I need to tell you guys a funny story about the book I talked about during the children’s sermon (The Blue Ribbon Puppies by Crockett Johnson). As I told the kids, my copy of the book is somewhere at my parents’ house, so I spent probably more time than necessary on Thursday trying to hunt down pictures online. Most of the search results were book sellers, which often have reviews of the book. And this one review I found so funny, I have to share it with you. The review read, “A fine example of a book about promoting self esteem: every puppy deserves an award for some feature that singles him/her out... But it raises the question—when do you tell someone that he (or she) is not the best at something?” [Pause] Friends, this is a book about puppies for four year olds. Is “when do you tell a four year old they are not that great” really the question this story raises for you? I get the concern about inflating kids’ egos, but my godson is four and trust me, he knows he’s not the best at everything. He doesn’t need a book to tell him; the fact that he can’t reach the counter is reminder enough. His great frustration in life is that his big sister can do more stuff then he can do, because she is six and thus taller, faster, stronger, and generally more coordinated. My experience with four-year-olds is they are generally aware of their limitations. It’s only when we get to be a bit older that these concerns about ego really get complicated.
In our Gospel reading for this morning, the disciples were, yet again and I’ll add not for the last time, arguing about which of them was the greatest disciple. Which one was the “blue ribbon puppy,” if you will, of the group. When they got to the house, Jesus asked them, “What were you arguing about?” And of course, crickets, because no one wanted to admit they were arguing about who was the greatest, because ironically everyone knows that arguing about being the greatest is not the greatest behavior. But despite their silence, Jesus knew what they were talking about, and he brought a child up and said “whoever wants to be first must be last… [and] Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” Jesus’ insistence on welcoming children would have been completely upending the social status as children in Jesus’ time were seen as insignificant. Paul wrote in Galatians, “My point is that heirs, as long as they are minors, are no better than slaves.” This is a problematic verse in a lot of ways, Paul’s acceptance of slavery is obviously wrong, but you see the place of children in first century society.
The point Jesus was making here was what makes someone the greatest in the kingdom of God is different then what makes someone the greatest in the world. Greatness in the world’s eyes is about power, about wealth, about strength, control, good looks, fast cars, the newest iPhone, whatever, you know the rest. But greatness in God’s eyes is about love, about mutuality, about respect and care and service and giving of ourselves for the sake of others. Like Paul wrote in the beautiful hymn in Philippians, “Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend… and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” True greatness in the kingdom of God is defined by humility, service, and most importantly love. And I think as Trinity and St. Peter, as ELCA Lutherans, we get that. After all, wasn’t that what yesterday was all about. We didn’t come together to clean up the Post neighborhood, one of the most overlooked and under-served areas of our community, to show everyone how great we are. We did it because we believe in putting our faith into action, we believe that we truly get to be God’s hands in the world, that the way we give thanks to God for all God has done for us is by loving and serving others.
And that’s great! Don’t get me wrong. But the problem, dear friends, and this is a problem for me as well, is I think we’ve internalized that message of humility a little bit too much. Like the reviewer who was worried about giving four-year-olds over-inflated egos, I think sometimes we equate humility with self-deprivation, and in our concern for not saying too much, we end up not saying anything at all.
This is not our fault. We don’t live in a time where there are a lot of good models for how we talk about Jesus and there are a lot of really bad ones. Example, a couple years ago I met up with a friend in Toledo during Pride weekend. She was working on a campaign for a candidate in the Ohio governor’s race, and after the parade she and I went down to the Pride festival to get some lunch and spend some time together. Outside the festival grounds were the seemingly requisite protesters, spouting those seven Bible verses from Leviticus and Numbers that folk inevitably want to bring up to argue about homosexuality. As we walked by, one of the protesters grabbed my arm, forced a pamphlet in my face and shouted, “do you know what the Bible says about homosexuality?” Normally I ignore protesters, but I was so taken aback by his closeness that I blurted out, “yes I do, I’m a Lutheran pastor.” And here’s where this guy got impressive. Because without missing a beat, he switched from those seven verses on homosexuality to the ones in Timothy about how women should submit. As we walked away I remarked to my friend, “I don’t agree with how he interprets scripture, but that was an impressive show of prooftexting.”
So clearly we know we don’t want to be that guy, effortlessly jumping from condemning one group to another in the name of a god who doesn’t sound much like Jesus. But guess what friends, there is a middle ground. And guess also what, sharing our faith, sharing the love and grace and acceptance we’ve experienced in Christ is a gift people want. Let me let you in on a little secret, sharing the love and grace of Jesus is really what yesterday was about. It was about serving our neighbor, yes, but the obnoxious bright yellow shirts were so that people could know, hey, here is a church that isn’t going to physically accost you with a pamphlet and yell at you. If being yelled at is the only experience of Christianity you’ve ever had, and friends, for a lot of people, especially people of my generation, being yelled at IS the only experience with people of faith they’ve had, if being yelled at, being judged, being cast aside by Christians is your only experience with Christianity, these yellow shirts say, here’s another way. And friends, people want this. They want to know they are precious, they want to know they are loved, they want the kind of connection and hope and unconditional acceptance that we have received in Jesus, that we get as part of a community of believers. I will confess to you, my brothers and sisters, that even as a pastor, inviting people to church isn’t a thing that comes naturally to me, because I don’t want to come off as pushy or judgmental. But in my experience, I’ve never had a person I’ve invited respond angrily to my invitation. I’ve had them decline, but I’ve never had anyone get upset. Even the most adamantly uninterested was appreciative and honored by my invitation. People like to be invited to stuff, even stuff they don’t want to do, as long as it’s a true invitation and not a weird pushy challenge.
Proof. Yesterday we didn’t get the sort of booming crowds we’d been led to expect, so rather than standing around I took a trash bag and a few folk and I walked the neighborhood picking up trash. At first, I just picked up trash and chatted with the people I was with. But I quickly noticed that Kelly Dillman from the police department was talking to every person she passed, and was getting a good response. So I tried it. I said hi to everyone I saw, and if they engaged and asked what I was doing, I told them. We’re doing a neighborhood clean-up. I’m from Trinity Lutheran down the street, Kylee here is from St. Peter Lutheran, and we’re just out picking up some trash. There’s free hot dogs down at the Post plant if you’re interested. Super simple right, but it totally didn’t occur to me until I saw Kelly doing this that people actually wanted to be talked to. And the response I received, one-hundred percent positive. Folk liked knowing that we were here, that we were doing this for them, and that we were doing it in the name of Jesus Christ. But they could not have known that unless I had the courage to tell them. That experience of walking the neighborhood, of chatting with folk, and telling them who we are and why we were there, that for me turned what was a slow day, and maybe could have been seen as a bit of a failure into a roaring success. Because it gave me the ability to tell folk, God loves you, God loves this neighborhood, and God wants for you to thrive. And I got to be a very small part of that thriving.
So friends, I’m going to invite you to do something hard. I want to invite you to tell others about Jesus, to tell others about your faith. To not just welcome, as Jesus told the disciples, but to take the next step and invite, to bring folk along with you, like Jesus did with the child. This is going to be hard, because it means you’re going to have to be a little vulnerable. But what we learn from Jesus is that greatness, true greatness, is about vulnerability, because being in relationship is about vulnerability. Jesus came and put on vulnerable human flesh in order to be in relationship with us. And now that Jesus has ascended into heaven, we are God’s hands, God’s feet in the world. But not just God’s hands and feet, we are also God’s voice. Scary, yep, very scary. But we have the greatest teacher. Amen.
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