Humility: This is the Way

Introduction part one: Where we’ve been

As we are continuing our lenten study, it’s important to take a step back at where we’ve been before we keep on going.

We are studying “the Way.”

The early Church, we learned on Ash Wednesday, considered themselves a way of life, and not so much a religion.

So we’ve been spending this time in Lent trying to figure out what were the marks of that way of like? What sorts of things do you do if you belong to the Way?

The first week we looked and Forgiveness as the way, recognizing that God has forgiven us, and so we ought to forgive others.

Last week, we talked about Generosity as the way, once again noting that God has been quite generous with us, so we ought to be quite generous with our time, our talents, and our treasure.

This week we’re going to take a look at another attribute of the Way. Our Bible lesson comes to us from Matthew’s Gospel:

The New Revised Standard Version Jesus Denounces Scribes and Pharisees

23 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3 therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. 6 They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, 7 and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. 9 And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

Introduction part two: All there is to know

When I was in 8th grade, I was doing everything I could to make the drumline my freshmen year.

There was a bit of a pecking order to the drumline:

Pit- These were people that could either play xylophone or marimba, two instruments I couldn’t touch, or people that could only be trusted to shake a tamborine from time to time.

Cymbals- In addition to looking like those toy wind up monkeys, cymbal players also had to hold cymbals for snare drummers, which meant lots of bruised fingers if the snare drummers weren’t totally accurate.

Bass- These things were heavy as all giddy up, and no one wanted to wear those in the summer time.

Quads- These were the coolest in my opinion, because these guys usually had stick flips and mallet tricks written in to their routine that the rest of the line couldn’t do.

Snare- This was the cream of the crop. This is where the leaders were. This was the top of the ladder.

At the end of my 8th grade year, after a lot of playing tests, I was put on cymbals as a 9th grader.

Not a bad start, but not where I wanted to end up.

There was a boy on the cymbal line who was a few years older than me, maybe 16 or 17 at the time.

The next year, we were both auditioning to play snare drum.

This boy on the line informed me that he was going to get snare over me, because (and I quote): He’s been practicing, and already knows everything there is to know about drums.

Blink many times for emphasis.

Everything. Everything there is to know?

At 17?

You know more than people who play professionally?

How could you possibly know everything there is to know?

Bible Breakdown

Setting: Passion Week at the Temple

Once again, it’s very important to note the setting here.

This is during the passion week, and this particular story comes at the very beginning of a really long teaching for Jesus.

It’s aimed at a group of people called the Pharisees.

The Pharisees almost always get blamed for being the bad guys, so I want to break down for a second what each of these groups we may have heard of in the Bible are and what they’re all about.

It all has to do, actually, with how they view the nation of Israel.

Saducees- Think of secular liberals today. Kind of religious, but they don’t buy all that miracles and afterlife and super natural stuff. More of a religious but not spiritual bunch, if that makes sense.

These were the go with the flow people.

Zealots- These were people who believed that the only way to restore the kingdom of Israel was to violently overthrow the occupying governing authorities.

When we read later in the passion narrative the story of Pilate giving the crowd a choice between Jesus and Barabbas, Barabbas was a Zealot who had tried to lead an insurrection.

Pharisees- These folks believed that the only way for the Kingdom of Israel to be restored was for everyone everywhere to be following the Law.

The law for them was the Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible.

613 commandments.

If everyone, everywhere, throughout the whole country, could follow these rules and live as God has asked them to live, they could take back their country.

So the Pharisee’s aren’t really bad guys. They’re trying their best to live in to God’s plan for God’s chosen people.

Moses’ seat: Passing the tradition down

In fact on one level, they must be doing an ok job!

Jesus says that they are sitting on Moses’ seat.

The Law came in a line

From God to Moses.

From Moses to Joshua.

From Joshua to the elders and judges

From the elders and judges to the prophets.

From the prophets to the Pharisees.

So Jesus is saying these guys have the words all figured out.

When they talk, they’ve got it right.

But...

Literally not practicing what they preach

Jesus is noting that they teach one thing, but they practice another.

He goes in to a little bit of detail a bit later:

An oath to the sanctuary means nothing to them, but an oath to the money that’s given to the sanctuary can’t be ignored.

They tithe mint, dill, and cummin, but they are far less generous with the “weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith.”

They clean the outside of the cup, as was recommended. But inside, they were full of corruption.

They talk a big game, but they aren’t living what they’re teaching.

For a group of people whose whole deal is getting everyone to practice the law, they sure have an interesting way of going about it, don’t they.

This is why Jesus says they’re tying up heavy burdens, but not helping anyone move them.

The rules are just the rules for other people.

We do what we want.

Worse yet, they make a big show of what they’re up to!

Phylacteries and Fringes: Like birds!

There is a reference in here to phylacteries and fringes.

A phylactery is a small box that you may have seen some orthodox Jewish folks wearing even today.

It comes from Exodus 13:9, which says “It shall serve for you as a sign on your hand and as a reminder on your forehead, so that the teaching of the Lord may be on your lips; for with a strong hand the Lord brought you out of Egypt.”

These boxes contain little scrolls with key scriptures written on them.

The fringe reference is for something called Tsi-Tsi.

These were prayer shawls, which again, orthodox Jews still wear today.

And the fringes of their shawls had these tassels on them.

One scripture even referenced the Messiah having great healing in his Tsi-Tsi, but that’s a sermon for another time.

These were supposed to be little reminders about the Jewish faith.

Apparently, these Pharisees are getting a little bit big with their Phylacteries and Fringes.

Kind of like birds who are trying to draw attention to themselves with big wings and colorful displays, the Pharisees were trying to call attention to what they were up to.

A charitable explaination would be that they wanted folks to notice that they were living according to the law, so they wanted others to live according to the law.

But Jesus kind of already debunked that.

What they were really after was attention.

Great Reversals

As he often does, Jesus has some instruction for the crowd about these attention seeking Pharisees.

What Jesus offers up are three “Great Reversals”

Which, for what it’s worth, is kind of Jesus’ thing.

You think the world works like this. Maybe even common sense tells you that it works like this.

But I’m going to tell you that it actually works this way:

We are all students

The Pharisees had clearly set up a pecking order.

We’re up here, and the rest of you common folk are down there.

We’re the leaders, you are the followers.

We’re the teachers, we’ll give you the law that has been passed down from Moses to us, your job is to students.

Jesus says no, actually there is no pecking order.

We’re all students.

Every day is an opportunity for each of us to learn something of what God is up to in the world.

Every moment we can learn more and more about what this God requires of us.

There is never a moment when we’ve “arrived,” when we have it all together, when we’re all squared away.

From our first breath to our last, we are students in this world.

The greatest among us will be servants

I had a friend in college who went to a small non-denominational church, and they had developed sort of their own lingo and weird sayings in their congregation.

The one we most busted on him for was they would all say, when given the opportunity, “I’m jealous to serve you in that capacity!”

If you asked them for a tissue: I’m jealous...

If they were able to let you go ahead of them in the buffet line: I’m jealous...

If they could loan you a couple of bucks: I’m jealous...

And it came from this scripture!

It came from a conviction that it is not greatness to have people serve you, but rather it’s greatness to be served.

It comes from a conviction that it is not greatness to have people sacrificing for you, but rather greatness is sacrificing for others.

And it’s born of a conviction that Jesus led by example: not asking service from God’s people, but giving his life on the cross to serve us.

The Pharisees had this exactly backwards, and let’s be honest, so much of our world still does.

Our country is full of a bunch of people who think that real greatness is power of one kind or another, when in reality our greatness lies in our ability to serve one another.

The exalted will be humbled, and the humble will be exalted.

This reversal is inherit in all of Jesus’ teaching, but this might be the most explicit time he’s said it.

We have to recognize this as a great reversal!

Think about business:

Will the humbled be exalted? Or is it kill or be killed?

Think about politics:

Is it really true that the meek will inherit the earth? Or is it only the strong survive?

Think about the playground at recess:

Is it really true that the lowly will be popular? Or is it the bullies?

This teaching from Jesus, if we’re totally and completely honest, flies in the face of everything our culture teaches us.

To live life this way, to assume that the humble will be exalted and the exalted now will be humbled, it’s kind of like a salmon trying to swim upstream.

You are going to face some resistance to that notion.

And yet, this is the Way.

When we are humble, this is the Way.

When we are a servant, this is the Way.

When we choose the role of a student and not a teacher, this is the Way.

Applications

Let’s learn together.

I’ve spent a great deal of time this week thinking about my grandmother.

She was such an example of this life-long student idea.

She had only a 8th grade education, but when I was in seminary she would call me up regularly to ask me what I was reading.

She didn’t always understand when I was talking about the big made up words we theologians like to use to make ourselves sound smart (huh, that might be relevant).

But she knew that I was learning about God, and there was nothing more important to her.

She wanted to learn about God too.

If Jesus is right, and we have one teacher to whom we are all students, then it is also true that in every situation class is in session.

God can teach us so much about the world through our interactions with each other.

God can teach us so much about the creation with a simple walk through the park.

God can teach us so much about what it means to be human in the heavy moments of our lives.

I don’t know about you, but I had to take endless notes on just about everything when I was in school.

Maybe this week we should write down what God is teaching us?

What does the song of that spring bird have to tell you about redemption?

What does a tender moment shared between family tell us about God’s love?

What does a global pandemic and a year’s worth of isolation teach us about how much we need each other?

Which leads to one last point on this: God teaches as much, if not more, in the shadows of life as he does in the light.

When things are dark, when we’re unsure of our next steps, when we feel like we can’t go on, we best have our listening ears on. Class is in session.

Let’s serve together.

I have taken so many mission trips at this point in my life that I actually lost count.

I tried to count for this sermon, but I just couldn’t track it all down!

I have been a leader for trips where I’ve taken some of Upper Saint Clair’s finest, wealthiest, most well to do folks down to places like Haiti, in the midst of such abject poverty that they’ve never seen before.

And every time I’ve taken one of these trips, it’s shocking to me how much it changes people.

Not just for a week or two afterwards, but some people I’ve seen completely reorient their lives after a trip like that.

It’s because they came face to face with the great reversal, that true greatness is actually found in serving others, and they came to believe it was true.

As this pandemic is winding down, we’re all starting to dream about what we’ll do with rediscovered freedoms and liberties.

I hope some of your plans involve service.

I hope you plan to serve around town, maybe at the City Mission or at a soup kitchen or a food bank.

I hope you plan to serve your neighbors, looking after those who have had a particularly rough time in the pandemic.

And who knows, maybe we can even arrange for some of us to go on a trip to Haiti or Mexico or some place like that.

Though it should certainly be said, we don’t have to cross borders to be of service. We can do that right here.

If true greatness lives in service, then we should be heavily invested in serving.

Let’s exalt the humble.

A friend once taught me a lesson about leadership using the image of a sailboat.

She said that some people are leaders like sails.

They’re big.

They’re hard to miss.

Sometimes they’re decorated.

But they’re always upfront.

But there are other people who lead like a rudder.

You never see the rudder.

It’s always behind the scenes.

It’s hardly ever noticed.

The ship needs both to move.

If the rudder breaks down, you aren’t going anywhere.

I happen to know that there are quite a few rudder leaders around here.

There are folks who lead behind the scenes, who don’t want a big fuss made over them, that would absolutely run me out of town if I mentioned their name in a sermon.

But I’m betting I don’t have to, because I’m betting you know who they are too.

Take a moment this week, and say thank you.

Because the more we realize our place in this story...

When we let ourselves be students...

When we serve those around us...

When we seek to be humble rather than to be exalted...

We are just one more step closer to living in the Way of Jesus.