Sometimes Jesus can be pretty mean. One moment he’s all sweetness and light, bouncing kids on his knee, healing people that no one else wanted to touch, working the crowds all smiles and pats on the back, going out to dinner with the most unlikely of folks, and then, well, he gets in the faces of people he doesn’t have much respect for. Matthew 23 is a good example of this.
It’s the day after Palm Sunday. Jesus came in riding on a donkey, then he
charged into the temple and knocked over the furniture, scattered decent businesspeople,
and took a whip to anyone who got in the way.
It was a mess, a scandal and an uproar.
There would have been a a lot of bruised feelings. There were probably committees that had
emergency meetings late into the night.
Maybe there were signs posted “Please leave your bull whips at home”, or
“Table throwers will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law” or “No
throwing, yelling, whipping or harassing allowed.” Who knows, maybe some enterprising youngsters
wrote “Nazarenes Go Home” out on the front steps.
It makes perfect sense then that the temple
authorities responded to Jesus by demanding to see his preaching
certificate. What school did he graduate
from? Who were his professors? Someone was going to get an earful and the
sooner the better.
Once again, Jesus threw the question back at them to
disrupt their thinking and their assumptions.
Where did John the Baptist’s authority come from? It’s a stumper that they couldn’t figure
out. Like an impossible escape room
puzzle they couldn’t solve, they had no answer that wouldn’t have political
repercussions. Jesus disrupted their
game, destroyed their attempts to control his behavior and his teachings, and
left them with a zinger. “You think
you’re holy? Well, the honest people who
know they are not holy are going to be first in line to meet God. You’ll be at the back of the line if you’re
lucky”. Ouch!
This is not the humble Jesus in the Philippians
reading who was so obedient to God that he sacrificed himself on the
cross. Or is it? Humbleness is not about being a carpet for
others to walk on, after all, but about letting go of our egos enough to listen
to the challenging still small voice that calls us into bold discipleship and
daring justice. That’s not easy. We face a lot of messages in our daily lives,
from commercials to tiktok videos. In
magazine stands and news articles, we hear all kinds of advice on how we should
accept ourselves, yet buy this lipstick or this car to have the perfect
life. More and more people are talking
about how they have imposter syndrome or trauma triggers or any one of many
diagnoses to explain why they are not perfect or performing according to some
imaginary standard. We’ve lost the space to think deeply about what we value,
what we care about on an interpersonal level.
In some ways Society doesn’t want us to look at our values, but wants us
to see ourselves as only responsible to our own selves. We are our own bosses. Being our own God, in a way, answerable to no
one, well, that’s really living the dream.
Except that we’re still struggling with our
addictions, we’re still struggling with our reputations or our weigh scales or
that feeling we have when we wake up at 2 am with all the troubles of the world
weighing on our hearts. We don’t make
the best bosses of our own lives. Living
completely independently doesn’t work in the long haul.
Humbleness can be a great antidote to all that. Humbleness is a practice that reminds us to
look at deeper values. We all make
mistakes, we all have our flaws, we all have our secret struggles. Which is where Paul’s words are so
helpful. He reminded his followers that
one person perfected the art of being humble, Jesus. And Paul defined humbleness not as wallowing
in our imperfections but as keeping the welfare of the community at the
forefront of all we do. Hear what he
said was a recipe for healthy humbleness: Agree with each other, love each other, be
deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your
way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be
obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend
a helping hand.
This Sunday we celebrate worldwide communion and also honor
the stories of residential school trauma, and we may wonder how to humbly work
towards truth and reconciliation. One
way we can do that is to learn about an upcoming decision that the United
Church of Canada has been asked to make. The indigenous churches that
historically have been under our jurisdiction, are asking that they get to be
their own bosses. That they be
self-governing. Humbleness will be
needed as we learn and listen together to what will be the healthiest choice
for all of us going into the future. But
when we remember how Jesus treated the humble with respect, healed the honest
with truth, and loved the strugglers with compassion, we will find ways to live
out the call to love our neighbors as ourselves, letting go of our needs to be
the boss.
Humbleness matters.
Assuming we make the best bosses of our or other people’s lives lands us
in the same boat as the Pharisees, trapped without good answers. Humbleness allows us the grace of working
together in harmony for the greater good of all. Humbleness gives us space to be open to God’s
spirit. Humbleness helps us accept that there are many different ways to live
in this complicated world. By reading
the words of Paul, and the stories about Jesus, we can be inspired to live
humbly. May we remember to practice humbleness in all we say and do, like Jesus.
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment