Dear American youth pastor,
I know about your mission.
I know it’s big.
I know heaven’s at stake.
But I need to talk to
you about a boy in your ministry.
You’ve seen him.
He sits in the back; he’s one of the young ones – only fourteen.
Soon,
the boy will begin to learn something new about himself, something old, something he
can never
unlearn.
On an unremarkable Sunday morning, while your pews are being peppered with
parishioners, a blond-haired, blue-eyed freshman will sit down next to the boy.
This will cause
the boy’s heartrate to quicken, his breath to shallow, and his nervous system to saturate
with
euphoria.
Without any fanfare at all, it’s begun: the boy is learning.
On Wednesday nights, when you prescribe the youth their Adderall of song, the boy will
hide in the back row of seats.
He’ll remain there, invisible, there – until the freshman’s blue eyes
find him there.
The two will become their own choir, harmonizing with each other long after the
singing is done.
There’s the heartrate, the breath, the euphoria; the boy is learning.
Soon, you’ll deliver a sermon on King David, and you’ll quote the Old Testament when
David formed a covenant with his friend Jonathan, because their souls were knit together.
The
boy will imagine that his soul and the soul of the freshman are being knit together, stitch
by
stitch – a new stretch of yarn every time they share the back row of seats.
With each knitting, the
boy is learning.
This isn’t a problem for you now, my dear youth pastor, but it will be.
It will be exactly
one year into their friendship, when the freshman’s ocean eyes withdraw a tsunami of defenses,
and he reveals to the boy why he sits next to him, every Sunday, every Wednesday.
The sea in
his eyes will become a river down his face, and he’ll admit that he’s alone, just
like the boy;
afraid, just like the boy.
This will trigger the heartrate, and the breath, and the euphoria, and the boy will find in
those moments – in those eyes – courage to admit something of his own.
He loves the freshman.
He isn’t afraid to say it, because it comes from the same place in him that loves Jesus.
But the ocean will still, its tide cease, and the freshman, look away.
Far.
Away.
There’s
the heartrate, but no breath; the learning, but no euphoria.
The freshman will stand, and the
knitting the boy believed between them will disintegrate, stitch by stitch, until one
soul – once
1
chadmichael dear american youth pastor
again – is two.
The freshman will turn to leave, never to return.
The covenant between David and
Jonathan will fade from the pages of the Old Testament; neither, a soul to knit with anymore.
Even in his suffering, the boy is learning.
Then, on an unremarkable Sunday morning, while your pews are being peppered with
parishioners, a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl will sit down next to the boy.
She will smile; he will
not.
She’ll wonder why; he will not.
She’ll move on; he will not.
Because, on that morning, you
will deliver a sermon about being a man of God.
You will teach that our Maker made men to act
like men, made men to be “one man, one woman, for life,” made men to be normal.
Because the
boy believes in God, he’ll believe what you say about God.
And, because he loves God, he’ll learn to hate himself.
When a beautiful young man
passes by, he’ll learn to hate the heartrate and the breath and the euphoria.
He’ll learn to hate the
blue-eyed ocean, the sun-lit hair; he’ll learn to hate David and Jonathan and the knitting
of same-
gendered-souls.
He’ll learn to hate himself.
And this hatred will grow like a tumor, hungry for
his brain, until he stops eating at school.
Until he stops sleeping.
Until he stops bathing.
Until he
is sick with a sickness his primary care cannot cure.
His soul will so shrivel in the vinegar of
anger, he will cease to feel bad.
He will cease to feel.
Not even love.
Not even for Jesus.
For the first time in his fourteen years of life, the boy will not want a life.
And, when you discover how ill he is, my dear youth pastor, you won’t call him in for
counsel.
You won’t telephone his folks.
You won’t wonder about that sermon of yours.
Instead, you will invoke executive powers of the pastorate, ejecting the boy from his
church home.
From his church; from his home.
You’ll implement what is known as church
discipline, to keep the child of sin from the child of the Spirit.
You’ll make the tough decision a
leader is forced to make, for the good of the children.
The good of the children.
The good
shepherd may abandon his flock for one little sheep, but the good pastor knows better, doesn’t
he?
It’s one.
Little.
Boy.
A boy who cannot learn anymore.
Look, I know you love your kids.
I know you want to see them in heaven.
I know you
want to save them.
But don’t kill them in the process.
One of them may live to grow up and write
about it.
Then, my dear American youth pastor, you might not have any youth to pastor.