Maverick
I started this series of blog posts with “Relationships Are Tough” where I related how our self-image impacts our relationships, including our relationship with God. I continued with our self-image by looking at how we brand ourselves with “Self Branding”, and since I was on the branding theme, I also looked at how we brand God with “The Brand Experience”.
For some reason, I am finding the subject of branding an interesting topic. While it is relatively boring, I am beginning to see patterns in our buying habits influenced by branding and brand marketing. I am also seeing Christian lifestyle habits influenced by our natural branding of faith, God, or our understanding of Scripture.
The whole idea of branding is establishing a recognized value for a purchase. Well, what did Jesus Christ do on the Cross? He established a value in each of us by paying the ultimate price, branding us as His own. When I look at branding in this light, it takes on a whole new meaning, yet it gets deeper.
Brands are often associated with trademarks, as these were the first effective forms of branding when factories would burn their insignia or company logo into their wooden shipping barrels, crates, or containers. Trademarks are powerful. When you see a certain styled checkmark, you automatically associate the mark with Nike. A slogan may also come to mind, “Just do it.” The Nike trademark and slogan have influenced us to associate a value and recognition with a simple checkmark. If branding can be this powerful of an influence, shouldn’t we be more aware of the manipulation happening all around us? How much more powerful of an influence is branding with our faith?
Any branding or trademark for a company is an investment for them in their marketing, although this is an investment which will increase their sales if they can establish what is known as brand loyalty. Brand loyalty is influencing a consumer to purchase and repurchase within the same product line with the same brand. A good example of brand loyalty would be when a person only buys Ford vehicles, only drinks Coke products, or will only shop at specific stores. The whole brand loyalty concept is patterned around a lifestyle associated with the product and the value of the product. The concept of brand loyalty, while it is still manipulation at the very core of the experience, creates an emotional response from the consumer – for some reason, we just feel good sticking with one brand. We made a good buy.
Cattle were also branded, and incidentally, the new “no logo” or “no brand” approach is not so new, as a Texas rancher named Samuel A. Maverick decided on this very same approach when he returned from the American Civil War. He found many of his neighbor’s cattle already branded, so his claim would be all the cattle with no markings. This is where we get the term, “maverick”.
Maverick soon came to mean any unbranded cattle or a calf separated from its mother, and also translated to men or people standing off on their own, a non-conformist, or one who lived by a different set of rules. John McCain was branded as a maverick by the press for his willingness to disagree with his political party during his campaign for the American presidency in 2008.
If the term existed at the time He refused to conform to the teachings and rules of the synagogue, Jesus would have been branded a maverick. He was the non-conformist of the day, asking others to conform instead to a different path. Still today, the world would view Jesus as a maverick. He would be branded as a non-conformist in most churches professing to worship Him, but that is a topic for another post (Hint: Listen to “My Jesus” by Todd Agnew).
Jesus would be branded a maverick in relationships. He does not accept the norm in any form of friendship or interaction. He does not respect personal space or privacy; instead He wants to be closer to you than any other. He does not leave things alone or allow us to be quiet, that is, if we truly pursue Him; He wants to eliminate anything hindering our unity with Him – our personal unity with Him. He wants us to be united with Him, as He prays in John 17:20-21, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
Jesus does not accept the norm in any form of friendship or interaction. In John 4:7-9, Jesus breaks the barriers of what is acceptable for relationships. “When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, ‘Will you give me a drink?’ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?’ (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)”
Many times He broke with what was normally accepted in relationships, one of my most favorite examples is in Mark 2:15-17, “While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ On hearing this, Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’”
Jesus did not care what society thought of His relationships. The branding of the Samaritans did not stop Him from talking with the woman at the well, and he felt comfortable eating with those branded as undesirable by the church leaders.
This Maverick of the time did what was necessary to bring healing to those who believed, including spitting in a man’s mouth. Mark 7:32-35 records, “There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ (which means, ‘Be opened!’). At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.”
Are your ears open today? Will you come to this Maverick and be healed? No, I do not mean physical healing… I am referring to your heart and your relationships.
We have been manipulated by the branding of society to accept judgment, rejection, hurt, and pain as the norm in relationships, or to hold unforgiveness and grudges against others as a badge of honor. Too many of us have been manipulated to sweep things under the rug and forget them; yet unforgiveness has a way of festering and becoming a wedge in any relationship.
We have been branded. We have been manipulated. Will someone have to spit in our mouths before we will confess we are wrong and have been wrong in our relationships with others?
There was once a Maverick who invested in our relationships with Him. He established brand loyalty with us, in that after establishing our value, He continues to purchase and repurchase us every day and every moment of every day. This concept of brand loyalty is different, and creates at the very core of the experience an emotional response.
Your value has been established many times over. The value of the people around you has been established many times over. So, if we are as precious and valuable as this Maverick seems to think, then why do we treat others (and ourselves) as if we are garbage?
- Can we be strong enough to accept our responsibility in relationships instead of blaming others?
- Can we be strong enough to confess our weaknesses and still remain comfortable in our relationships?
- Can we expose our feelings to others and really communicate?
- What is your greatest fear in your relationships today?
- Do you know this Maverick?
Pray with me: “Lord Jesus, You are the Maverick of all mavericks, the King of all kings, and Lord of all. I have been manipulated. I have been sold a bill of goods rotten to the core. I have treated others unfairly and considered myself unimportant. I am weak. I am wrong. And, I am sorry. My reactions are wrong and I have sinned. I ask You to forgive me, search out my heart and my weaknesses, and give me the strength to change my reactions, to change my attitude, to forgive others, and have the courage to have faith in You. I ask You, Lord Jesus, to help me heal my relationships with others. I ask this in Your name, Jesus. Amen.”
I think there is one more post in this series on relationships. While I have, for some reason, been focused on branding and how this impacts our relationships, this last post will be different. Look for it later this week, and if you find this series helpful, share it with others. Forward this blog to them, use the Share This at the bottom of this post, or just copy and email it to them.
Glenn Sasscer
www.glennsasscer.com
Sign Up For Email Delivery For This Blog
The series: “Relationships Are Tough”, “Self Branding”, “The Brand Experience”, “Maverick”, “A Masterpiece”.
