✌🏼The Super Critical Bowl

Nobody Wins The Blame Game

It must be a TRAVISty to not SWIFTly condemn anything that you don’t agree with. Or at least that’s what watching social media during the Super Bowl seemed like.

Sorry for the Swift/Kelce pun. Couldn’t resist. This whole blog thing has me trying to do better at posting on social media. Not to be popular, but it doesn’t do much good to point to Jesus where no one can see.

I signed up for Twitter 15 years ago but have seldom tweeted until the past few weeks. Not a huge football fan anyway unless it’s the Cowboys, so during the game, I was multitasking.

The first He Gets Us Spot stopped me in my tracks. I began to tear up. Not just from the commercial itself but it brought back some memories here in my hometown. In July of 2020, a protest over the Confederate Statue on the square got ugly. AR-15s drawn on both sides.

I try to take Jesus’ words seriously and while watching some of the livestream videos of the two sides yelling at each other, all I could think about was, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

How could I try to be a peacemaker in that situation? After some prayer and talking to my wife, I headed that way. Bible in hand, I simply stood between the two sides and prayed silently. It wasn’t really noticed and that wasn’t the point. It just felt like I needed to do something.

Sometime later I heard about a group who were washing homeless people’s feet at a tent city beneath an overpass. Would I have the guts to try and wash the feet of those protestors on both sides? Probably not, but the idea seemed a lot like what Jesus stood for.

That’s what the ad meant to me. Among the hyper-political and hateful nonsense that is touted as Christian today, the metaphor of reaching and serving people no matter where they are in life was powerful. Allergies. It must have been allergies.

Maybe I should post about it.

Wow. First Super Bowl tears… that feet-washing #HeGetsUs commercial.

I have about two thousand Facebook followers and less than two hundred on the bird app. Response is generally mild. The Facebook post got some immediate reactions. Zero for the Tweet, as usual.

That was expected. What I didn’t expect was the tidal wave of conservative Christian tirades over the He Gets Us Commercial. It was like watching the Super Critical Bowl.

I’m not going to waste my time regurgitating all the vitriol, but it was astounding how many very popular influencers were spouting off about a Jesus they have created in their own political image.

The very idea that a follower of Jesus might wash the feet of unrepentant sinners in the very places they may have sinned was declared an abomination. How could you drag Jesus through the mud like that was the pervasive point being made. As if trying to reach and love a sinner before they repent automatically makes you a sin coddler and enabler.

I’ve often seen the left castigated by the right for their shared “talking points.” But the conservative Super Critical Bowl had its own talking points. The blame game happened so fast and the comments were so similar, it’s like they were waiting to pounce.

Here are some common talking points I observed.

1. Jesus wouldn’t do that, He would tell them to go and sin no more.

2. Jesus turned over tables and would never wash the feet of an unrepentant sinner.

3. Jesus didn’t come to bring peace, but a sword.

4. GO AND SIN NO MORE!

There were so many condemning stones being thrown that my head was spinning. Then I noticed the more liberal Christians criticizing all the money that had been spent that could have fed the poor.

It was like everyone thinks Jesus said go into all the world and criticize and condemn everything!

Do I have all the answers? Nope. Am I a perfect example? Absolutely not. Would Jesus wash the feet of sinners like that? I’m not sure. But here’s what I do know.

You can’t get most of the stuff posted in defense of Jesus from the words Jesus said, unless you cherry-pick things out of context.

Let’s take “Go and sin no more.” Jesus said that. Repentance is vital. But there is context to the process. I recently wrote about the woman caught in adultery in John 8, so I won’t go into a lot of detail here.

A bullet point version:

• Woman is brought to Jesus and they want to stone her for adultery. No indication she repented.

• Jesus wrote in the dirt.

• Before addressing the woman, Jesus challenges her accusers - before she repents.

• No one is without sin, and so they all put the rocks down and leave.

• Jesus, for the first time talks to the woman. “Where are your accusers? Did even one of them condemn you”

• “No, Lord.”

• “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

Put that into context. Not one time are we told the woman repented. Not one time did Jesus condemn her. He didn’t start with “Go and sin no more.” He started by silencing her accusers BEFORE she repented.

To use “go and sin no more” to condemn and criticize anything that tries to relate to or reach people before they repent is a gross misrepresentation of Jesus, His example, and His commands. The other “talking points” are also out of context, but don’t take my word for it. Read them in context for yourself.

The crazy thing is, in order to follow Jesus, you have to actually follow Him. Not just quote Him out of context to condemn your sinful enemies.

When did condemning people become the Good News? When did criticizing and complaining become Fruit of the Spirit?

If your truth sounds more like the goats than the sheep in Matthew 25, you are on the wrong side.

It’s not our job to go out and offend people. Yet, you win the Super Critical Bowl by repulsing the people you say need Jesus the most.

If you imagine sin being like needing a heart transplant, the tactics of condemn first would be like hating the sick so much that you randomly cut open people in the alley without anesthesia or even having a compatible replacement heart. You wouldn’t even know their medical history or blood type.

I don’t agree with everything about the #HeGetsUs campaign. However, my hope is that it can be used as common ground (1 Cor. 9:22) leading to conversations that will lead to the waiting room and eventually surgery for a heart transplant.

According to Jesus, Paul, and other New Testament writers, you don’t win in the Kingdom by putting others down. You win by turning the world upside down.

How? By returning good for evil. Blessing those who curse you. Not avenging yourself. Being gracious and kind. And being a friend to sinners before they repent.

You know, like Jesus… not like the Super Critical Bowl.

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