3.16.2008 Palm Sunday - The Right Glasses
WESTMINSTER PULPIT
The Rev. Dr. David Thompson
March 23, 2008 “If We Put On The Right Glasses We Will See Better” Palm Sunday
Text: “You know that among the pagans their so-called rulers lord it over them, and their great men make their authority felt. This is not to happen among you.” Jesus
On Passion/Palm Sunday, we see that Jesus has set out on the road to Jerusalem. He plainly tells his disciples that he is to be handed over to the chief priests and scribes. They will condemn him to death, the Romans will mock him, spit on him scourge him and crucify him. And his disciples fail to understand that there is even a problem! Why?
Steven Covey in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People has an amusing illustration of why we fail to understand others. He says, “Suppose you have been having trouble with your eyes and you have decided to go to an optometrist for help. After briefly listening to your complaint, he takes off his glasses and hands them to you.”
“Put these on,” he says. “I have worn these glasses for ten years now and they have really helped me. I have an extra pair at home. You can wear these.” So you put them on and it only makes the problem worse. “This is terrible!” you exclaim. “I can’t see a thing!” “What’s wrong?” he asks. “They work for me! Try harder!”“I am trying” you insist. “Everything is a blur.”
“Well what’s the matter with you? Think positively.” “Okay I positively can’t see a thing!” “Boy are you ungrateful,” he chides. “After all I have done to help you!”
The older I get, the more I realize how very different people are. We think very differently, which is a positive, but this also makes it more difficult to really understand each other. We have our own glasses and we expect that they will work for others.
So this is the problem that the disciples had. Imagine after your leader has told you that he is going to die, that two people in the group would come and ask him for a small favor. “We would like to be the greatest when you become President of the world. How about foreign policy advisor and secretary of state? Do you need a vice President? If so I am your man! We want to get our dibs in now.” And all this they ask of a man who has just stated that he is going to be killed!
Jesus, because of who he is, instead of getting hurt at their lack of empathy, takes them seriously.
James and John have a certain set of glasses on. They have a conception of glory—to be able to sit at the right and left hand of absolute power. In their minds, they see power and influence—all the things that tempt the politically ambitious today. Jesus however sees a teachable moment.
He says, “You know that among the pagans their so called rulers’ lord it over them, and their great men make their authority felt. This is not to happen among you. Anyone who wants to be great among you must be your servant and anyone who wants to be first among you must be slave to all.”
Like James and John most of us want what we want, and people get in the way of what we want. They can block us from achieving our dreams. When we want people to jump, they often just sit there. When we want them to be enthusiastic, they aren’t even lukewarm. So, often, we think that what we need to do is to increase our personal power. We think that we need to be first.
Mary Joe West began her desire to be first in fifth grade when the school offered a prize of $100.00 to the best all round graduating student. She says that her ambition to be the winner of that prize fixed a pattern for her life. At age 24 she was the first woman news anchor for a CBS affiliate TV station in Phoenix. In order to progress she became a workaholic.
The day came when her husband asked her, “Can’t you forget about work for a couple of days?” “What else is there?” said Mary Joe. “Can’t you understand that this is the most important thing in my life right now?” And her husband looked at her sadly and said, “I thought the most important thing was us.” They soon divorced.
Six years later workaholic Mary Joe became an anchor on CBS Nightwatch, the first all night network news program. Her dreams had come true. She worked 12 hour days. Whenever they called she jumped. But her life began to fall apart. She felt empty and alone.
In the movie Home Alone there is a memorable line: “When you are in trouble, church is the place to be.”
Mary Joe by some instinct turned in to the candlelit shadows of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. She knelt to pray, “God, what am I doing so far from home? I want to walk your path, but I don’t know how.” She got up from prayer and knew that she had to go home.
But, she still had her old glasses on—the way she had seen the world since the fifth grade. Her old job gone, she was hired by a rival station. She tried her best but the ratings went down. Her coworkers resented her big salary. Then the station fired her. No one would hire her now. Her entire self worth had come from her job. Now she felt worthless.
One day she chanced into a movie theatre and saw a movie on Mother Theresa. That experience changed her values as Mother Theresa taught her that to serve was the greatest value of all. It was not about being first at all.
For one year Mary Joe helped the poorest of the poor in a relief agency. Then she got back into television as a station manager in Phoenix. She adopted one of Mother Theresa’s little ones--an orphan from Honduras.
She wrote at the time: “I don’t have the glamour or the salary of my earlier jobs, but I have something better; love, happiness and peace of mind.” “That,” she says “Is God’s idea of being first.”
I once read an article on stress in the workplace. The cost to Americans of stress related illness is in the billions. People now are monitored to death by machines and technologies that monitor the number of key strokes per minute, the length of coffee breaks, the number and length of personal calls and emails. People are on video cameras even in washrooms. Monitoring how hard people work has itself become a national disease and employs many people just to check on us. We deliberately under staff in an attempt to save money and then we increase workloads and expect more. Sound familiar?
Where do these values come from—to use people for our own ends? Where does the value come from that puts profits before people, a value that endorses workaholics that produces nervous breakdowns and that instills fear rather than trust?
I believe that these values come from a whole society wearing the wrong glasses and expecting others to do so as well. It comes from a failure to understand what life is really about. I believe that the one person who can save us from this madness was the man on the road to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. His values were different. His glasses were true to the meaning of life.
According to Jesus where does meaning come from in life? What are the values that inform all others and set us free?
Jesus said: “Anyone who wants to be first must be the slave to everyone. He also said, “Those who lose their lives in the service of others will find them.” Thus, Love and service to others give us meaning in life. Jesus was always interacting with others. And when he made an impression on someone he asked that person to join him in living the way he did. Jesus was known as “the man for others”.
Our capitalist society’s values do not lead us necessarily to a sense of meaning, neither do the values of a communist society, neither capitalism or communism have created a worker’s paradise in which men and women gain a sense of meaning through working all the time. Meaning is more elusive than earning lots of money or socializing the means of production.
I saw one little fellow interviewed on television who was asked the meaning of life. The little fellow confidently replied, “To get money”. The audience all applauded him! He had understood what life was all about or so they seemed to indicate by their applause. If we teach our children that, they will end up missing what life is about. Meaning comes from loving other people and serving other people according to Jesus. That is why the greatest is the one who serves. That is where the meaning is and life is not about material things. And we sometimes “get this” particularly when someone close to us passes away. Death brings what is really valuable into focus for us.
The right perspective always changes what we value. There was a lady on the Titanic who was very rich. She was in the lifeboat already and then asked to be able to run back to her cabin. She was given permission, but told to hurry. She ran back to her stateroom, past her jewelry box, which she left behind, which contained fabulously expensive jewelry. Instead she picked up two oranges and ran back to the lifeboat.
At the moment in world society, power based leadership is in trouble. Consider hierarchies like the Papacy, the British Monarchy, Presidents of countries, politicians, prime ministers, chairs of boards, principals of schools and colleges. At this moment we are watching in America the race for President. Why does this person want to be President, we ask? Cynically we can say that this is a power trip. We have lost our trust in our leaders, so shorter terms of power look good.
When the disciples of Jesus heard what James and John were asking for they were indignant. They were suspicious of what James and John would do with their power. But Christ’s answer leads also to a possible temptation. If we still want to be the greatest, and being the greatest involves service to others, then if we are not careful we can begin to work on our image without dealing with the will to power. We can learn to do the politically correct thing.
When we see someone trying to remake their image from being someone who is rich and famous and not particularly charitable, into “a politician of the people”, we can have doubts about their sincerity. In fact isn’t this the most subtle temptation of them all, “To do the right thing for the wrong reason?”
Steven Covey cites an example of a man who was in sales and not able to sell a client. The man had read Steven Covey’s book First Things First and had decided to use the concept of “seeking first to understand rather than to be understood”.
When Jesus tells us to become the slaves of all, he means just that. We are not to be pretend slaves, politically correct slaves, we are to be genuine. We are to care. We are to feel other’s pain. We are to learn to be open enough to cry with each other, laugh with each other and love each other.
When this genuinely happens, true greatness does come. The ego falls away and humility graces us with her elusive presence. Jesus does not solve the problem of greatness by taking away leadership. He doesn’t make everyone the same either. Even in this discourse about power and who shall serve on his left and right he does not do away with power. He simply says that power in his kingdom will be given to the worthy.
James and John were wearing the glasses of empire and we are not so different today. Do not the rich still oppress the poor and the weak still serve the strong? Do we not place at the top of the ladder those who have survived the struggle of the fittest? Do we not place in power people who are able to manage their image?
Jesus does not wear the glasses of empire and power. In fact Jesus’ way is the way of the family—a family with God and the Holy Spirit as parents. When we follow Christ’s teaching we discover that we are a family of brothers and sisters who have learned to serve one another. If we are truly into service then we are a brother or sister to Jesus or someone truly great like Martin Luther King Jr., or a Mother Theresa. In fact if we are genuine in our decision to follow Christ and serve others, people who blocked us before may become our best allies. Why? Because the criteria have changed, the measuring stick comes from genuinely loving and serving others. What a blessing!
Instead of living in a world of status seeking empires, we are suddenly transported into a family with God as our Divine Parent who loves us unconditionally. So when our brothers and sister are successful, we do not compete with them, but give thanks for them to God. To go through life consistently asking the question; “Who is the greatest? Is a choice finally to be utterly alone. We often say “It’s lonely at the top!” And so it is if the values are wrong. You can be the greatest most powerful person in the world and die alone and unloved. So, instead of being out there in a “dog eat dog world” trying to figure out who is the greatest, we can discover through love and service to others that we are suddenly home, and we are not “home alone”, but our true family is there, with us.
And that’s the greatest!
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