I have no desire to live up to your expectations. In fact, if you put an expectation on me, I may do the opposite just for the sake of the principle.
Seems a bit juvenile, huh.
I was talking to my squad leaders the other day, and one of them reminded me that they didn’t want me to seek to live up to their expectations. In my head, I thought, “Well that’s good, because I could care less about meeting your expectations.” But at the same time, I thought, “Well, if he feels the need to communicate he doesn’t want me to live up to any perceived expectation, then I must be communicating that I perceive he is putting an expectation on me.”
A strange thought, perhaps, but the reason it is significant to me is because I focus so much on not living up to people’s expectations. But the reality is, if you focus so much on what you don’t want, you’re still focusing on that thing- which for me is other’s expectations.
So I had to ask myself, “Why am I still focusing on this expectations thing?” I get really angry. Not only when people put expectations on me, but also when they put expectations on you.
It’s complicated, but also not. See, I think this is the first time in my life I’ve been in a Christian community, and not been under some sort of microscope. In my childhood, I was a pastor’s kid; in college, I was an RA at a Christian University; after college, I was a small group leader at my church, and then a leader for small group leaders; after that, I was a Christian counselor.
So needless to say, while I hate expectations, I’ve also lived my life in congruency with the expectations of those around me, and thus received affirmation for it.
I don’t think I really got too mad at the expectations people put on me. But I do remember being mad that my church put expectations on my family: the length of my dad’s hair cut, the curfew my parents gave me and my sister, or whether or not my sister was allowed to sing on the worship team based on this or that decision- that stuff really pissed me off because it hurt my family. But other than that, I just figured if I did what I was supposed to, and others liked it, then it was a win-win. People were happy, and I was affirmed.
But then, I noticed a really disgusting side of this expectations thing. People who didn’t grow up learning the expectations didn’t know how to meet them.
So, when the former prostitute goes to a trendy mega church to get plugged into a small group, she is shunned for being too flirty and not dressing correctly, and eventually is asked to join a different small group. And the woman who is a prostitute and addicted to drugs because she was sexually abused her entire life is told she could just get out of it if she made better choices.
We are so arrogant we don’t know how to look past behavior to see that no woman would be willing to give away her soul in order to get a drug to numb herself even more unless something huge hadn’t already been broken inside of her. But since her behaviors are not yet congruent with the self-righteous, we have no framework for accepting her into our super cool church club.
While working as a counselor, my entire life was consumed with mending the broken. The most frustrating aspect of most of their stories is that in addition to being victims to abuse, once they sought restoration, they were ostracized because their behaviors didn’t fit into the box the Christians wanted them to fit into. My heart is legitimately throbbing as I think about this.
Have you read the bible story about the woman caught in adultery? The Pharisee’s wanted her stoned for her behavior. Jesus was more gracious with them than I would be, clearly- but he still wasn’t shy about putting them in their place. “He who has no sin may cast the first stone.” Hmm……. Jesus was the only one left after these awesome church folks all walked away with their tails between their legs. In what universe do we think that reminding someone how awful their behavior is will help them come to a place of restoration?
But over the past year or so, that’s 90% of the Christianity I’ve observed. Not the love Jesus shared to the woman whose behaviors were adulterous, just the Pharisee’s condemning her external behaviors.
Unfortunately, I think even the humble Christians in America have a hard time understanding that human behaviors are just a symptom of what’s going on internally.
In America, we are so good at striving. We are affirmed for our accomplishments, and being a good Christian has become an accomplishment. Maybe we see that we aren’t accepting true grace for ourselves, and are living a life of self-sufficiency and performance, but rarely do we realize that we are also imposing that pharisaical perspective on others.
We know how to perform. We have the tools we need to succeed. So if we win, we get the credit, if we fail, we are to blame.
But, what about the less privileged? The girl who becomes a stripper because at least at the club, she at least has a bodyguard to keep her from having to get raped every night, which was the life she used to live under control of her pimp. Is that because of something she did? What about the kids who are born into and live in the trash dump in Trujillo, Peru? They grow up every day digging through the trash looking for a half eaten cup of yogurt someone threw into the same garbage container where they also throw away their used toilet paper. Is it that kids fault for not having a vision for his life beyond living in the trash dump?
We are privileged, and self-sufficient, so we expect the less privileged to also be self-sufficient.
It seems like there is no paradigm that allows for broken, messy people to be a part of the church. Just proud people, who I suppose in their own way, are broken too. But, we are way more comfortable with that, because in America, we appreciate striving. We encourage it.
I think because this is the Christianity I perceive dominates in the world, I have decided I can’t be a part of it. I literally hold hate for the Christians who condemn the broken and less privileged. So much, that lately, I haven’t even wanted to be a Christian, because I don’t want to be associated with that word, because of the connotation it carries. And because most of my life has been about meeting expectations, I don’t think my actual trust in God is strong enough to trump what I observe in the church.
So, I’m sort of at a blank slate right now in my faith. Probably, that’s not actually possible, but as much as it is possible, I’m starting over with God. My behaviors are no longer motivated by the expectations of those around me. I’m grateful for the freedom I have to do that, and in the part of me that still trusts God is good, and is real, I believe he offered me the opportunity to be on this trip, in this community, without being in leadership of any kind, so I could really get to a place of authentic relationship with him. Please know, that is my foresight, and not my current state.
I’m pretty sure that if I get to that place of authentic relationship with God that is not based on others expectations, I will at some point need to forgive Christians, and repent for judging their sins and allowing it to carry so much weight in my life. I recognize that. Maybe you will see a blog post about that sometime in the future.
