Lessons from Grease
For those of you who are not familiar with the musical Grease, it is about the “new girl” Sandy, and the “bad boy” Danny who fall in love during summer vacation only to find themselves at the same school navigating the social pressures of high school. Throughout the movie, Danny moves from being sweet when he is alone with Sandy to kind of a jerk when he is with his friends because he needs to maintain his tough guy persona. Spoiler alert, in the end Sandy changes her appearance and attitude from a sweet, innocent girl to a leather-clad bad girl. Sandy and Danny sing and dance before riding off in a flying car together. As I have had chances to engage with people around Grease, I have observed two trends. The first is that the music is very popular. The second is that people generally can’t stand its message that seems to encourage you to change yourself for love because it will make you happy. In a world that praises being authentically you, this doesn’t jive. While I don’t think Grease provides much wisdom for life, I actually think that it does get that one piece right: We should be changed by those around us.
Let me explain. I don’t think we should allow just anyone to change us, but I don’t think that we can’t help but be influenced by the voices that we listen to. We inherently want to feel like we belong. I suspect that this is why friend groups generally dress the same. Matching helps give us a feeling of belonging. The same is true for our hobbies, our music, and every other area of our lives. To be in the “in crowd” we need to conform. For some reason our culture teaches that we should value individuality, that we should avoid conformity and that the more unique we can be, the more valuable we are. That could not be further from the truth. In fact, by being unique, we are simply conforming to an in-group that is built on forced diversity. There is no way to truly escape this. Instead of fighting for individualism, it seems more important to ask who we are letting influence us.
In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul instructs the Corinthian church to follow his example as he follows the example of Christ. He uses his life as a model for Christian living and is encouraging people to allow themselves to be changed by falling into step. Jesus invited people to follow him, sharing in life with him so that they could reflect Him. Scripture is full of stories of people being completely changed by encounters with Jesus. The whole point of having a relationship with Jesus is so that we can become more like him. To make an idol out of individualism is foolishness and will keep us from living the life intended for us.
There is no doubting that we become like those we spend the most time with. I think that this is part of why we are created for deep Christian community. It’s vital that we are surrounded by people who we want to be like. We should pursue relationships with people who are walking in step with Christ because they will help us be more like him and when we start to change it should be embraced. Furthermore, we must be seeking time in God’s presence so that it can change us too. This is the most important relationship we have. We should not only allow ourselves to be changed, but we should actively seek it out. My challenge to you is to find people who you want to be like because you admire their faith. Then spend time with them and allow everything about you to change. You will get to enjoy an abundant life with Christ.
