There's a man who walks beside me
He is who I used to be;
And I wonder if she sees him
And confuses him with me?
(from Live Oak by Jason Isbell)
Beverley and I have been watching an award-winning series that we think is, at best, okay. Better than some, not as good as others. The main character is a woman in her late 60’s who has seemingly reached the end of her career as an entertainer/stand up comedian. But her career gets a newfound energy and she has a chance to host a Johnny Carson-style late night show. Just when she is about to seize this new opportunity, some “old” videos emerge in which she said some very harmful things. Local university students get hold of all of this, and plan to protest an upcoming appearance of her’s at the local university. In order to calm the situation, she has a meeting with the students, who are enraged at her for her forty-year-old harmful statements. At the meeting, she makes an opening statement, and then the students begin to unload on her.
As they so often do in a sitcom, things work out well by the end of the thirty-minute episode. But what I wonder is how this fictional seventy year old woman has changed since she did the regretful things some forty-five years earlier?
And what I really wonder is this: can people change?
I think we generally believe that people don’t change. We think that once a certain age is reached, so much about ourselves: our habits, our traits, our beliefs, our preferences, our politics, our religions convictions and theology, all of this and more is set in stone and not much will shift or change. And I think some of us, maybe myself included, take some pride in holding fast to my favorite beliefs and practices. I wear the unwavering spirit as a badge of honor. I wonder if I think there is more honor in holding fast to the bad than in admitting wrong and changing for the other that is good? So, can people really change? And if a person does change, what do we do with the story of what they used to be?
This Sunday we will hear a story about a change that happens within Jesus. This is a story that I always try to handle with “kid gloves,” because when we say that Jesus changed it implies he moved from being wrong to being right, and we believe that Jesus was never wrong. But, if Jesus changed, if he shifted, it tells me that it is okay for me to change as well.
Can people change? It doesn’t happen often, that is for sure. But it does happen. It may not be as sudden as we would like or hope, but yes, I think people can and do change. That is the message of our faith, that change is possible. There is this man that I used to be. There is the man that I am today. And there is this man that I will continue to become, God willing.
Don’t give up on yourself, change is possible. Don’t give up on others, change is possible. And when it happens, let us not see who we used to be, but let us see each other through Christ’s eyes, which see us all as new creations.