Season 1: Episode 5: My Two Dads

I think we are pretty quick to categorize life. We like to live in an either-or world and we are concerned about making decisions based on facts (and sometimes the lack of) . We don’t like when there are these grey areas we have to walk through.

Some of the debates people are having:

Democrat or Republican

Abortion or Pro-Life

Peace or War

Gay Rights or ‘Sanctity’ of Marriage

Going green or Global Warming is not a big deal

Heath Care Reform or Health Care System staying the same

USA or the World

Soccer or Football

Twitter or Facebook

Cherry coke or whatever else passes as a “beverage” in this world.

In the case of Scrubs, it’s the patient or the hospital. Here is how it plays out…

It’s easier to choose, you know? It’s easier to live in black and white. It’s easier to avoid the grey areas, to bury our head in the sand and ignore everything around us, to classify one as good and the other as evil. It’s a lot easier to draw boundaries than it is to navigate the tension that exists in the world and culture we live in today.

I think the reason is because living in tension is a constant process. It’s something that has to be constantly going on. Drawing boundaries is a one time deal and maybe, just maybe we will revisit them in a few years, but the lines are there…

Jesus was all about tension. He created tension. When he was presented with lines and boundaries he erased the line and taught a new way. We have to be able live and balance things out.

His best examples of this are in what is known as the Sermon on the Mount.

In his first few sentences Jesus creates a dynamic tension…

“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are – no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought…”

- Matthew 5; 2 – 5 (The Message)

You should really read the rest of that… but Jesus creates a tension that is hard to live with, especially on a daily basis or in crisis.

J.D. comes to his own sort of conclusion, “I decided that there was room to play by the rules and care about the patients…”

We have to be willing to live in the grey. To work out the tension, whether its figuring out how to love to our neighbor or how to responsibly care for patients.

May we know that living in the tension is okay. And may we know that Jesus has come not to remove the difficult decisions in life, but to help us walk in the midst of grey.