2 Timothy 4:6-8
Micah 5:8
Luke 18:9-14
10/23/16
One of our sports champs
was in his prime and as he was about to take off on an airplane flight, the
stewardess reminded him to fasten his seat belt. He came back with “Superman don’t need no
seat belt.” The stewardess quickly responded,
“Superman don’t need no airplane either.”
The champ fastened his belt.
How do we count our
blessings? How do we give thanks for the
gifts we are given that make us who we are?
Well, often I think we do it in relationship to others. That’s how we understand the world;
relatively. We thank God that we have
enough to eat, knowing there are others who do not. We thank God that we have nice places to
live, knowing there are others who live in much meaner accommodations. And then, we thank God for the talents and
situations we were raised in that have allowed us to lead successful lives,
knowing others have not been so fortunate.
We thank God that we are relatively healthy in both body and mind: that
we don’t have THAT issue - the one over there that Susie has. We thank God that we have a church community and
are faithful Christians and ..... because look at all those poor people over
there who don’t.
Like I said, I think this way of relating to the world
is pretty normal. I mean, how do we know
what blessings we have except in relationship to others? I think it can be harder to remember to be
thankful for those things that everyone is given: air to breath, sun to keep
our planet warm enough for life to exist, the company of other people and
creatures, water...but even then we can start thinking relatively again: not
everyone has clean water or enough water all the time: thank God that we
do. Not everyone lives in warm climates,
not everyone has GOOD company in the people around them. Again, this way of thinking is normal. We understand our world in comparisons. We understand our culture and our community
in terms of how it is different from others, and we understand our unique
selves often in terms of how we are different from those around us.
Yet, in today’s gospel lesson, Jesus challenges this way
of thinking. He does so in terms of
those who give thanks for their piety, their dedication to God over
others. This is truly self-righteous
behavior. “God, thank you that I am not
like these other people: thieves, abusers, adulterers, or even this person with
a terrible job who is despised by others.
Thank God that I am able to tithe and fast and do everything I can to be
in good relationship with God.” etc. It
is easier for us, I think, to agree with Jesus if we see this passage only in
terms of this obviously self-righteous behavior. But why were those Jesus critiqued thanking
God in this way? Because they knew that
faith is a gift, like any other. And
they believed that this gift of faith was leading them to a better life than
those who were unable to be as faithful.
When we look into their reasoning, the separation between those who
compare themselves to others because of piety and those who compare themselves
to others because of other “blessings” - that separation diminishes and even
disappears. Why do we compare
ourselves? Because we know we have gifts
that others don’t. We know that we have
blessings that others don’t that enrich our lives in ways that others don’t
experience. Isn’t it right to be
thankful for those blessings? For those
gifts?
How many of you have seen the movie, Trading Places? Well for those of you who haven’t, Winthorpe
is a very successful business man. He
hangs around with the elite of the elite and is very self-righteous about
it. He despises and looks down on all
below him. In contrast, Billy Ray is an
African American man who grew up in the ghetto.
He sells drugs, lives on the street and is poor and desperate. Winthorpe’s bosses decide, out of their own
unfeeling curiosity and sense of unlimited power to force these men to trade
places and see what happens to them. So
they plant drugs on Winthorpe and strip him of his money, his power, his rights. They take Billy Ray and offer him Winthorpe’s
position: his job including training for that job, and all the money and
luxuries that accompany such a high power position. Without spending too much time on the details
of the movie, Winthorpe’s experience in particular is fascinating. He must go from one who looked down on and
despised anyone not in an elite position to a person who can only get help from
a prostitute. In that position of
desperation and need, he begins to get to know people in these “lower”
classes. As he gets to know the
prostitute who helps him, he also grows to love her. But more than that, his desperation, his need
and dependency on people that he used to judge, getting to know these people as
people rather than as inferiors, this actually enriches his life. In the end, even after he has gotten revenge
and has his wealth, his “blessings” back, he is a changed man. He is a man who is able to love. He is a man who is enriched by people of all
different standings. He is a man of
depth and substance where before he was one-dimensional and poor in that
snobbery. Now given, this is a movie,
and a comedy at that. It is harder, I
think for those of us in the real world to really let go of our prejudices and
classism. But that is exactly what Jesus
asks us to do. Jesus asks us to stop
comparing ourselves to those around us, those different than us, those in
positions of less power, wealth or education and to stand with them
instead. To get to know them. To learn from them. To see them as the brothers and sisters they
are. Micah and the passages from Timothy
and Proverbs take this a step further and call us into humility, into a
recognition that all that we have, including our intelligence, our parents, our
talents, our faith – ALL that we have is a gift from God. Therefore to have conceit around it, to think
we are better than others because of it is a grave problem. It is a spiritual problem because it is
failing to honor GOD for what we have and what we are and instead is claiming
this as our own.
C.S. Lewis recounts that when he first started going to
church he disliked the hymns, which he considered to be fifth-rate poems set to
sixth-rate music. But after a time, he
said, ”I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were
nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in
elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then I realized that I wasn’t fit
to clean those boots. It got me out of
my solitary conceit.” When we see
people, really see other people, we cannot remain in our self-righteousness,
even if that is thankful self-righteousness.
Instead, we find ourselves challenged to be humble.
C.S. Lewis’ main character in the second of his space
trilogy, Peralandra, says, “Don’t imagine I’ve been selected for (this task)
because I’m anyone in particular. One
never can see, or not ‘til long afterwards, why ANY one was selected for ANY
job. And when one des it is usually some
reason that leaves no room for vanity.
Certainly it is never for what the (person) him ( or her-) self would
have regarded as their chief qualifications.”
We may have opportunities that others don’t. But to me, those are higher tests of our
faith. Will we really use the multitude
of resources that we have been given for the good of others? Will we be able to pass the test of using our
wealth, our talents, our gifts to serve God and other people? It is a very, very hard test. Many are unable to do it. They increase their resources only for
themselves or their families and have a very hard time passing that on to those
really in need.
So in light of this, maybe the real question for all of
us is: how, then, can we be thankful, properly thankful, for the good gifts in
our lives, without doing it comparatively, without looking down on what others
have as “less-than?” How can we be truly
humble?
First, we must pray and WORK to increase equity: to help
share the gifts that we have rather than just hoarding them and being
thankful. Sometimes that is easier than
others. If people lack work or housing
or money, there are concrete steps that can be taken to help them. It is harder to see the steps needed to help
someone who is suffering for health reasons: physically, emotionally or
mentally. But still there are steps we
can take: we can still pray for them. We
can help them obtain medical and psychiatric care. But in those cases where there just isn’t
enough to bring justice and wholeness to them there are other things we can do:
Second, we need to strive to be aware that though others
have different experiences, their gifts are just that - different. Even when it looks like they have “less”
sometimes that less gives them a different challenge that is good: others may
not have the same material wealth that we have, for example, but they may be
very gifted in their relationships or friendships. We do not know all of the gifts that others
experience.
Third, we must remember that we all fall short. We are all in need of God, no matter how well
off we seem, how many blessings we have, how self-sufficient and complete in
ourselves we feel. We are all in need of
continued spiritual growth. None of us
have “made it” on our journey with God.
It is a journey and one that needs continued re-dedication,
self-reflection, and commitment.
Fourth, and I think this is key: we need to remember that when we separate
ourselves from others, even by the simple prayer “thank God I am not like so
and so” we have separated ourselves from God as well. God is in the poorest of the poor. God is in the “least of these” as Jesus tells
us. That is where we meet God. That is where God meets us as well.
Finally, we also need to remember the message of the
prophets, of Mary, Jesus’ mother when she prayed the Magnificat, really the
message of the entire Bible, “By God the high are brought down and the lowly
exalted”. Today’s gospel story gives us
another example of that. Do not be too
proud in what you have, because God is a God of reversals. Mary’s speech, the Magnificat is in the
beginning of Luke’s gospel. As such it
is a statement about the message of the whole gospel. As Mary says, “God... has performed mighty
deeds with his arm: he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost
thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the
humble. He has filled the hungry with
good things but has sent the rich away empty.”
This is Jesus’ promise as shown in today’s gospel lesson as well. The righteous man has been found unrighteous. The rejected, sinner man has been made
righteous and whole in God’s eyes. We
cannot be too cocky in our gifts because God is a God of reversals.
Through all of these ways, we remember that God called
us to relationship with our brothers and sisters. We are all equals under God. We are all loved by God. And we are called to care for one another as
family. We don’t do that when we compare
ourselves to our brothers and sisters.
We are not helping or being loving when we separate ourselves from one
another with comparison. Of course we
are called to be thankful. Thankful for
all we are, all we have, all we experience and all we do. But that thankfulness must be from a place of
humility, and recognition that our life is just that: our life; with its own
issues, own gifts, own challenges. Thank
God for your life and its gifts. But do
so in humble recognition that we are all just children of God, making our way
in this life as everyone else with blessings and with challenges.
Christian Herter was running hard for reelection as
governor of Massachusetts, and one day he arrived late at a barbecue. He’d had no breakfast or lunch, and he was
famished. As he moved down the serving
line, he held out his plate and received one piece of chicken. The governor said to the serving lady,
“Excuse me, do you mind if I get another piece of chicken. I’m very hungry.” The woman replied, “Sorry, I’m supposed to
give one piece to each person.” He
repeated, “But I’m starved,” and again she said: “Only one to a customer.” Herter was normally a modest man, but he
decided this was the time to use the weight of his office and said, “Madam, do
you know how I am? I am the governor of
this state.” She answered, “Do you know
who I am? I’m the lady in charge of
chicken. Move along, mister.”
Amen.
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