Yesterday I began leading chapel again for a local Christian school (kindergarten through the 5th grade). This has always been a great time for me because I love sharing with kids this age. We looked at the account recorded in Luke chapter 19 of Zacchaeus, the tax collector.
To begin our time together I asked for three volunteers to come down front to give their rendition of the song "Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he." I explained that I was looking for three different styles of music: opera, country, and grunge. As I was scanning the crowd among all the raised hands and small voices saying "Ooh, me, me!" seeking to find someone who could do the grunge, I saw this little girl with her hand raised high. I asked her "You think you can sing this in grunge?" She enthusiastically said yes.
So I had my singers down front. I started with this little girl to sing grunge. She was cute in her frilly dress and two long pigtails. I gave her some unsolicited advice to sing like Cookie Monster. She began and it was great! All the kids in the bleachers roared in laughter, claps, and cheers. This little girl really got into it. I told her she defied all stereotypes of what a grunge singer should look like.
The other two kids did great as well, but I was just totally surprised by how this little girl did with her grunge rendition of the Zacchaeus song. This was actually an illustration to go along with my devotional this morning of challenging the status quo.
We all carry assumptions about people, groups, cultures that need to be challenged. If we merely accept and live out of these assumptions we will miss out on so much more that God would have for us. It seemed that Jesus was constantly challenging people about what I call ignorant belief (not knowing why they believe what they believe). I think I will end with the same quote as my devotional: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” —Socrates
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