Imagine you are attending a performance of “Oklahoma.” The musical starts out as expected, but it isn’t long before you notice that one of the characters is saying strange things that do not fit into the setting. One of the actors was given lines from “Death of a Salesman” and uses this language instead of following the script of “Oklahoma.” If that unlikely scenario were to happen, you can imagine the conflict it would cause. There would be outrage and criticism on the part of some. Others might be mildly amused or confused. But the harmony of those on the set would be threatened by this renegade actor.

In some ways that is the picture of the Christian in the drama of human life. In Matthew 11:16-17, Jesus compares the people of his time to children playing make-believe. They complain that others don’t comply with their fantasy expectations. “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.” They are critical of the script that Jesus and his followers are following because it does not fit into the screenplay they have written.

The storyline the culture follows has a radically different spin on life than God’s revelation in the Bible. Value is measured in the accumulation of stuff. People are the result of a freak accident in the ancient past, compounded by endless mutations. The individual is the measure of all things, and works best when he is autonomous from those around him. The supernatural is the byproduct of fertile imaginations, wishful thinking, and human ignorance. The only meaning you find in life is that which you construct for yourself. Truth is the byproduct of your own internal thinking and not universal. God does not (or may not) exist. Christianity is a religion populated with hypocrites who have no fun, condemn everyone, and are infected with a nasty bigotry against all others.

Such are the parameters of the play that men tend to write. They draft their own understanding of life and reality and expect everyone around them to follow the script and go along with the presuppositions that shape their version of life’s story.

In such a situation Christ-followers will always look strange. They will respond to situations differently. They will humbly but courageously challenge the values that the majority of people around them embrace (whether these friends and neighbors have thought through them or not). They will not fit in with the role culture assigns, and will be regarded as stupid, odd, mistaken, or dangerous by those who deeply value the storyline that is the cultural norm.

Neither Jesus nor John the Baptist fit the story their contemporaries scripted. (See Matthew 11:18 -19.) Anyone who dares to follow Christ today will encounter similar responses by those around them. It’s the natural consequence of following a screenplay drafted in heaven rather than the one written on earth.