Respect

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K: Some people think that respect is earned by accumulating wealth; Jesus says it’s for those who give it all away. D: Give just a little bit more.

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Introduction: A flawed system.

I think I’ve mentioned a few thousand times that I used to work in Youth Ministry.
I can’t tell you how many times I counseled a student who was struggling in school, and came to this same flawed logic.
They would be struggling with one particular teacher, and they would say something like “I don’t give her any respect, because she hasn’t given me any respect.”
And rather than just point out the flaw in that logic, I would usually just ask a question:
What if she’s playing by your rules too? That she won’t respect you until you show her respect?
Because if that’s true, no one’s going to be respecting anyone any time soon, are they?
And while I have seen this so much in teenagers, the truth is I think we adults do this more than we’d care to admit.
And particularly in the wake of one of the most divisive elections I’ve ever seen in this country, I wonder what it might look like to talk not so much about politics or the election or who won or who lost, but about this idea of respect.
And as luck would have it, the scriptures have a thing or two to say to us about that today.

Two stories that go together:

The Scribes

We know people like this: respect is demanded.

These are the leaders in their religious institutions.
To be fair, they’ve probably put in the hours, the education, the effort, to get to where they are.
But…

They’re doing a lot of things “for the sake of appearance.”

Long robes.

Make sure that everyone can see them.
Make sure they’re ornate.
Make sure they’re fancy.

Respect in the marketplaces.

For as much as they love to be respected in their work place, apparently this demand for respect goes to Giant Eagle!
When they’re out and about, away from the office, they want people to notice and respect them there too.

Seats and places of honor.

Good Presbyterians can argue about whether this is in the front or the back of the sanctuary…
But these scribes had to have the best seats in the house, wherever they are.

Long prayers.

We’ve seen this before, right?
Have you ever heard someone praying and thought a little bit of the way through “Oh…they’re not talking to God. They’re talking over us!”
I know I have.
Jesus has an interesting word for us about these kinds of folks who demand respect:

Beware

Greek word- Bleppo

I giggled the whole way through Greek in Seminary, because this was one of the first vocabulary words I ever learned.
And it just makes me laugh. Bleppo.
It sounds like a brand of dog food or something.
What it really is, while our translators have given us “Beware,” the word Bleppo as a root means “See.”

Jesus is inviting us to see what’s really going on there.

Jesus is saying that folks like this, the ones that demand a lot of respect without necessarily earning it, they throw up a lot of noise.
Are our eyes tuned to see what the actual signal is behind it?
Do they have the Kingdom values they proclaim, or is it a show?
Do they stand for beautiful ritual, or do they just want to be noticed?
Do they lift up their neighbors, or do they push them out of the way for those seats of honor?
Jesus is speaking specifically about people who demand respect, but haven’t done the kingdom work required to earn that respect.
Which leads to the question: how does one earn respect in the Kingdom of God?
I think that’s why our two stories are tied together this week.

The Widow’s Offering.

Jesus is just watching.

First of all, I love this posture for Jesus.
We so often assume that he was always on the move.
Always teaching.
Always healing.
Always going.
Let’s go!
But here, he sits down and just takes it all in.
Where does he sit down?
Opposite the treasury at the temple.

The offering plates at the temple were meant to cause a scene.

The offering boxes had these huge trumpets on them.
And you have to remember that they didn’t really work with paper money back then, everything was coinage.
So these trumpets were meant to amplify the sound of the offering you were giving.

The more noise you make, the more you’ve given!

This system was almost designed for the scribes Jesus was talking about earlier.
In fact, it was probably designed by them.
Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!
Look how much I can give.
Look how awesome I am!
And remember, this is all taking place during the Passover festival, so there are a lot of high powered and wealthy people from all over who are there to leave their mark and be noticed.
And then…

The widow throws in two little pennies. (Clang clang)

A widow is one of the lowest classes that the OT calls us to protect at all costs:

Orphan.
Immigrant.
Widow.
This is someone who society has told has no value any more.
If you’ve lost your husband, you’ve lost your standing.
You’ve lost your income.
You’ve lost your ability to contribute.
Which is probably why the OT tells God’s people to protect these widows over and over and over again, because they’d be easy to overlook.
But…

Jesus notices

In the midst of this busy holiday,
In the midst of all these people throwing in buckets and buckets of change.
Jesus hears it like a bell in the night. (Clang clang)

In fact, he calls his disciples over to point out what he’s noticing.

They’ve all put in out of their abundance.
Everybody else is putting in out of show.
They have plenty more to go home to.
They have plenty more to bail them out.
They have plenty more to fall back on.
She’s put in (Clang Clang) out of trust.
This is it for her, right?
It’s all she has left.
So in this moment, in this act, she’s essentially throwing herself at God and telling God “I’m in your hands, you do what you need to now.”
What she does is…

Sacrifice.

We have to be careful here, because some people think that the point of this story is that unquestioning self-sacrifice is the goal.
I don’t think that’s it.
I looked it up, and this word Sacrifice is a Latin word.

Literally, to make sacred.

In this move, as she (clang clang) throws in all that she has, she’s making something sacred.
I don’t think it’s the money…
I think Jesus would have taught his disciples rather differently if she was making the money itself sacred.
I think it’s the trust.
I think she has made her trust in God sacred.
I think she has made her story sacred.
I think she has made her life sacred.
She sacrificed, but not out of some misplaced obligation.
She made her situation sacred by trusting who God is over her.

It doesn’t say this, but I think Jesus respects her.

Firstly, just like he invited us to do with these scribes, Jesus sees her.
Through a crowded temple court, through all the noise of offerings of appearance, through the distraction of celebration, Jesus sees her.
And not only that, Jesus makes her story sacred.
He calls his friends around him and says “let’s notice this.”
Let’s drink it in.
Let’s learn from it.
Let’s let her story and situation affect us for the positive.
Let’s see her, and recognize the sacred in her.

How to be a people of respect:

Let’s “see” clearly.

Reality distortion fields.

Steve Jobs was famous for this idea called the Reality Distortion Field.
He was often capable of using it in a positive way, though not always.
In this, Jobs was the kind of leader where reality was whatever he said it was.
If that computer should cost $1000, then the engineers could only use $1000 worth of parts, no matter how outlandish that seemed.
If they needed to get 4 weeks worth of work done in a week, so be it.
And while sometimes it helped people get their jobs done, it often according to those who knew him best, led him to coming off as kind of a jerk.
His was a leadership of a bit of smoke and mirrors.
We live in a constant world of reality distortion fields.
Our friends are putting them up all the time as they try to keep up with the Joneses.
Our media throw them up constantly, and then they get reinforced by echo chamber social media designed to give us the world not as it is, but as we agree with it.
And sadly, like these scribes, sometimes people of faith throw up reality distortion fields that have absolutely no bearing on the Kingdom of God.
Jesus is inviting us to see through them.

Let’s be a little less focused on appearances.

So much of our culture today is a little too on the nose with these scribes, isn’t it?
We wear what we wear sometimes not because it’s comfortable, but because it makes us look good.
We want to make sure that we’re looking respectful when we head out in the public square, so that folks will know (or at least believe) that we have our stuff all together.
Sometimes churches are interested in how their pastor looks in the pulpit rather than on what he’s preaching.
Luckily with this raggedy beard, I know where you all stand on this last one…
Instead of seeing smoke and mirror appearances, lets see people for who they are.
Which, I offer a word of warning straight from Jesus:

Election time- Let’s be real about what these folks can offer us.

I said a few weeks ago that I knew most of how the election would end for us:
I knew that about half of our nation and congregation would be sad and defeated, and the other half would be elated and joyful.
We just didn’t, a few weeks ago, know who was who.
We do now.
Wherever you are, winning side, losing side, or please can we stop talking about this now side, I’ll issue the same words Jesus did.
Beware.
And by that he just meant, see.
See our politicians clearly for who they are.
See them for the promises they make to get elected, versus the promises they deliver on.
See them for the actions they take, not for the words they offer up.
See them beyond the reality distortion fields of news channels and social media posts and propaganda.
A pastor I love by the name of Brian Zahnd posted before the election took place something that is true long after the votes have been counted:
Don’t be naive, political parties are more interested in Christian votes than they are in Christian values. The bottom line for political parties is power. The bottom line for a Christian is love. And therein lies the rub.
May we see clearly.
But for as important as it is to see those who demand respect clearly for who they are, there’s I think a more important kind of seeing that we need to be about as a Church:

Let’s be intentional about noticing the unnoticeable.

Noticing is a step or so beyond just seeing with our eyes, isn’t it?
Noticing is seeing someone, and placing ourselves in their shoes, and sacrificing for them, literally making them and their stories sacred.

The nosiest tend to get the attention in our culture.

Like the treasury at the temple, there’s a lot of noise to sort through, isn’t there?
Jesus shows almost no interest in noisy people giving out of their abundance.

Who are the quiet ones?

Who are the ones that only have trust left?

Right now as we speak, a group of guys from our church are on their way to North Carolina.
We prayed this morning together, and it was lovely.
They’re headed to a place that was hit HARD by hurricane Heleen.
But then another hurricane hit.
And then there was an election.
And our national attention was diverted.
And now no one’s seeing these people who have lost everything.
These are people who have absolutely nothing left.
All they might have is their trust in God.
And I’ve got to tell you, it fills me with absolute beaming pride that not only does Beulah church see them, not only did a member of the congregation come to us with this idea to see those that our national attention has turned from, but we’re going right now to get their backs.
We can do that kind of stuff in the world, can’t we?
We can see them, and in fact notice them by making their stories sacred.

Who are the ones laid it all on the line?

Tomorrow of course is Veterans Day.
And I have heard a similar story from a lot of Veterans:
They’ll say that they were willing, and in fact honored to serve their country.
They’ll say that they were willing, and in fact honored to be able to give everything they had.
They’ll say that they were willing, and would in fact have been honored, to lay down their lives for our freedoms.
And then they came back home, finished their service, and were met with stunning indifference.
Some would even say, it was like no one saw them.
Church, can we notice our veterans together?
Not just by what we did earlier, having them stand up and clapping for them.
Anyone can do that.
We notice our veterans by respecting them.
We notice them by honoring their sacrifice, because they literally made this country, you and me, sacred in their own lives.
We notice them by making sure and in fact insisting that they receive the benefits and healthcare and counseling and gifts they were not only promised, they deserve.
We can notice them too, can’t we?

Who’s vulnerable in the wake of this election?

I debated for a while whether I was going to share this today, but I think it’s important.
This is not from the news or biased source or anything like that.
This is from a friend I know personally.
This friend recieved this letter in the mail, because they had signs in their yard supporting the loosing candidate in this year’s election:
It starts “Greetings (I’ll leave this part out, but it’s a slur)”
Hey, after your done crying in that flag of yours would you sell it to me? Your salty tears will sustain me for the next four years.”
And look, there’s politics, and I don’t want to talk about politics in the pulpit.
But there is a unique nastiness lately that dresses up as politics, and it is so anti-Kingdom we need to speak out about it.
My phone has been blowing up this week from people who’s dominant emotion is fear.
Fear that there will be retribution like my friend for putting a flag in her yard.
Fear from my friends of color who don’t know what kind of future awaits them.
Fear that the nastiness of our politics will spill down into our neighborhoods.
And every bit as much as I’ve seen that, I’ve seen a response something akin to “get over it.”
No, that’s not what Jesus calls us to.
Jesus calls us to notice those who are in fear.
Jesus calls us to protect those who feel they have no protection.
Jesus calls us to be the hands and feet of love, and not the retribution of our politicians.
Look, if your side won and that makes you happy, that’s great!
Make sure you see your side for who they are.
And make sure that we see our neighbors for who they are too.

These stories are sacred.

The story of those in NC who just lost everything in a hurricane is sacred. And that’s why we go.
The story of those who laid their lives down for our benefit, for our veterans, is sacred. And that’s why we honor them.
The story of those who feel vulnerable and afraid is not something to brush past, it is sacred. And that’s why we commit ourselves to being a safe place for all.
The stories of our neighbors right down the street form us that we’ve never met are sacred, and so we dedicate ourselves to meeting more of them in Christ’s love.
The stories of the widows who are throwing in the very last that they have are sacred, and so we notice them.
The stories of the saints of God, our brothers and sisters in the Kingdom, are sacred regardless of how divided our politics make them. That why we respect all.
That’s what respect looks like. Holding everyone’s stories as sacred, even and especially when the world around us tells us we don’t have to.

There are more than a few of those stories in here, and we should share them together.

But there are even more of those sacred stories of respect out there in the world.

So if you’re ready to dish out some Jesus-level respect, if you’re ready to notice our neighbors, if you’re ready to find yourself in these sacred stories: say it with me:

Let’s go.

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