Flip Flop Followers

Summertime and the footwear is easy.  Flip flops are standard issue for beach days and city sidewalks alike.  They are everywhere.

In our gospel reading today (Matthew 16:21–28 for those of you reading my blog), Peter is again front and centre.  Three weeks ago, he sank like a stone in front of Jesus and all his friends.  Last week he became the foundational rock for building a new community of love.  This week he becomes a boulder attempting to trip Jesus up.  What a major flip flop Peter does.  Will the real Peter stand up?  Is he a leader in training, or is he a theological disaster?  Is he a great follower or a great temptation? Is he a good guy or a serious threat to the mission Jesus is on? 

What gives, Peter?  What’s with all the flip flopping?

Just like flip flops allow sand to irritate our feet, Peter’s comment seems to irritate Jesus to the point of name-calling.  Just like flip flops are not good for Alberta winters, Peter’s comments leave Jesus cold.  Just like flip flops are not great for ballerinas trying to swirl like tops, Peter has put his foot in his mouth and doesn’t know which way to turn.

The response, “Get behind me, Satan!” has often been interpreted as a shaming in front of the rest of the disciples.  What if it was different?  What if it is not ‘get out of my way’?  What if it is, “fall in line behind me and listen.”  That puts a completely different spin on what Jesus says, less heated annoyance and more reflection, more thoughtfulness, more invitation to self-examination and self-reflection.  Maybe even a touch of ‘mind your own business’.

The teachings that follow challenge self-centeredness and replaces it with mission.  The world is full of people who know they are right, who are the rule police for a community, a faith group, a family, a town, a culture, a whole country.  We are good at knowing who is wrong and it’s never us.  We fixate on scarcity and hoarding.  We fixate on me first.  Leadership gurus call this “Below the Line” attitudes.  Below the line thinking can be inflexible, certain, and often about controlling others.  It can a form of bullying, where one person wants to have power over others.  It can unconsciously look for ways to be the smartest person in the room.  It is natural, it’s how we survived saber-toothed tigers and stampeding bison.  In the long run, it can leave people cynical, selfish and lonely.  It is an addiction that is just as destructive in its way as illegal drugs.

All addictions are harmful, whether it’s a craving to be the leader like Peter, or gambling or drugs or shopping apps, or food or the determination to be right, or to save for a rainy day that will never come.  I think the addiction to below the line attitudes and thoughts is what Jesus is calling out.  People who put themselves first rather than God get into all kinds of troubles.  That’s why the beginning of 12 step recovery programs is to admit that we are powerless.

Would it surprise you to learn that admitting powerlessness is also the starting point for finding solutions to the world drug problem?  Drug addiction rates are terrible right now, and vary from half a percent of the population in countries like Slovakia and Portugal to 4% of the United States, the worst in the world.  Canada is sitting at about 2%.

The United Nations decided to look at the situation in ways that are above the line.  It researches constantly, does not assume it has the perfect answer for every country, and looks for tangible, measurable results that are showing repeatable significant reduction.  In other words, it keeps an open mind and asks questions.  Some of the things the UN has found is that countries like Portugal who have low addiction rates, focus on harm reduction.  Cold turkey does not work.  Abstinence, while a great goal, is not the starting point, harm reduction is.  The UN found that every individual has had a different path into addiction and will have a different path out.  It recognizes that countries that are most successful look at drug addiction as a healthcare problem.  Countries that start prevention programs in schools around the age of 12, which is when most users start, show significant impact on the number of kids staying clean, succeeding in school and having positive mental health. Family supports are crucial.  Countries that decriminalize the use of drugs and provide healthier, cheaper supplies, disrupt the profit level of organized crime and also noticeably reduce the rate of petty crimes.  That’s why countries like Portugal have had such a drop in addiction rates. The expensive constant medical emergencies and policing actions and court caseloads also drop dramatically with harm reduction programs.

The Un says that the illicit drug trade generates hundreds of billions of dollars per year, though estimates vary.  Drug cultivation, trafficking, and use also impact the environment through deforestation and other land-use change as well as air, land and water pollution.  The cost of failing to tackle drug use disorders is steep – over half a million deaths and 28 million healthy years of life lost due to disability and premature deaths in 2021. Just one in 12 people with drug use disorders received any treatment in 2023.  Our provincial government’s push to have involuntary treatment centres goes directly against the UN’s research because the number one factor for success is for the addict to choose it voluntarily and honestly.  One person told me that treatment only works if it focuses on physical, mental, spiritual and emotional recovery.  Another person said that even after 10 years of sobriety, there isn’t an hour or a day where they do not feel the temptation of escaping the hardships of their life through a needle.

Jesus points to another way.  An above-the-line way.  A way that takes seriously that we can’t escape our painful crosses in life, but neither do we have to bear them alone. Paul‘s words, don’t repay evil with evil, don’t be condescending, don’t seek revenge, are also calls to live above the line.  Feed and love our enemies. Tall order.

How does that look in real life?  I am reminded of a certain 80 year old millionaire who told her neighborhood 12-year-olds that she would give them $500 each if they and their teammate graduated from Grade 12 together.  In that school, the drop-out rate went from 33% to 6%! She gave millions of dollars of books to preschoolers.  She donated money to fund research into the Moderna Covid vaccine.  She spoke out against hatred of the 2sLGTBQIA+ community, saying “it ain’t Christian to hate, we all gotta start loving more instead of all this judging.”  Unlike some millionaire 80 year olds, she didn’t flip flop between love and hate, she didn’t pretend to be a Christian one moment while locking up children the next.  You know who I’m talking about.  She lived a very humble and loving Christian life, above the line, brave and committed and curious, open to learning what she could to help build a more resilient world.  She lived out these values that we read in our scriptures, and she did her best to live one day at a time, caring for her neighbors, and following Jesus.  We can’t have a much better role model for leaving the world a better place than Dolly. May we remember and honor her by doing the same. May we learn to follow Jesus rather than ourselves.  May we remember to ask questions, and may we learn not to flip flop over who is in control.  But to consistently remember the God of Love is the bedrock of our faith.

Humble and Faithful

Ever get stuck in a situation where you felt something called “Imposter Syndrome?” It’s when someone is being asked to do something outside their comfort zone that they are not sure they can handle.  They’ve been asked for an interview by the paper, or a boss wants them to take on new responsibilities, or they volunteer for a charitable organization, and they are not sure they can.  Sometimes panic ensues and people start feeling like imposters, they lose their self-confidence, they try to back down from their responsibilities and commitments.

It almost sounds like that was what John was feeling when he came face to face with Jesus.  He had been preaching that people needed to take a really good look at themselves with honesty and vulnerability.  And folks flocked to be baptised in the Jordan River.  It became a moment of epiphany for many people and a symbol of freedom.

John baptised them when they came ready to be honest about their flaws and failings.  Often times people might think that confession is meant to make us feel guilty or ashamed of who we are.  Certainly some churches do seem to preach shame and guilt when they talk about confession.  But it was more like if you go through your week gathering stones in your backpack, stones of broken promises, hurt feelings, maybe a little conflict here and there, and what people call trauma incidents.  You know, where the boss complains about an e-mail misspelling you made and you go home and yell at your cat kind of thing.  Or you watch the news and see stories of invasions, shootings and global warming. The more stones we carry of mistakes, hurts, problems, worries, anxieties, fear and anger, the heavier we feel and we don’t even know it.  The more rocks in our backpack, the more likely we are to yell, cry, panic or run away.  In modern coaching and leadership training, it’s called “going below the line”.  Simply put, the line is fear; when we go below the line, as Brene Brown puts it, we let fear take control.  Fear is in the driver seat of our car.  When we are above the line, we may feel fear, but it’s not driving us.  We are still in control of where we are going.  Sometimes our fear manifests as anger, part of the fight-flight response.  The more likely we feel like we can control a situation, the more likely we are to throw our weight around, yell, or ‘know” that we’re right and everyone else is stupid.  We see this in what’s happening around us today.  People who are angry about immigrants taking jobs or Toronto being uppity or Ottawa cheating us out of what we think we are entitled to, may be acting that way because they are afraid of losing their jobs or not having enough money when they retire.  So, they fight. Sometimes our fear makes us avoid conflict.  Sometimes our fear makes us freeze up.  We don’t know what to say or do, and it’s only until after the conversation is over that we think of what we could have said.  There’s also fawn.  That’s where we look for someone who is strong, powerful and clear in what he or she thinks is right.  We cozy up to that person and hope that they will keep us safe.  History shows that a culture where fear and anger towards the other is encouraged, ordinary people elect dangerous dictators like Hitler and the violence spirals out of control.  Fight, flight, freeze, fawn, are all biological responses to when we feel threatened, and they are how our ancestors survived encounters with sabre-toothed tigers.  They are normal.

That’s how John could have reacted when Jesus showed up.  He was starting to slide into fear.  “I’m an imposter.  I’m not good enough.  You are going to take away my job.  You are going to take away my audience.”  It’s a natural fear-based response to a sense of scarcity.  Jesus didn’t go there.  He didn’t say, “John, you worthless second-rate has-been, I’m moving into the neighborhood, and taking over from you, go find a new crowd elsewhere.  I’m the real boss and you can either kiss my feet or move on.”  No, he reminded John of why he and John were there, to honor God.  He went back to their mission.  “Let’s do what’s proper to fulfill God’s Justice.”  It was all about his big why, and John’s big why.  Bringing people out of the fight, flight, freeze and faun responses into abundant life.  Helping people let go of their backpacks of anger and fear, the shame, blame, broken promises, hurt feelings, conflict and trauma responses.  Lightening their loads.

Two wrongs never make a right. Two people using force to get their way never make peace. Two sides arguing that the other is a villain without redemption doesn't build respect. Two actions based in greed doesn't build trust. Two decisions based in fear doesn't establish love.  Jesus and John built two understandings, two mutual feelings of respect, two views of generosity, two experiences of teamwork.  They found they could respect each other, trust each other and do the work God called them to do.  When they did that, God showed up in dramatic fashion and said, “well done, you are my beloved servant”.

Humble confidence is the goal.  Staying above the line is the goal.  Not letting fear fill our backpacks.  Not letting us get so filled up with anger, judgement, resentments, hurts and guilt that we can’t move.  Facing ourselves with compassion so that we can be gentler with ourselves and others.  AA calls it taking a fearless inventory.  We in the Christian Church call it confession.  It’s all about learning to internalize the idea that God reconciles and makes us new.  That we are healed by God’s healing waters so we can love and serve others like Jesus and John did, together with trust and respect.  And when we do, God shows up and says, “these are my beloved children with whom I am well pleased.”  May it be so for us all. Amen.