I could relate to Rams fans in one way. I will never forget the World Series game 7 in 2011. I went downtown to experience the moment. I was lucky enough to stand by the gate and be let into Busch Stadium for the last couple of outs. While that is probably the closest I will ever get to seeing a World Series game live, it left a lasting impression on me. As the KC Royals won the World Series last year, after many years of heartbreak as a boy, I felt for my family as they got to experience the parade and excitement back home in KC. I knew it had to be amazing, and that those were memories that would last forever.

Too taboo to be true or not, let me say that after living in both cities, St. Louis is a baseball city and Kansas City is a football town. Make no mistake about it, the Chiefs will never leave Kansas City, and the Cardinals will never leave St. Louis.

We live like this don’t we? In different times and in different ages, different things are too taboo to be true. We have our standards of taboo topics. People know what not to talk about it. And while we have become more vulnerable and open about our personal lives in our current generation, there are still those odd taboo subjects that cause our mouths to drop if someone brings them up. We might say to ourselves, “Did they just bring that up… at dinner? You have got to be kidding me!”

I remember when my college English professor told me never to correct anyone’s grammar. She said it was one of the rudest things you could do. It stuck with me, and so I watched to see how often people did it. Life lessons like that one taught me how to care for others, and which things really should be taboo or not.

So what about Jesus? How did He respond to taboo topics? Had I been alive in Jesus’ time, I would have watched Him like a hawk to see how He was similar to culture or counter culture. In this week’s lesson, after spending time in His Baptism, first miracle, and the beginning of His ministry, we move into the way Jesus lived His ministry leading up to the cross. More specifically, this week is about sick people and demons. In this day and age, we deal with sick people much better than in Jesus’ time. We do not cast them out to the outskirts of town, instead we fight for their incurable diseases. But in the time of Jesus, well, medicine was not up to the same standards, and fear of catching the diseases was strong. As for demons, Jesus didn’t shy away from them either. He entered a world few talked about. How did people receive these stories of Jesus healing and casting out demons? Were they too taboo to be true? How does that relate to us today? What stories cross our taboo lines and make us too uncomfortable to talk about? This week we take time to watch Jesus forge through the most devastating evidence of sin present in our world, and ask ourselves where are those areas and places of sin we are ignoring.  We pray for Jesus to forgive us and lead us on a path where nothing is too taboo to look at, confess, and move forward.