The Thriving Christian Artist
The Thriving Christian Artist
Why the Super Bowl Jesus Commercials from He Gets Us Offended Many Christians
Discover the unexpected backlash and the surprising power of art as I, Matt Tommey, unravel the complexities behind the "He Gets Us" Super Bowl campaign and its reception within the Christian community. Tune in for a candid discussion about the intersection of belief and creativity, where we tackle the tough questions of why some believers resisted the message intended to unify and the far-reaching implications of art that dares to defy religious norms.
Embark on a journey with me through the often-misunderstood landscape where artistry and divinity converge. This episode is an earnest call to artists of faith to grasp the magnitude of their calling and the life-altering effect their work can have in manifesting God's kingdom on earth. We shed light on the intrinsic value of art in cultural discourse and individual transformation, revealing the true extent to which a creator, moved by the Holy Spirit, can inspire redemption, reconciliation, and restoration in the world around us.
For more of my expanded thoughts on this subject, please visit https://www.matttommeymentoring.com/blog/why-the-super-bowl-jesus-commercials-from-he-gets-us-offend-religious-people
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Welcome to the Thriving Christian Artist, the podcast where we hope you connect with God to bus through the roadblocks that have held you back for years, create the work you love and really live the life you know. God created you to live as an artist in His kingdom. I'm Matt Tomah, your host. Let's get started. Well, hey, my friend is Matt. Welcome to another edition of the Thriving Christian Artist podcast. Super glad that you are here.
Speaker 1:You may be saying, matt, your voice sounds a little different today. Well, it's because I was up last night cheering at the Super Bowl. Come on, I'm not even a football fan. I didn't even know who was making home runs or who was it. No, I'm just kidding, but I'm really not that big of a football fan. But I do love a good party and I do love getting together with folks and that sort of thing. And you know, the quarterback from the Kansas City Chiefs was Patrick Mahomes, is from right here in East Texas, not far from where we live. So it's kind of a cultural phenomenon that we were in the middle of last night, but so exciting and just a big win for them. And you may be thinking well, matt, what in the world are you doing, talking about football on, especially NFL football on an artist podcast, and I wanted to kind of talk a little bit today about all of these ads that were on the Super Bowl last night from he Gets Us, which is sort of a I really don't know that much about them. Some people say they have a political agenda, some people don't. I really have no idea. I just was really amazed at some of the commercials that they put out last night, and even more than the commercials that they put out last night about Jesus and about how Jesus is counterculture and that sort of thing, and I was interested that from an art perspective, you know. But I was so interested in the response of Christians and I was sitting there last night and even this morning, you know, because after a half time I'm like just looking at my, my Facebook feed and kind of, you know, commenting on things and seeing what people were saying and my Facebook feed and I don't know what this is about, my Facebook feed, but my Facebook feed was full of Christians and ministry leaders who were ripping these commercials apart.
Speaker 1:Now, what were the commercials? The commercials were the one that I saw. I saw a couple of them, you know, were the one in particular that really, you know, kind of got me was and I just thought was beautiful, was the one where people were washing Each other's feet and you had people from different political persuasions, different, you know, parts of life, some people down and out, some people up and coming, all this sort of things, sort of these opposites. If you will showing up on the screen in a beautifully artistic way and in fact the there's a photographer that is has taken all these images and, and you know, added to them and and created them into beautiful pieces of art for these, you know, for these commercials, and it was showing how the love of Jesus and how Jesus was so different, was so counterculture, how he, when he is living in us, I would say, causes us to be able to see others through his eyes and through the eyes of potential and through the eyes of design and through the eyes of purpose, rather than seeing people through political ideology, through our own preferences, through our own cultural norms, through our own religious norms. And I really was just amazed, I was like, oh my gosh, I you know, when you put that on top of the current political climate that we're all in in the United States, with American presidential elections coming up and that sort of thing. I was just like what? What planet are these people living on? I mean, it was, it was really, really frustrating to me and saddening to me to see so many people who declare out of their mouth they love Jesus and yet, when the testimony of Jesus shows up on the television, but it's not in a way that is overtly religiously acceptable in our, in our religious climate today, people were bashing it, and I'm like y'all. This is the very reason that we need these kind of commercials, the very reason that we need artists stirring the pot of the cultural pot, if you will, because this is what art is supposed to do, right, art, one of its, one of its roles, and it has many roles. But in regards to this conversation in particular, art is a really powerful way of provoking response.
Speaker 1:In fact, I love that scripture. You know where it talks about. I believe it's in Psalms, where the Lord says I am the blacksmith who blows on your fire. In other words, god will come and move in and through us in times that he uses us to be the person and be the vehicle that blows heat and fire and intensifies. And I think what to me?
Speaker 1:As I looked at those commercials last night, I was like, wow, this is so good because it is forcing people primarily, I would say, religious people to look at life and look at the perspective of others in a way that they often overlook, in a way that does not fit their cultural norms, in a way that does not fit their political ideology at this point, and it puts the starkness of what the gospel of the kingdom looks like in front of them and says what are you going to do? Now? The other thing it does is it does that same thing to people that don't know him yet, and it shows this picture of Jesus that says, hey, you may have thought that Jesus and his followers look and react and sound and live in a certain way, but actually this is what the kingdom of God looks like Radical generosity, radical giving up of your life, radical love and acceptance of people, even in the most dire situations. And so art is this beautiful opportunity to help provoke people that don't know Jesus to explore him and the message of salvation, the message of redeemed and reconciled and restored in the kingdom. It causes them, hopefully, to explore that more, without all the religious baggage that often comes with so much of today's modern what we call outreach or what I would sometimes call this religious transactionalism, this sort of thing that says every interaction that a Christian has with somebody has to end up in a salvation moment, up at the Walmart, you know, at the checkout counter. And that's just not true. You know, each of us are called on this journey of leading others toward Christ, of demonstrating the beauty and the nature of God in everyday life, and it does not always have to end in some sort of transaction where we get to see the immediate fruit.
Speaker 1:And I just thought last night as I'm watching these commercials and as I'm seeing you know how religious people are getting their hackles up and, just like you know, this is not the Lord, this is not how Jesus was, this is. You know, he loves you too much to leave you there in your mess. Yes, of course, of course Jesus loves you too much to keep you there in your mess. But when you come into a relationship with somebody, when you're trying to demonstrate the love of God, and you come in with all this religious baggage or this expectation that I'm about to convince you into a relationship with Jesus, it just gets weird and the beautiful thing about art is that art can surpass all that, it can go around, that it can subvert that. See, jesus always loved and accepted first, right, I mean hard to stop 靠 crow hi money marching.
Speaker 1:The transformation that people experience in their life as a result of an encounter with Jesus was the fruit of the love of God flowing through him, not of some religious sort of manipulation that says, well, every one of these interactions has got a result and them getting saved, or it's not worth it. See, I love the fact that Jesus, in his life on this earth, he was doing things that always, always offended the religious people. And, yes, one of the things I saw last night well, jesus didn't watch everybody's feet. Well, listen, jesus in fact chose to watch the feet of those people who were overtly working against him, namely Judas, right, even when he knew Judas would betray him. And he also watched the feet of those people that were so sure of themselves that they had it all together that they would never betray him. I mean Peter, for example, even when he knew Peter would deny him.
Speaker 1:And this sort of religious transactionalism says, well, I'm gonna love you, but I'm only gonna love you if you're gonna get saved right now. I'm not gonna love you if you recognize it through this transaction. You better ship up and shape up or you can ship out. And I just don't see that narrative in the gospels. I don't see that narrative in people that interacted with Jesus. I see radical love, I see radical acceptance. I see people that were living in lives of desperation and need and want and addiction and crime and fear and all the stuff, and Jesus walking in there in the middle of that and saying, hey, I love you, I wanna serve you, I wanna show you a different reality.
Speaker 1:And that, my friend, that my friend, is the beauty, I think, of what art can do. Because art in particular, I think, for us as artists has, is so powerful right, because God often uses it not only in our lives as artists who create, but also through our lives. He uses our art to shift perspectives and unlock people's hearts and cause them to wonder and rethink their worldview and be like whoa I never saw it that way to see life from a different perspective. It often widens our view, too right, of the world and what's going on in the world and it pulls us out of our bubble and it makes people look at people and situations and woundedness and realities and addiction and downtroddenness, and it makes us look at things that are usually way outside of our comfort zone, not only as people in the West, but also just religiously All of those very good things. But how many of you know, when people see those kind of things and they're put so beautifully in an artistic perspective, all of a sudden there can be a reaction Like what is that? That doesn't fit my narrative, that doesn't fit my worldview, that doesn't fit as cleanly into my life as I thought it would. And all of a sudden there can be a resistance, and that's what I think I was seeing last night and I'm still seeing today all over social media.
Speaker 1:Is this resistance in religious people to say, well, I believe in Jesus, but I want the prosperity of Jesus. I want the conservative political Jesus. I want the Jesus that votes this way. I want the Jesus that their church looks that way and the music sounds this way. I want the Jesus who, everybody that interacts with him, has their life together and listen. The beauty of Jesus is that he walks with people who don't have their life together and the beauty of art is that we have the opportunity to allow our art to be these moments of intersection with people, where they get to see and hear and feel and know about a new reality of the kingdom of God, where our art and I've written about this for years where our art can become a table whereby the power of the Holy Spirit, people can sit and eat and rest and drink and encounter the life-giving spirit of God. See art.
Speaker 1:When art bypasses the normal faculties of our mind and our decision-making process and all the mental fact, the left brain stuff that we got going on, and it goes right to the heart all of a sudden, it can affect change in a huge way. It sticks right, it gets rooted and grounded in people's hearts where they can't forget it. It establishes this sort of lasting legacy inside of somebody that reminds them about what life could be in Christ. It doesn't always should it ever be, I don't know, but it could be, but it doesn't have to always be this sort of, you know, reminding people of their sin, reminding people of how bad they are.
Speaker 1:In fact, if Jesus, throughout the Gospels, was gonna remind anybody that they didn't have it together, it was not the people who needed him most, it was the religious people and maybe that's the message of this whole thing, right Is that we as the faithful, we as people who say we love Jesus, have to step back and look through the eyes of our fellow artists in their work and say what is it that we're really living for, what is it that we're really doing, what is it that we're really saying that we believe? And I think that art, when it forces us to do that, can be such a powerful, powerful catalyst for transformation. See, for those who want every encounter with somebody who doesn't yet know Christ to result in some sort of immediate transformation, I would just encourage you lay down this simplistic, transactional, controlling even view of life in the kingdom and embrace the beauty of this mysterious journey that we're finding ourselves on as we walk in with the Lord, because if you don't listen, I promise you it is hurting not only the message of the gospel and the establishment of God's kingdom on the earth, it's hurting you and it's hurting those around you. Your religious transactionalism, if you will, is like trying to cram this unlimited, eternal mystery of the kingdom and of life and the spirit into this little bitty religious box that you can understand, that's more focused on immediate conformity rather than the unfolding of this beautiful journey toward Christ and trusting Him through the power of the Holy Spirit at every point along the way. You know it's called laborers in Christ and again, especially as artists, we have the opportunity and should be, I think, being used every day by the Lord in big ways and in small ways, and in significant ways and in significant ways to release His light and life and love and reveal His kingdoms. But sometimes that results in a moment of instant transformation, of healing, of salvation.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, I love it, but I think so many of the times that we miss and people often discount are the other times when it results in ground, in somebody's heart being broken up, where it causes somebody to see something differently for the first time, where a seed is being planted, or we come alongside somebody and water the seed that somebody else planted, or sometimes we get to harvest the fruit. But listen, all those stages are necessary, all those stages are needed and in all those stages we get to play a part with Him. Not only His people, but our work gets to play a part with him. Listen, what you do, what you do is not just this little side thing as an artist. It is your. Art is how God has designed you to release his kingdom and reveal his nature to the world.
Speaker 1:And if you, if you're doing that, bound up in religiosity, you are literally handcuffing and throttling the power of God that wants to move through you. You're also robbing yourself of the journey of mystery and not understanding and trust and faith that God wants to take all of us on, that he would use our work, even when we don't understand maybe mostly when we don't understand to release his kingdom in us and through us in ways that can truly be transformational. Listen, just because you or somebody else doesn't understand art or doesn't see it through that perspective or it's immediate fruit, doesn't mean that God is not gonna use it in a huge way. And I think for all of us as artists again to wrap back around, especially in this season that we find ourselves in politically, culturally, being ripped apart by all of the powers and principalities and authorities that are of this world and in this world that seek to control our life, we as artists have the opportunity to get with Jesus, to co-create with the Holy Spirit and help people to visualize and encounter a new reality, the reality of the kingdom of God that is living and active inside of us right now, this kingdom of God that is inviting all those who would to come in to this place of being redeemed and reconciled and restored to all that they were originally designed for. And whether you see the fruit of your work or not, whether you see the fullness of that demonstration through your work or not, it does not diminish the importance of it.
Speaker 1:And so, my friend, I want to encourage you today to stand up for the role of art in the spirit, to stand up for the role of artists in culture, to say you know what? What we do is important, what we do is needed. What we do is showing the goodness of God and showing the realities of this broken world that we live in, and demonstrating to people that there is a God who loves them, who has designed them, who has created them for such a time as this, who wants to redeem and restore and reconcile them into every good thing that God has promised to them. That is your role, that is my role, and when we allow the tsunami of religiosity to overtake that and to drown that out, we do a disservice not only to the church, but to all those who need us most. My friend, I know this is a little more preachy than the podcast usually is, but I couldn't not say this today and I could not encourage you to speak out and to do everything that God has called you to do to demonstrate the reality of his kingdom in ways that don't make sense and often offend the religious mobs of this world.
Speaker 1:I love you, my friend. I hope you will take this to the Lord. Chew the meat, spit out the bones, get the truth that he has for you in the middle of this and begin to walk in a way that's authentic and beautiful to what he's called you to. I love you, my friend. Thanks for being with me today on the Thrive in Christian Artists. Remember until next time. You were created to thrive. Bye, hey. Thanks so much for spending a few minutes with me today on the podcast. Listen. I hope it's been a huge encouragement to you on your journey as an artist. Hey, also, before you leave, make sure to hit the subscribe button so you don't miss any of the other episodes of the Thrive in Christian Artists podcast, and also be sure to connect with me on Facebook, instagram or at my website, which is matt Tommy Mentoringcom. Until next time, remember you were created to thrive. Bye.