This morning’s gospel lesson from Luke reminds me of two relatively new phrases I’ve learned in the last few years from Social Media: Humblebrag, and Virtue Signaling.
The first one, the humblebrag, is an ostensibly modest or self-deprecating statement whose actual purpose is to draw attention to something of which one is proud. It is the opposite of humility, it is false humility. The Pharisee in Jesus’ parable went up to the temple to pray. And in his prayers, the Pharisee thanked God that he was not like the others, not like the sinners who are thieves, rogues, adulterers, or tax collectors. In his prayer, he shared that he tithed his earnings and fasted two days a week. He was, in fact, separating himself from his neighbors on the self-professed belief that he was not a sinner. Even worse, it’s as if he was declaring himself righteous, when only God can do that. The second phrase, virtue signaling, is similar: it is the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue. This, too is exactly what the Pharisee does at the temple: signals his self-professed virtue as being sin-free. His prayer indicates that he believes himself to be better than the others, more faithful than the others, more worthy than the others. The great irony in all of this is that by humblebragging, by virtue signaling, the Pharisee is, in fact, sinning. By using false humility to show that he is not a sinner, the Pharisee has become a sinner! The tax collector separates himself from the others too. Unable to look up toward heaven, beating his breast in punishment for his sins, the tax collector doesn’t think he’s worthy, knows himself to be a sinner in need of mercy. Jesus proclaimed the tax collector who had acknowledged his sins, justified, or forgiven, at the end of the day, and proclaimed the Pharisee unjustified, or unforgiven, leaving us with the ominous phrase: “for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted." Now, most of can be forgiven if we post something on Tik Tok, or Reels, or Facebook or Instagram showing off our latest project or recipe, something in which we have some pride…that’s not the problem. The problem is when we start to believe that we’re better than others. We know, from studying scripture, that Jesus had a particular message for a particular group of people. Although he was instructing his disciples, the message was a pointed lesson for the Pharisees, the leaders of the faith community: don’t get caught up in thinking you’re better than others, or that others are sinners and you aren’t. And don’t think you get to decide whether you are justified in the eyes of God. And though I can’t identify anyone in my sphere of influence who needs to hear this particular message, I suppose it’s not wasted if I use it as a reminder to myself that Jesus, and God, would prefer that I approach my faith as the tax-collector did: with humility and repentance. The tax collector showed a level of faith maturity that the Pharisee did not: the ability to acknowledge one’s sins, and the need for God’s forgiveness are evident in the way the tax collector prays. The self-righteous and judgmental person of power is actually sinning, while the repentant and humble sinner is forgiven of their sins. A word of caution, for me as much as it is for anyone else: let us be careful that we not judge the Pharisees of the world, lest we find ourselves saying ‘thank God I’m not like those Pharisees, self-righteous humble-bragging virtue signalers!’ Even if we don’t know anyone like this in our immediate circle of friends and family, we can find them everywhere in celebrity circles, politics, anywhere the cult of personality rules. And we may be tempted to thank God we aren’t like them, we may be tempted to brand them and condemn them and feel a bit of pride that we’ll never be like them. But I say: let’s resist those impulses. While humblebragging and virtue signaling are cringey behaviors in social media circles, they take on a more serious weight when they shift into self-righteousness and judgmentalism. Of course, the growing portion of our modern society that thinks all Christians are humblebraggarts and virtue signalers can be forgiven their error: the most humble and faithful of God’s children are rarely in the spotlight, rarely giving sound-bytes on the local news, rarely posting their humility on social media. A small fraction of the wider Christian community has highjacked the public image the world sees with their judgments and their pronouncements and their scorn for sinners. While the majority of God’s faithful Christian children follow Jesus on a humble path, minding their own business, attending to their own sins and their own need for forgiveness, like the tax collector, the images most of the world sees are finger-pointing and name-calling. I don’t think there is much we can do about that. I think the only thing we can do is to live our faith lives as humbly and as lovingly as we can. The more bold among us might take a stab at calling out the modern-day Pharisees, those that make a point to humblebrag or virtue signal their self-justifications, but for most of us, it’s good to worry less about the blow-hards, and worry more about our own personal relationships with God and our Lord and Savior. There is a traditional Philippine story called the Story of Two Sons. It goes like this: A queen had two children. As she grew older, she wanted to pass on the monarchy to one of her two children, and make them her heir. She assembled all the wise people of the land, and called her two children to present themselves. She gave them each 5 pieces of silver and told them: ‘By evening, I want you to have filled up this whole hall. What you fill it with is up to you. You can use the silver pieces if you have to’. And the wise folk said: ‘This is a good task’. The older child went off, and came to a field where the farm laborers were harvesting sugar beet, and putting it through a press. The remainder, after pressing, was discarded. So the older child made an arrangement with the head of the laborers to take all the discarded sugar beet and fill the hall with it. When the task was complete, they gave the head of the laborers the five pieces of silver, and told their mother that the task was done. There would be no need for their younger sibling to try. They had filled the hall. But their mother replied, ‘There is still time. We will wait.’ The younger child came back, and asked for the sugar beet remains to be moved out of the hall. They had nothing in their hands but a candle. When the hall was completely empty once more, they carried this candle into the middle of the hall, and lit it. Immediately, the whole hall was filled with light. Light streamed into every remote corner. And the queen said to the younger child, ‘You shall be my heir. Your sibling has spent five pieces of silver to fill up the hall with useless rubbish. You haven’t used even a single piece of silver, yet you have filled the hall with light. You have filled it with the very thing that our people need above all else.’ When we have some quiet moments, and our thoughts turn to our faith lives, let’s see if we can’t be more like the younger sibling, bringing forth light from a humble candle. There are plenty of people running around trying to fill the world with useless rubbish and then bragging about what they have accomplished. It’s ironic that the impulse to humblebrag and virtue signal can often be traced to a person’s fears and anxieties. So their insistence on their superiority is actually based on their fear of being a failure. It takes faith, trust, and confidence to act humbly and acknowledge our sins before God and our Savior. And it takes even more of the same to simply let the humblebraggers and the virtue signalers do their thing. Let’s bring our humble candles into the great hall, and fill it with light. Let’s aim to live out our faith lives in humble appreciation for the forgiveness we are feely promised, when we repent of our sins. Amen.
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The children of God, and in today’s Hebrew scripture, the people of Israel, have a tradition, a history, of recording as much of their interactions with and about God as they can. Even if those interactions are less than flattering. This is unique in the sacred books of the world’s religions: many other religions try and present their histories and stories in the best possible light. The people of Israel have consistently shown that they are willing to record aspects of themselves that show their flaws, their faults, and their shortcomings.
Many of us here today have friends who are known for speaking their minds, known for their impulsive sharing of information, even when it can be awkward or painful. Don’t we all have at least one friend who says something and then exclaims: “Oh! Did I say that out loud?” Many of us here today have also had experiences with saying things ourselves that we might regret later. Things we’ve said in front of our children, or loved ones, things we’ve said out loud in the presence of co-workers, or friends. Often these unfortunate exclamations come from deep inside us, before we’ve even had a chance to think about the consequences of our words. Psalm 137 is an example of the God’s children having an “Oh!, Did I say that out loud” moment. After the prophet Jeremiah had warned of the consequences of the children of God acting unfaithfully, God had Babylon capture the people of Israel, and enslave them. Psalm 137 then, is simply the people of Israel expressing their anger at the Babylonian people for doing what God had them do. Instead of blaming Babylon for their plight, there are two better choices the people could use to vent their anger: God, and themselves. And I think they know this, but it is so much easier to just blame the captors than to take on God, or face their inner feelings about their lack of faith. But here the Psalm is, out in the open, out in public, for all to see. For all to study. Warts and all. And though we can all understand the opening verses describing the sadness and mourning that comes with being held captive, and while we might understand the anger that leads to the final two lines of the Psalm, did they really say that out loud? Yes. Yes they did: Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock! It would have been so easy to just leave this Psalm out of the Psalter, the collection of Psalms that made it into the bible, it would have been easier to end the Psalm without the lines that betrayed such hatred and bitterness. But those lines were left in, to serve as a reminder that even the most faithful of God’s children have difficulty with our anger, with our expression of anger, and with our faith. Which brings me to our Gospel lesson. Jesus was speaking with his disciples, teaching them about their role as his followers. It’s unfortunate that the editors of the lectionary didn’t include the verses just before our reading, because it helps set the passage in its proper context. Here’s how the passage begins: Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, “I repent”, you must forgive.’ So in the face of a teaching that is especially difficult, one that required tremendous faith, the disciples turned to Jesus and demanded that he increase their faith. Did they really say that out loud? Yes they did. Jesus, ever the patient teacher, basically told the disciples ‘either you have it, or you don’t. Even a minute amount of faith can do tremendous things.’ I find it interesting that the disciples somehow believed that Jesus could increase their faith. I find it interesting in the same way that I found it interesting that the people in Psalm 137 this morning somehow believed it was the Babylonians fault that the people of Israel were being held captive. At least the children of God are consistent: it’s always somebody else’s fault if we’re in trouble, and it’s always somebody else’s fault if we lack the faith to achieve our goals, right? Either we have it or we don’t. Either we know what to do, or we don’t. Jesus believed that his disciples knew right from wrong, knew what the right thing to do was. Jesus believes that we know what to do as well. We have the opportunity to do the right thing many times a day, and for the most part, we do. For whatever reason, we often have a really difficult time owning up to things even when we are presented with bold evidence that we screwed up! For whatever reason, we find it so much easier to blame others for our mistakes than to honestly assess them, put them in perspective, and learn from them. And the people who can do that have our highest esteem, don’t they? We respect and appreciate the mature people who seem to be able to gracefully acknowledge their mistake, ask for forgiveness, and move on. Whether they know it or not, they have faith. And whether we know it or not, whether we act on it or not, we, too, have faith. In the face of painful and devastating captivity, the people of Israel blamed their captors. In the face of a nearly impossible task of forgiving another, the disciples blamed Jesus for their lack of faith. And like the disciples and the people of Psalm 137, we will often claim to have no control over our circumstances, claim that the power to make a change is outside of ourselves. Did we really say that out loud? Yes we did. If someone hurts us 7 times a day, and then asks for forgiveness, Jesus wants us to forgive them. But that sure is a difficult thing to do! Do we have the faith to do that? Jesus would say that if we have any faith at all, then we have enough faith to do that. We just have to do it. Just do it. We already know the right thing to do. We already know what things Jesus expects of us each day, don’t we? It’s not a surprise, is it? It’s not a mystery, is it? Love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Love our enemies. Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty. Clothe the naked, house the homeless, visit those recovering from illness, visit those who are imprisoned. Forgive those who have hurt us. Practice amazing hospitality. In the face of this seemingly impossible list of things to do, we might want exclaim, we can’t do it, it’s too hard! But we know what we need to do, we know what the right thing to do is. And, we have the faith we need to do it. So either we do it, or we don’t. Given the way our world looks these days, are we doing it? Given the increasing need of the world for food, shelter, clothing, protection, and health care, probably not enough. Given the increasing need of the world for mental health care, help with addiction, reconciliation with disagreements, justice and forgiveness, protection from violence, maybe not enough. We each have faith. We each have faith of at least the size of a mustard seed. It’s time to start putting that faith into practice, beyond just assuring that we have a place to worship, that we have a leader to guide us…it’s time to step up and just do it. What is ‘it’? ‘It’ is living our faith, applying our faith to all our interactions during our days, reflecting on our faith in our quiet moments, asking for forgiveness where we have caused hurt, granting forgiveness when we are asked. If we can do those things, the world will be less needy. If we can do those things, we will all be closer to the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus spoke about. Is it the Babylonian’s fault that our world is so needy? Is it up to Jesus to increase our faith so we can do what is expected of us? Of course not! It is up to you and me, to look each other in the eye and say to each other: we’ve got this. Amen. |
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