Living in the Lifeboat

This is my bulletin article post for this week. Many of the ideas are fleshed out of Don Miller's book Searching for God Knows What which I highly, highly recommend. And pretty much most of the ideas I got from that book. I don't think I would have thought of this stuff. But it was profound enough to share and add a little personal perspective to.

Have any of you ever played a game in school called Lifeboat? I remember playing this in my sophomore high school English class. The premise is that your boat is sinking, and there is only space for a few people on the emergency raft. It is our task to figure out who we are going to take with us. Obviously we would want to save ourselves, right? In the game there must be some people left behind. The list usually has some smart, successful people, some people we would consider a drain on society, and average Joes. A line up might be like this: a doctor, a mother on welfare, a factory worker, an engineer, a minister, a famous actress, a basketball player, a person with Down’s Syndrome, a lawyer, and a fast food worker. You can take six people. It was called an exercise in value’s clarification. However, looking at that list you can tell it is much more insidious than that. It determines who has societal value and who is expendable. I did not realize this when I played it in high school. I only remember arguing with my agnostic friend about why I was going to include the minister.

In the book “Searching for God Knows What” author Donald Miller draws out the meaning behind this terrible game. So many times we live as if we are trying to convince others that we need to be on the lifeboat, because if we were rejected, we would die. I find this to be a highly insightful look at human behavior. So we live trying to find approval by the right groups so that we can be validated. I guarantee you this scenario is played out everyday in our school systems. Kids live and die emotionally by who they get approval from, and some will go to terrible extremes to try to find this approval. Why? Because they are trying to secure themselves on the lifeboat. And look at what can find a place on the lifeboat: if you can play a guitar, if you are pretty, if you are smart, if you are rich, if you can dunk a basketball, if you are right. How many times will we sacrifice important relationships to be right about things that are trivial, like sports teams, or music choice, or who drives the better car? Those are things that society values. Those are things that can keep us safe on the lifeboat. It explains so much about how atrocious humanity can be to each other. If your race is a majority on the lifeboat, it makes sense to find some reason another race is inferior. It protects your position on the boat, and in fact your whole life. Racism makes no sense apart from this worldview.

But then there is Jesus. Everything He taught goes against the lifeboat mentality. He spent His time with society’s outcasts and brought redemption and forgiveness. In the Old Testament, several verses remind us that the Lord looks out for the orphan and the widow. Matthew 25:31-46 reminds us that what we do with “the least of these” is what we have done to Jesus. If our salvation and identity is secure in Christ, then who needs the lifeboat? There is infinite room in God’s kingdom. We have to stop comparing ourselves with others and trying to one up each other on everything. Jesus refused to buy into the lifeboat system, and it ticked off the Pharisees who believed they had the best position. Religion is a major way we try to secure our position on the lifeboat. How dare we reduce God’s love to such arrogance. God’s love is too big. Jesus even tells us how to avoid the lifeboat mentality. “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” (Matt. 16:24-25) Go down with the ship. It is really what Jesus is asking us to do. Is that not a vivid image of what baptism is? It’s rejecting the lifeboat and dying in the water, only to be raised again without the trappings of the lifeboat mentality. We are dead to the world which means that we can walk with Jesus in faith across the water like Peter did, trusting in Him, and loving others not because we need to be validated, but because Christ validated that person on the cross, no matter what society says.

We are going to do the Lifeboat activity in my Wednesday class tonight. I’m curious to see how it turns out. I hope it becomes a vivid illustration about how we think about people. I’ll let you know how it goes next week.

-Posted while listening to Paste Magazine Sampler 35 currently playing "Get to Love" by The Old Ceremony.