March 15, 2020
Rev Douglas Gray
When you were growing up, what are some messages people hear about being a boy or a girl?
[Take responses from the congregation.]
I heard things like “Big boys don’t cry.” and “A lady never reveals her age.” Some of those messages may be helpful sometimes, but at other times… One of the things about Disney’s movie, Mulan, is that it talks about gender roles and about people who might not fit with the stereotypes. But underneath is a deeper challenge for Christians that Paul addresses in his letter to the Christians in Rome.
First, let us be aware of roles others assign us, and the roles we assign ourselves. As we first meet Mulan, she is being prepared to meet the Matchmaker, the woman who helps young women make good marriages.
[Show Mulan, Girls Bring Honor as Brides / DVD 5:56–7:51]
Not long after Mulan pretends to be a man and joins the army to save her father. Mulan discovers that men of her society have just as rigid a set of expectations.
[Show Mulan, Learning Man Walk / DVD 29:10–31:08]
Our society has its own form of role and gender expectations. We talked about some of them at the beginning, didn’t we? Whether we are talking about male and female, parent and child, partner and spouse, or other roles, there are expectations—patterns we follow. Paul writes, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world…” and to do that we have to recognize the patterns in the first place.
Second, let us recognize that the roles and patterns of the world don’t really fit very well. Mulan loves being a daughter and works hard to care for her family, but chafes at the restrictions of gender roles. Even so, Mulan brings great humanity and strength to her role as soldier, valuing the death of a child as highly as that of a general. In our society, some roles and patterns don’t fit us well either. When I was a kid, I remember putting on my Dad’s suits and my Mom’s heels. The sleeves dragged on the floor and I nearly killed myself in Mom’s heels. Paul writes, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” If we feel like role or gender expectations are too constricting, perhaps what we really need is to know ourselves in a new way, to see ourselves less through the eyes of our society and more through the eyes of God. Then we are transformed from the inside out.
All our lives, people will tell us who they expect us to be. Like Mulan, we may feel like we have to wear a mask to fit in, as if we could change who we are. And we can never measure up, we will never be good enough in the eyes of the world. In our time, people will even tell us what we should be doing to be a good Christian, trying to lay on us expectations that are not even God’s expectations. Like Mulan, people may tell us we will never bring honor to our family or to our God. The good news today is that Jesus came to free us from other people’s expectations. Our lives are made meaningful by God’s love and by our response to it. As we watch Jesus escape people’s expectations—those who wanted an earthly king, those who wanted him to put family first, those who wanted him to be a good Jewish boy—we see how he holds unswervingly to a loving relationship with God. Paul writes, “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” In that well-formed maturity, our reflection matches who we are inside, our giftedness matches our passion, and what we do matches who we are. “…in view of God’s mercy, offer your selves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.” Then we will know what God wants, and we can live it out as simply as breathing—not for ourselves, but for the God who knows us and loves us through and through.