The Gospel According to Taylor Swift: Amplifying God's Glory through Diversity

Welcome , friends , to the Resilient Faith podcast sponsored by Brentwood Presbyterian Church in West Los Angeles . We are sharing our sermons from our recent series , the Gospel According to Taylor Swift . This was a six-week sermon series in the fall of 2023 .

It's important in this day and age to talk about current events and pop culture in our worship and be in dialogue with Christian perspectives and scripture . Using Taylor Swift's lyrics and some of her songs as a launching pad , we are discussing some of the important issues and looking through them with a Christian lens .

Thanks for listening and we pray that the Holy Spirit reaches you through this series .

You hem me in behind and before and you lay your hand upon me . Such knowledge is too wonderful for me , too lofty for me to attain . Where can I go from your spirit ? Where can I flee from your presence ? If I go up to the heavens , you are there . If I make my bed in the depths of Sheol , you are there .

If I rise on the wings of the dawn , if I settle on the far side of the sea , even there your hand will guide me . Your right hand will hold me fast . If I say surely the darkness will hide me in the light , become night around me . Even the darkness will not be dark to you . The night will shine like the day , for the darkness is as light to you .

For you created me in my inmost being . You knit me together in my mother's womb . I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made . Your works are wonderful . I know that full well . My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place . When I was woven together in the depths of the earth , your eyes saw my unformed body .

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be . How precious to me are your thoughts , o God . How vast is the sum of them . This is the word of God for the people of God . You know , I thought it was a little bit strange .

In the New York Times columnist Brian Sieber chose to begin his review of Taylor Swift's Eras tour at Sophie Stadium by not focusing on the four hours of mind-numbing energy she put into that concert , or the parade of nonstop number one hits from nearly two decades of music , or the eight and a half minute deafening standing ovation that she got at the concert ,

but chose instead to focus on how awkwardly she dances .

Of all the things that he could have highlighted , he talked about her being a little bit stiff and uncoordinated when she dances on stage , that she's no Beyonce or Shakira and instead is forced to strut around on the stage a lot and strike a lot of poses and flash a lot of smiles , but then , just as you're starting to think that this guy is an absolute jerk

, he spins it around by saying that it's precisely her awkwardness that is maybe one of the most endearing and empowering things about Taylor Swift .

She doesn't care that she's not the best dancer , she actually embraces it , strutting around on that stage like she is having the time of her life , like she is the most beautiful and gifted creation God has ever made .

And this reviewer goes on to say and the magical thing about that is that in doing so , she frees all of her fans to think and act the exact same way , which really , in my mind , puts her in a long line of great theologians like Mike Giacchanelli , many of the greatest writers of the old and the new testaments , who go out of their way over and over again

to say each one of us is fearfully and wonderfully made by God , knit together in our mother's wombs , in the depths of the secret place , created special and unique with the image of God .

The amago day emblazoned inside of us created exactly the way God intended for us to be , and it reminds me how , in youth ministry , we were always trying to tell the kids that , if God loves you and created you just as you are . Who are we to question our own value and beauty ?

Because , as we were to remind them over and over again , god don't make no junk .

But it doesn't end there , because in this video , with its parade of hip hoppers and ballerinas and cheerleaders and break dancers , it takes a step further , affirming one of the greatest truths of our entire faith , a truth that our world desperately needs to hear right now , and that is that it is not just okay for you to be different .

God actually needs us to be different . It is not in spite of our diversity that this world is such a beautiful place . It is because of it , it is in our diversity that the full glory of God is completely revealed . And the differences between us , that's what we need in one another and that's what God needs .

If God's masterpiece is going to be whole , it needs all of us In every aspect of God's beautiful creation . So not only does God not expect us to be like everyone else .

God actually needs us to stand out and be a little different Dare , I say , be a little weird If we are going to be God's light in this world and show this world a better way of living and loving and being together , and so I want to take this morning as we launch our new year of programs and ministries and service to our community in the world .

I want to take a moment to ask you a very important question Are you at least a little bit weird ? Do you allow your faith to make you a little odd , a little offbeat , a misfit in this world ? Because it should .

If you are going to take your faith seriously , if you are going to be a real disciple or follower of Jesus Christ , it causes you to be a bit out of step , a little bit unfashionable and unconventional .

The more I study Scripture , the more obvious it becomes that this gospel that we preach and study and claim allegiance to is a call to a radical , revolutionary , counter-cultural movement that , if taken seriously , puts us squarely at odds with the status quo and the powers that be in this world , whereas Taylor would say with the liars and the dirty , dirty cheats

of this world . It's been said , you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you weird . Paul put it like this in 2 Corinthians Therefore , if anyone is in Christ , the new creation has come , the old is gone and the new is here .

In his book to the Philippians , paul says that when we become a disciple of Jesus Christ , we become citizens of an incompletely new commonwealth , a new kingdom , the kingdom of God .

When you begin taking Jesus Christ seriously , it changes you . It ruins you in the very best sort of way . It's an invitation to be a part of God's upside-down kingdom , where the values and the priorities of this world are turned on their ear . Following Jesus Christ messes with you , messes with your relationships , with your values and your priorities .

It messes with the way that you define and measure success , the way you conduct your career and your job , the way you spend your time and your free money , the friends that you choose , the jokes that you're willing to make and willing to laugh at . It changes what's important to you and what you value .

It changes the way that you understand your social status and your politics . The truth is that as we start to put God's kingdom and all of God's children as our top priority , it messes with our politics , whichever political affiliation you have .

You start to realize that Jesus would support some things in each party and not support other things in each party , which makes you set a little bit adrift . It makes you not quite easily fit in , because that's what Christians are supposed to be people who don't easily fit in .

We're supposed to be a little bit weird and in an odd sort of way that's both a comfort and a challenge , isn't it ? It's a comfort because it doesn't matter who you are . If you look the right way or you're talented or powerful or successful . You don't even need to be normal to be loved and accepted here .

Your worth as a person doesn't come from what you do or don't do , or who you know or how well you fit in . Your value is a given because you are a uniquely made , dearly loved , beloved child of God . Out there , the things that make us different and unique are typically frowned upon , but in here , our uniqueness is a cause for celebration .

It's what brings color and texture and variety and beauty to life , because the church doesn't value the same things that the world does . To be a Christian and live out this authentic Christian life is to stop being afraid that we don't look good enough or look the right way , or trying hard to pretend that we're something that we aren't .

In the church , we are given the freedom to just be ourselves . I'll never forget the first time I walked through the church , I thought that I had stepped into some kind of alternative reality . They were welcoming at me and accepting me just as I am . I didn't need to be cool or pretend I was cool .

I didn't need to be popular or important or look any certain way . They welcomed and loved me just as I was and it changed me . It really changed me . So this calling is a calling that brings comfort , but it also brings challenge .

I mean , let's face it , most of us in this sanctuary , our big struggle is to look any different from the world around us , isn't it ?

There is a lot of pressure out there , explicit and implicit , in our society , in our culture , to fit in , to become just like everyone else , and the reality is that most of us in the mainline Protestant church , particularly Presbyterians , were very good at fitting in .

There's a lot of payoffs and a lot of perks to not challenging the status quo , but Jesus tells us that if we fit in too easily , that something is wrong . Even the church gets caught up in this pressure to conform .

The truth is that the Christian church throughout the centuries , particularly the mainline church , we have been just as much about creating and indoctrinating good , respectable citizens in the cultures and the countries that we are operating in as we are about preaching the revolutionary , radical , subversive gospel of Jesus Christ .

In his book Resident Aliens , the director of the Doctorate of Ministry program that I'm in the first reader for my thesis , william Willamon , argues that this cooperation that cropped up between the church and the state , working together to try to create some kind of shared but compromised vision of a Christian culture , began back in 313 AD when Emperor Constantine's

Edict of Milan came about . And it didn't start to end here in our country at least , until a hot , sticky summer afternoon in 1963 when the Fox Theater in Greenville , south Carolina , going against the blue laws of that city , opened up their movie theater on a Sunday afternoon , god forbid .

And since that day the church has been slowly losing its grip over our culture and our society .

And while many bemoan the loss of status and privilege and power in our society , willamon and many other scholars actually applaud this chance , this opportunity for us to examine and address some of the ways that we have tended to well sell out our beliefs in order to remain the darling , the pet of our society's dominant power structure .

The Jewish people have always been so much better at this than we are . Throughout their various exiles , they're well acquainted with what it means to live as strangers in a strange land , to be a colony in a hostile culture . This has always been an integral part of the Jewish faith . What rabbis have told their people through the years ?

It's tough to be Jewish in our society telling their children that's fine for everyone else , but not fine for you , because you are special , you're different . You're a Jew . You have a different story and different values . That should be our story every bit as much as well . Willamon would argue . This is what we've been missing for the last 1700 years .

This loss of prestige and status that we're experiencing now gives us a chance to recapture some of our uniqueness , to take some stands , to stick out a little bit , to be a little weird .

So let me ask you again are there things about your life that don't quite fit in ? Do you allow your faith to cause you to stand out a little bit , to stick out like a sore thumb ?

As we launch this new year at BPC , I want to challenge you to take some time this week to enter a conversation between you and God , to spend some time praying , if you are willing , and to simply ask God , god , in what ways are you wanting me to be a little weirder , a little odder with my circle and my life and my friends ?

In what ways would you like to see me fit in a little less , stick out a little more , shake off the expectations of the world around me in order to be a bit weirder for your glory ? Is that a conversation you're willing to have ? Would you do that for me this week ? Well then , let's together say amen .