Pastoral Thoughts on Chris Brown & Rihanna

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Many pastors and churches feel like it is best to leave current affairs and pop culture out of sermons (and blogs) and I understand that perspective…it’s just not my own.  The recent incident between Chris Brown & Rihanna, two of the most popular entertainers in the world, presents a rare opportunity to talk about some tough issues while they are fresh on the minds of millions of people.  I won’t use this time to talk about how I would like to challenge Chris Brown to an old-fashioned duel, but instead hope to share a few pastoral thoughts on what we can learn from this sad crisis.  Please join me in praying for both of these very young people (19 & 20) as they face two very daunting roads to recovery.

Here are four lessons we can all learn from Chris Brown and Rihanna.  Feel free to pass them on.

1. Anger and rage doesn’t just hurt other people, it hurts you. While we don’t have all of the details about exactly what happened between Chris Brown & Rihanna, it appears that Rihanna was brutalized badly.  Here’s the thing though – when you brutalize other people the actions you thought would only hurt your victim have a very strange way of causing you the most harm.  Our prisons are full of sad men and women paying years of their lives for one moment of rage. While Rihanna will have to really work hard to recover physically and emotionally from this, Chris Brown is going to be finding out for many years how much his rage hurt him.
2. Being violent rarely makes sense in general and never makes sense with people you love.  Violence is pretty much the worst way in the world to resolve any problem.   I pledged many years ago that I will only use violence or force to protect the people that I love because being violent with the people you love never makes sense. Period.
3. Acting married when you aren’t really down with the vows of marriage is a bad idea.  My wife and I were acting married when we were the same age as Chris Brown & Rihanna and it was an absolute mess.  Beyond the fact that we had no idea what a good marriage looked like, we were both very immature emotionally.  We put on a great public face, but behind closed doors we fought and argued like cats and dogs. While it was never quite as bad as Chris Brown & Rihanna, it wasn’t because we had it all together.  Call it the Grace of God, luck, or whatever, but my wife and I barely made it through the very rough years when we were faking like we were married.
4. Unresolved pain from your past comes out in the worst ways at the worst times. I read many months ago that Chris Brown grew up in an abusive household.  He saw his stepfather regularly beat his mother and admitted that it created a rage inside of him.  This is sad, but even worse is that Chris allowed the unresolved pain from his past to shape and inform how he responds to the regular frustrations of a relationship.  I am sure Chris pledged to himself many years ago to never be like his stepfather, but unresolved pain has a way of coming out in the worst ways at the worst times.  Seriously – how much worse could it be than beating up your mega-star girlfriend hours before you were both set to perform @ the Grammy’s?!  Tucking the pain from your past away into the hidden compartments of your mind is not enough, you must consider counseling and allow God to heal your old wounds.