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Friday, September 16, 2005
Rejoicing In Unrighteousness
Luau.
It was our fraternity's biggest party of the year. We'd spend a month making runs to a local bamboo field and everybody would take turns cutting the bamboo, loading it onto trucks and bringing it back to the house, setting it in organized piles. The engineering majors and civil engineering guys would design a system of making a "river" flow through our house, complete with elevated bridges and even a swinging bridge. Other guys would head off to the Gulf Coast to get pickup truck loads of shrimp that we would boil later.
We'd spend about three weeks setting up the bamboo in such a way that little of our huge fraternity house was visible. It looked like a huge Gilligan's Island hut, with decks made from bamboo and hammocks and all that.
I was always on the Tiki brigade. It was our job to make these "Easter Island" kind of statues...you know...those large faces that look out over the ocean that they do the National Geographic specials on? Yeah, those. Anyway, we'd get the chicken wire and paper mache and paint and get after it for about a week. Other guys were on the volcano crew, designing something that would actually erupt every hour or so.
It was a lot of energy and effort, from organizing the trucks to to getting the requisite t-shirts printed up. We loved it and looked forward to it each year as it was quite a spectacle...over 1,000 people came. The party lasted for 96 hours. No kidding.
Now I'm sure some of you are saying that sounds like a party that you'd want to go to. Sounds fun, right? And I didn't even mention the two bands that came and played party music.
Despite all the energy and expense just to get ready for the party...
...I didn't mention the bill for alcohol. It was around $8,000 if I remember correctly.
And this fueled all sorts of deviant behavior and debauchery that I'm not really comfortable listing here. Suffice to say that the party each year turned into something that we'd never have let our parents see. Sure, maybe the well-screened photos, but not all of them.
What got me around my junior year (the first two years I was so blown away by the effort that I wasn't thinking much about the philosophy of the party...I was just excited to be a part of it and go to the party) was the laughing and joking as they rehashed the events of the very long weekend.
There was laughter at what should've caused sadness.
There was high-fiving of what should've caused shame.
There was celebration of what was degrading to others.
There was enthusiasm for stuff no one should be doing.
There was open discussion of things that shouldn't have been thought of.
In short, there was rejoicing in unrighteousness.
Sure, there is a time and a place and a reason for the blow-out celebration...God even built it right into to the lives of the nation of Israel. Don't get me wrong...I love a good party as much as the next guy.
But it was the reason and attitude behind this one that highlights verse 6 of 1 Corinthians 13: "(love doesn't) rejoice in unrighteousness; but rejoices with the truth."
See the party was a chance to celebrate unrighteous behavior. The behavior was sinful in many cases (sure there were pockets of us who did stuff like be designated drivers and kept some semblance of order, and getting ready for the party was especially fun with the guys, etc.) and it was rewarded and encouraged and everybody thought it was funny. "Boys will be boys" kind of mindset...and that's even more dangerous when it's college boys with no adult supervision.
In fact, if you mentioned the "truth," you'd've been laughed at. I know. I defended some of my behavior with "truth" on occasion. At the very least, my stances were misunderstood. At most, laughed at and ridiculed...so don't feel too sorry for me like it was government persecution or something, but it was enough to squelch me from talking about my later thoughts on the matter.
At any rate, I got to thinking about how we, in our society today, do the exact same thing:
We rejoice in unrighteousness without even realizing it...
So, for today, how and where do you see that going on...the celebration of sinful behavior? Where do you see rejoicing of truth (because that's out there, too!)?
Brent 3:55 AM
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