Last week I carefully traced little footballs on brown construction paper, then punched holes in them and laced white ribbon on top. Then I glued little pieces of white ribbon on the ends, inserted the information about my son’s upcoming second birthday party, addressed them with the names of friends and family and sent them off in the mail. As I was rubbing tiny bits of ribbon onto the glue stick I started to wonder why I was doing it. I have gotten plenty of adorable party invitations that people bought at the store or made on their computer. I have also had plenty of invites to wonderful parties that were done over facebook or email, saving everyone time and money. So why was I covered in glue, tying little footballs together for birthday party invites?
It’s the same reason I will make favors, decorate a cake and plan games for the party. I would like to say it is so my son can have a great party and a wonderful time or to bring a bit of joy to people’s day when they open the fun invitation. Maybe it is partly for those reasons, but to be honest it’s mostly for selfish reasons. My mom always did those kinds of things for my birthday parties growing up and I thought it was fun. Now that I am a parent I realize how quickly time goes by, as my son prepares to blow out his two candles, I am preparing to say goodbye to the baby days and have to constantly stop myself every time I start to refer to him as a baby. I want to hold on to each moment, get the most of each day and so I want to take advantage of every opportunity to do things like make invitations that I won’t be able to do when he grows up. I want to enjoy it, feel like a good mom, have as much fun as I can, make as many keepsakes and memories as I can. So, you see it’s all very selfish. The little paper footballs laced together with ribbon, the homemade Halloween costumes, the football-shaped birthday cake … it’s all actually for me. For my enjoyment, my memories, my desire to cherish each moment in any way I can, my need to do the things my mother did for me.
The truth is, if we look at most of the things we do and we are honest about our motives, usually we do what we do for ourselves. Because we get something out of it, it fulfills some sort of need, or because we get something back in return. And yet, we get incredibly frustrated when we feel like everyone around us is only acting for their own best interest- when a family member lets us down because they chose to do something else when we needed them to do something for us, when a coworker betrays you in exchange for a promotion, when a friend ignores your needs and expects you to listen to theirs, when no one will volunteer for the church event or fund-raiser you work so hard to organize. We find ourselves feeling like everyone is selfish and no one cares. And unfortunately, in some ways that may be true.
But we are Christians, and Jesus is always calling us to something more. And in the Gospel reading today Jesus has something to say about selfishness and only doing things when we expect something in return. He has something to say about making invitations, and it has nothing to do with how cute they are or how much ribbon is glued to them and instead everything to do with who they are for.
What he said to do goes against my entire invite list for my son’s birthday party. He said, “do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors.” Instead Jesus says to invite “the poor, crippled, lame and blind.” But he doesn’t say to do this so that everyone will know you are a really good Christian, or so you can have them all pose for a picture, post it on facebook and make everyone else feel really guilty for inviting their friends and family to their parties. Instead Jesus says you should invite the poor, cripple, lame and blind so that you can’t be repaid. They won’t invite you to their banquets, they won’t bring lovely presents, they will do nothing to increase your social stature or reputation. Do it because you will get nothing in return. Do it because you do not seek reward here and now by the standards we set for one another, but because we seek to be blessed by God, “repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
What if we were able to do things without hoping for anything in return? Might we spend more of our time with those considered to be outside preferred social circles? Might we spend more time concerned about the image of God in the world rather than our own image in the eyes of others? Would we be more willing to invite the poor, lame, crippled and blind into our homes, our lives and our churches if we weren’t concerned at all about what we could get in return?
As I was doing a bit of research on this passage I came across an interesting practice of the early church. There is a third century document called “Didascalia” which actually specifies a seating chart, laying out where everyone should stand in worship. It contains this instruction, “If a poor person comes into the assembly, and there are no places available, the bishop must give up his seat and let the poor person sit there.”1I love that the early church was making such an honest and literal attempt at living out the kinds of instructions Jesus gives in this passage from Luke. What a bold and radical way of honoring someone who could not honor you in return, of throwing the accepted hierarchy and means of recognition upside down. What an amazing example during worship of living not for what we can gain here on earth, or who we can impress or what we can get in return, but for God’s blessing, justice and love.
It seems to me that Jesus’ invitation suggestions and also what he says before that about not taking the seat of honor at a banquet and instead choosing a lower seat, has a lot to do with ego. Perhaps more than money, social status or position, most people are hoping to have their egos boosted. We want reassurance, we want to be right, we want to feel validated. How we often want to be repaid by others is by validation that who we are is good and what we do is right. In this passage from Luke we are being called to set that aside, to live not for validation from others, but for a blessing from God. To actually act against anything that might inflate our ego and instead do it all for the glory of God.
Lately I have been thinking about this ego thing that so often motivates us and gets in the way of our relationships and interactions. My recent decision to go on family leave and take a few years off of full time church ministry was because I want to spend more time with my son, but I also hope to gain a few things during my time away. One of which is the ability to separate ego from the work of ministry. I can’t tell you how many blogs, articles, books, comments I have read about clergy burn out. Apparently there are high rates of depression, divorce and anxiety among clergy. There is also a high rate of clergy who burn out and either leave ministry after a couple of appointments or just go through the motions and stop trying. I don’t want to be a part of any of those statistics and so I am trying to use this time to look at what is behind it.
And I get it. There is a certain weight of ministry that comes with not just the emotional moments like counseling people, doing funerals and sitting next to people during traumas. But a weight that comes from constantly being criticized, having people leave the church, watching numbers decline, hearing about churches closing, being yelled at by people and being on call for anyone who has a conflict or issue with someone 24/7. Whether you are a pastor or not, I think the weight of those things is probably something we have all dealt with. The weight of trying not to let someone down, trying to keep people happy, wading through conflict, feeling like there just isn’t enough of you to go around. It’s tough.
But I wonder how much of that weight could be lifted by getting our ego out of the way, but looking for nothing in return. So much of the weight we put on ourselves by wanting to be liked, wanting to be successful, wanting to be needed, feel valued, be important and avoid pain and conflict. What if we could lay down some of those wants and instead hope for nothing in return except God’s blessing. What if we could be free of expectations, opinions of others and insecurity and boldly do the work of God without care or concern for what everyone thinks we should be doing. Perhaps then our party invites might be made less to impress and more to look like this dinner party we read about in Luke. Perhaps we might be less likely to take the seat of honor and more likely to put on humility. Perhaps we might be humbled so that Christ can exalt us.
I’m not about to change the guest list for my son’s second birthday party and I will definitely keep one my homemade football invites in the pages of his baby book to remember. But I will think about how I can act in a way that is less about me, less ego-driven, less in need of repayment from others. How can we as the body of Christ live out this way of life- this upside-down standard where the bottom is brought up and the top brought down? How can we show that there is more to live for than ego, validation and recognition? Let us go and boldly live as a people who want to give love, mercy, peace and joy and ask for nothing in return. Nothing in return except the blessing of our God who is endless love, mercy, peace and joy for a people like us who can give nothing back. Amen.
1 Gbod.org “Lectionary Helps: Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost”
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