Led Zeppelin t-shirts, Jesus fish, and other things that tick me off

One of the greatest frustrations in my life is that this shirt does not come in XXXL.

Look at it. It is a thing of beauty. That winged fella there is Icarus, the "mascot" (I guess) of Led Zeppelin's Swan Song Records label. The 1977 tour referenced was the last US tour Zep ever made, and it was a MONSTER. I've got some bootlegs as well as a few official live recordings pieced together from that tour... and wow. Led Zeppelin. Dang.

I know it hasn't been that long since I wrote about Led Zeppelin, and that last post wasn't the first time they've come up on the blog, so I hope you'll forgive me going back to the (nigh upon bottomless) well of my passion for Led Zeppelin in trying to illustrate some point to you about God.

So I wanna tell you a story about this kid I met a few years ago, after I went back to Harding. It was a Sunday afternoon, and I was at this lunch thing at the campus ministry's Rock House. In coming back to Harding after a year gone, most of my friends had graduated or drifted off in other directions, so I really just didn't know a ton of people. I was trying to be somewhat more social, trying to mingle in with more people, trying to connect... and in walks this kid with the shirt pictured.

BAM. Conversation starter. Yes. Something for me to go on. A potential in-roads to a connection with another human being. (Or so I thought.)

I am not saying that I'm automatically going to be buddies with a dude just because he likes Led Zeppelin, but the chances are a LOT higher that I'll get along with the guy in the Zep shirt than the guy in the KISS Army shirt. It's just a foothold, something I can latch on to, something that I am extraordinarily passionate about, something that - if all else fails - I can engage in conversation over for HOURS.

So I found myself sitting across from this kid - maybe all of 19 years old, versus my 24 at the time - and just casually said, "So... what's your favorite Zep album?"

"Huh?"

"Your shirt. The shirt there. You a big Led Zeppelin fan?"

"Oh, uhhh... No, not really... I just like the shirt. A lot of my friends have it, so I picked one up. It's vintage."

Oh, the rage. Oh, the unbearable, unspeakable, unstoppable rage.

Where is the fairness in that? Here's this 5'4" twerp, maybe 140 pounds if he's holding a 50 pound sack of dog food, doing his dead-level best to look like Harry Potter stumbled through Goodwill on a shopping spree specifically engineered to make high school girls think he doesn't care about his looks, wearing a shirt - dare I say PROFANING a shirt - that I would gladly amputate a limb to have in my size. (Not one of my limbs... that'd just be silly.)

And it's not like I'm saying the kid's got to be on "my level" of fandom to earn the right to wear the shirt or anything... But at least, you know, be able to name an album or something... And it's not like that's a hard task, either... The first three albums are all called Led Zeppelin, so it's really hard to mess up... The fourth album doesn't even have a name... Come on, kid.

At the end of the day, am I just jealous because some kid doesn't care about the band on the shirt that he's wearing? Yes. But at the same time, it really gets under my skin because I enjoy Led Zeppelin so much and take their music so seriously to heart and have nothing to tangibly show the world "YES! I AM COMPLETELY NUTS ABOUT LED ZEPPELIN!" And then there's this kid who doesn't even come close to pretending he cares about the band, and he gets the shirt. He wants to look like he cares about Led Zeppelin - specifically because of the added bonus of looking "vintage" - but at the end of the day, all he cares about is the look. It doesn't actually affect his life one way or another what's on the shirt, so long as the design of the shirt is popular. The label didn't have any relation to the contents of the package.

And now a story that I assure you is completely unrelated.

I was driving with Dad to Arkansas last week and as we went through Memphis, we wound up going through a construction zone. This isn't really a surprise... I don't think I've ever been through Memphis when there wasn't interstate construction in progress... But this time, there was plenty of warning about the upcoming construction zone. There were construction signs on the side of the road warning drivers that the left lane was closed 5 miles out. The overhead traffic advisory signs were warning us that the left lane was closed 3 miles out. The road cones started showing up 2 miles out, in addition to more signs. And then you know the rest. "LEFT LANE CLOSED 1 MILE" led to "LEFT LANE CLOSED 1/2 MILE" and then "LEFT LANE CLOSED 1000 FEET" and then... you know... the left lane closed.

So for the entirety of the five miles since that first sign proclaiming that the left lane would be closed, there's this fancy SUV thing hovering next to me in the left lane. I'm not usually a very aggressive driver in the first place, and with Dad sleeping in the passenger seat and Pink Floyd coming through the speakers, I was in an even more chilled-out mood than usual. So for all five of those five miles since the first hint of warning for the upcoming lane closure of doom, I've been rolling along at a steady pace, keeping a ridiculous amount of room between myself and the car in front of me. Seriously, at times it was at least a quarter of a mile. There was room for the guy to my left to get over, as well as several other guys to my left who may or may not have existed.

But you wanna know what happened? As the countdown kept going - 5 miles, 4 miles, 3 miles - the guy stayed there. Once the traffic barrels showed up - 2 miles, 1 mile, 1/2 mile - the guy just stayed there. Once the lane closure was actually immediately visible - 2000 feet, 1000 feet, 500 feet - he still didn't do anything, and I'm still leaving enough room to drive a truck through, which is a figure of speech that somehow loses its power when actually talking about traffic.

So what else was going to happen but the inevitable: once we actually got to the point of no return where the lane is closed and the barrels are blocking off the lane, this guy floors it, cuts me off, clips one of the barrels with his fender, slams on his brakes to avoid ramming the guy in front of him, forcing me to slam on my brakes, causing a whole shockwave jam in traffic and screwing things up for everybody.

And that's when I saw the Jesus fish on the rear bumper.

I'll be honest - I don't really have the highest of expectations for the majority of the people in the world. I kinda operate on the assumption that most everybody out there is a first-class jerk who would just as soon punch a baby as extend kindness to a stranger. I don't think this way because I view myself as so much better, but because it helps me keep my cool. If I already expect 99% of the world to be completely awful, I'm not all that angered with 75% of the world that actually lives up to that expectation, and I'm in fact grateful for the 24% that surprised me.

But I really, really, really wish I didn't ever have to see this kind of behavior from somebody who is proclaiming with a little magnetic ΙΧΘΥΣ that they're supposed to be cut from a different cloth than the rest of the world. Apparently that fish held nothing more than strictly ornamental purposes, because it sure didn't affect the way the guy drove. As the traffic slowed to a crawl, I watched this guy weave in and out of lanes, cheat by driving on the shoulder, cut off several other drivers, doing everything he could to ignore the fact that "the first will be last and the last will be first."

I could bust out a ton of scripture here (Matthew 23, James 1:22-25 and 2:14-26, Revelation 3:1-6, 14-21, just for starters) about how it's not enough to look like you're following God, you've actually got to do something about it.

We've come to a point (and it's not like this happened recently) where Christianity is just enough of a social norm that a lot of people want to look like Christians even if they're not willing to live like Christians. But it's that look that is so important. It's the look that keeps everybody complacent in their faith because of a widespread misunderstanding of what Jesus meant when he was talking about planks and sawdust. It's the look that lets people get away with anything they feel like because they know they've been forgiven and that God wants you to forgive them, too. It's the same look that keeps us all paralyzed, locked in a self-defeating and self-perpetuating cycle of sin and purposeful ignorance.

But what if we stopped just trying to look like it?

What if we actually took the challenge of Christ seriously and stopped caring about what people think of us and just focused on doing what was right?

So many people miss the point of everything in Christianity because they've got their focus on the wrong thing. If you're focused on looking Christian, you're not actually going to do a good job of being Christian, because you're focused on appearances. That's not going to get you anywhere. Jesus said it, Paul said it, Peter said it, James, Jude and John said it, Augustine said it, Francis of Assisi said it, G.K. Chesterton said it, C.S. Lewis said it, and I'm saying it. So pick one of those guys to listen to and knock it off.

Why is it that the people who are the quickest to remind us not to judge are the ones who are the same ones who need to be reminded that there actually is such a thing as right and wrong?

Why is it that there are countless people in the world today who can rattle off verse after verse of the scriptures that point out what YOU are doing wrong, but live in complete ignorance of anything that condemns their own actions?

Y'all... I'm not perfect.

I struggle with a lot of things. I struggle with lust, anger, prejudices, nicotine addiction, insensitivity to the feelings of others, and a great deal many other things that I can't actually come up with right now because another of my many faults is being arrogant enough to think that I'm really not that bad of a guy.

I know I don't have any room to say that I'm any better than anybody else, and I sincerely hope to God that nobody hears me saying that. And I know I can't judge the content of anyone else's heart and decide how sincere that person's faith is (or isn't).

But at the same time... "By their fruit you will recognize them." (Matthew 7:15-20)

So let me leave this post with an open question... When do we call people out? How? Where's the line?

Bear Romans 14 and I Corinthians 10 & 12 in mind, remember the lessons of the meat to idols and our freedom in Christ. But there comes a point where we've gone beyond the boundaries of acceptable celebrations of our uniqueness in Christ and have just lunged headlong into straight up ignoring the Bible and living in sin.

So what do you do?

And does anyone ever actually listen?