I had a couple of friends in childhood, a set of twins, who were my best friends through junior high. Their dad, affectionately called "Old Man," was an off-shore crane operator in the Gulf of Mexico for Brown and Root. He was, in a phrase, a "man's man." Older (the twins were the youngest of seven children), "Old Man" was gone so much that I remember there being a period where I had never met him. "He's off shore," they would tell me. When I finally met him, he was intimidating, sitting in the back, smoking a Camel filterless cigarette, and sipping Budweiser, he gave out a kind-of grunt when I met him (later in life he became the only man I would hug and kiss in a greeting other than my father).
"Old Man" was a Marine in World War II, and while every war has an especially cruel and dangerous side to it, run a search through Google sometime and see the casualties and deaths in battles throughout Europe and the Pacific of Marines (battles like Guadelcanal or Iwo Jima). We lost more Marines in a day in those battles than we have lost American lives since the beginning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. "Old Man" held court at times, and when I was in college and working with "Old Man" at Brown and Root on the port, the topics became more manly than they had been in my childhood. "Old Man" wasn't much into politics or economics. He lived by the simple code of taking care of self and family. And, "Old Man" wasn't much into religion too. Our first venture into that topic came one summer day in the sweltering heat in his back yard around a picnic table when I finally asked after many years of knowing the family what faith he was. "Don't have one," he said looking around (and puffing a Camel filterless). "Don't have to go to church to be with God, I can be with him sitting right here - talking to you. He's here. I can know God without having to go to church."
Here is what I hear today when I hear that. "Church can be intimidating. You people make it hard, not a great and friendly place to be for the unchurched. Sometimes you talk down to people. And either you or God has to get better at math because you are always in need of more money because you ask for it all the time. And really, I may just be looking for a reason to say I don't want to go." Now, I would have never said that to "Old Man," but were I around any "Old Man" in our midst, that sensitivity would be present. "Make sure he's comfortable. Baby steps, at least he came today. Show an interest in him. Take off the tie and toss it in a pocket somewhere. Introduce him to people, and really, find a few folks like him who he might connect with."
Manly men don't like feeling vulnerable or appearing weak. In our study last week, we came up with two words after our reading that are characteristics of us as created in God's image (Genesis 1) that aren't necessarily what we think of as we think of "masculinity." Sacrifice and selfless. Looking for a leader who is sensitive and selfless, go to Nehemiah. A servant to a king, Nehemiah is a leader in his own right as he looks at the ruin that was once Jerusalem. Nehemiah humbles himself to the king (keeping the greater vision in mind) and asks for permission to restore. This sets in motion a series of measures and counter-punches as he works to restore Jerusalem and the sacred temple while dealing with complaining and negativity. Nehemiah makes a sacrifice of time and possibly reputation to restore the temple and God's house to greatness for the people of Israel. His actions were selfless.
How do we do the same? How do we sacrifice and show selflessness with Christ, our wives, our children, our neighbors? How do we give of our time and talent (and treasure) rather than use it ourselves for ourselves?
Humility, patience, sacrifice, selfless, leadership, forgiving - God's traits given to us as we were created in his own image. Pray that God give you that ability to be masculine in a spiritual sense in a world that views masculinity in an earthly sense.
Hope Men's Ministry
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