A couple of months ago, Saundra decided that our home needed a nice green plant to fill a corner of the living room beside a chair. She had some plants, but they were far too small to fill up the corner, so she went to Lowes to find a plant. She checked several plants and finally settled upon a palm tree that looked good and healthy. She bought it and brought it home.
Unfortunately, what had looked like a good, middle-sized palm tree in the store totally dominated the corner. It was much too tall and wide – when you sat in the chair beside the palm tree, you had to move a branch out of your face. It seems that the palm tree –which was big enough we named it Matilda – that palm tree was just far too large for the place it was intended for. And so we moved around Matilda several times, moved furniture, and finally found a place for Matilda.
Matilda’s problem – being the wrong size – is a problem many people have difficulty with. But the size I’m talking about today isn’t body size, although most of us could – and do – complain about our body size. No, the size I’m talking about is the size of our ego – how much are we worth in the world?
The world has several different ways to tell us how much we are worth.
One way we judge our value in front of other people is through our birthdays and Christmas. Who gives us a present? Who sends us Christmas cards? How many did we get and when did we get them? I know of people who are terribly hurt and feel that other people have insulted them if they are left off another’s Christmas card list, or if they don’t get a valuable enough present on their Christmas or birthday. Just this last week I’ve seen a commercial which urges a man to stay out of the dog house by buying his wife jewelry instead of a small appliance, and there is some truth to that. With some people, one misstep in choice of present – and zip! You are in the dog house at least until Valentine’s Day!
I remember when I was a child that there would often be a “big” box in the corner of the room. I always wanted the big present and my sister and I would always wonder who was getting the big present. And we kept track of how many presents we got – did she get more or did I get more?
And of course, many times the big present would be for my dad from my mom or would be something my dad was giving to my mom. But I would always hope, each year my sister would always hope – which one of US would get the big present, because that told us which one of us was more valuable, and that was important. Of course, we never really realized this was what we were doing, but it was true. It was true. We judged our value by the size and number of our presents
There is the Ted Turner method of deciding the value of someone. You remember Ted Turner, the guy who founded WTBS, CNN, Turner Movies, and several other cable channels? Turner famously said that “Life’s a game and money is how you keep score.” And many, many people judge their own value by how much they are paid. If you get a raise, you feel good. If the company cuts your pay, you look around for another place to work – even if you didn’t need the money, because you feel less valuable with a smaller paycheck. Many marriages have encountered problems when one spouse is paid more than the other, or the previous balance of paychecks is changed because of a layoff. There is something about earning money that gives us a feeling of worth and of power. We even brag about the paychecks of our favorite pitchers or quarterbacks, believing that the highest paid pitcher is naturally the “best” pitcher. And when our retirement nest eggs shrank a few years ago when the stock market fell, we felt terrible – even if we didn’t plan to retire for 15 years – because somehow, we had become less valuable.
We feel valuable when we own an expensive car, a nice new pickup, when we find our house appraises more than the others near us. We feel less valuable when we own a cheap but working car that is 8 years old. And the advertising and the salesmen and everyone we see reminds us that this world decides value based upon how much money you have or how much money you earn. If you want proof, watch the difference in how most people treat a medical doctor and anyone who admits to being unemployed. How differently do you treat a lawyer and a homeless man who stops by here for a couple of nights, a meal or two, and asks for a bus ticket? And most importantly, how do you feel when you are unemployed instead of employed, when you are retired instead of working, or if your husband is unemployed instead of employed? How much is what you think of yourself related to how much you or your spouse makes?
Another way our society decides who is valuable and who is not valuable is by beauty and other physical attributes. Studies have shown that good looking people are hired quicker and earn more money than average looking people and they both do better than downright ugly people. Tall men also do better than short men – in almost every presidential election, the taller of the two final candidates has won – but the tall man advantage applies to many fields. The fat and the very skinny suffer discrimination. Until the passage of the Americans with Disability Act, those with disabilities were often discriminated against in hiring.
A fourth way our society decides who is valuable and who is not valuable is by speech. Did you know that people buy more often from a salesman with an upperclass British accent than one with a common Midwestern accent? When I lived in Johnson City, TN, I spent a year as a life insurance salesman and once a week I had to make phone calls to set 20 appointments. I quickly found out that if the person answering the phone answered with a Tennessee accent, I’d better speak with a Southern accent, but if the person answering the phone had a Northern accent, I’d better respond with a Northern accent. And we assume that certain accents mean that a person is uneducated or stupid because of the way television has portrayed people with those accents.
And then, there are clothes. If you don’t think people judge you by clothing, then apply for a manager’s job in a government office and show up wearing dirty blue jeans and an NRA t-shirt instead of a suit and tie. If you think that only snobs judge you by clothing, then show up to apply for an oil truck driver’s job and wear a three-piece suit and tie. We assume that people who dress appropriately are more valuable and we assume that people with the wrong clothes are less valuable.
And of course, there is political or other power. How many of you will treat a governor or President you like better than the man who asks you for $10 to buy cigarettes? How many of you will listen to what a politician says but totally ignore what one of the Kardashians says? (I admit to being guilty of this!) How many of you will listen to what your supervisor says, or a state policeman says, or a soldier says instead of what the checkout girl at the supermarket says?
And why does this matter?
Because when we think we are more valuable than someone else, we think we have power over them. And when we think we are less valuable than someone else, we let them have power over us. Yet what we need to remember is that God created each of us, and therefore we are each God’s possessions, worthy of being treated as valuable possessions of the Creator of the Universe.
When John the Baptist began to preach in the wilderness near the Jordan River, he said that God wanted people to repent of their sins. And when people asked him what he wanted done, John answered them: “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” You see, clothing is not to be a way to judge the value of a person.
He told tax collectors:
13 “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them. Money is not to be a way to judge the value of a person.
And solders: “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.” Power is not to be used to judge the value of a person.
John the Baptist told people that each person was just as valuable as the next person. Just because you have power over someone is not a reason to use it. Instead, those who are powerful should help those who are weak and treat them well.
And John told us something else.
On the day when people were looking at John with awe and with wonder, trying to decide if John was the Messiah, God’s Anointed man who would set all things right, on that day, John said, ““I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."
When John was being looked at by people who were thinking that John was very, very valuable – John told them that he was lower than the lowest slave, not even worthy of touching the sandal straps of Jesus Christ.
In other words...clothing, power, money, speech, education, all of these things do not matter to God. It does not make you more valuable to God if you speak well, if you wear nice suits, if you have great military or political power, if you have billions of dollars and a Harvard education. It does not even matter if you are the greatest prophet who ever lived, which is what Jesus later said about John the Baptist. It does not matter if you are Billy Graham, devoting your life to God and Jesus Christ. You are still unworthy to untie the sandal straps of Jesus Christ, the Holy Messiah, the Savior of the world. We are no where near the equal of Jesus.
But at the same time, there are other people who feel that they are too poor, too ugly, too bad for God. There are people who will not come to church because they have skeletons hidden in the closet that they worry will be used to shame them. They may have used drugs – they may still use drugs. They may have been a heavy drinker – they may still drink. They may be living with their boyfriend or girlfriend and they worry that someone will be critical of them.
It is amazing the ways that people think that they are too far gone for God to save them. I knew a woman who was convinced that God would never forgive her because she slapped her son – who was a real brat – once several years before. I knew another man who wouldn’t come to church because an old girlfriend attended the church. Another woman was concerned that she had divorced a guy who had beaten her, put her in the hospital, threatened her with a pistol, starved her, and then run off with a pair of women, and she was concerned that God would not forgive her for the divorce. We can be SOOO harsh on ourselves!
And that is the beauty of the God we serve. If you ask for forgiveness, if you make the choice to try your best to follow God’s Son, Jesus Christ, God will forgive you of whatever your sin is! For no matter how much you’ve messed up, you are still a person made by God, a special photograph of God made from a special angle, with special lighting, and there is only one copy of you, and so you are immensely valuable to God – and to all who truly are following the teachings of Jesus Christ. Your sins do not make you less valuable to God!
And so this is the really wonderful thing about Christianity:
We are asked to do what is not normal for us. We are asked to both recognize our immense value, to understand that we are truly sons and daughters of the Creator of the Universe, Princes and Princesses of the Kingdom of God – and yet we have to recognize that we are no better – yet no worse – than any of the other Princes and Princesses of that Kingdom. The very wealthy, committed Presbyterian deacon named Sam Walton who found a way to provide products to people at a lower price is just as important to God as the poor shoe maker named William Cary, who became the first modern missionary to India. Saundra and I have a friend who is a Methodist pastor who used to be a violent drug dealer – perhaps you know someone who is at bottom today who could one day lead hundreds and thousands of people to Christ – or someone who has millions of dollars who could make a tremendous difference in the world by supporting missions and relief work. Both are valuable to God – and so is the woman who is lying in bed this morning with a hangover as her three kids are trying to eat cereal and watch television by themselves because she had her mind on finding a new guy last night. She is also valuable – a special view of the God and God’s love that is unique in this world – and the only difference between us and her is that she doesn’t know it. Yet. Will you tell her?
That doesn’t mean that every person is asked to do the same for God the King. One Prince may be a great administrator, another be a great speaker, a third may be a great teacher of teenagers, and a fourth may be excellent at building things. One Princess may be a wonderful seamstress, another be a great singer, a third may have a gift of raising money, and a fourth may be able to listen to Alzheimer’s patients ramble for hours on end. Each person is unique and shows a special view of God’s love. What is your unique gift, your special view of God’s love that you could show others?
And so what would happen if we really listened to John the Baptist’s words over the centuries? What would happen if we listened to those words that were given to John by God? What would happen if actually did what John told us God wants us to do?
We’d have to remember that Christmas isn’t our birthday party, wouldn’t we?
“Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”
Do you have clothes? Give a set of clothes to someone who doesn’t have clothes. Do you have food? Share your food with someone who doesn’t have food.
And perhaps we need to understand what John meant, and put it into the context of the time. In John’s time, probably 99 percent of the people had either one, two, or three sets of clothes, or only a partial set of clothes. And so when John was saying to give away a set of clothes, John truly meant to give away at least half your clothes, and he may have meant for you to give away all of your extra clothes.
Now I know that we live in a wealthier time, and I know that the Clarksburg Mission sends most of the clothes donated to it to a company that sends the clothes over seas to people who are truly poor, who have one set of clothes or a partial set of clothes.
And so we update John’s commandments for our time.
If you buy the members of your family nice Christmas sweaters, wouldn’t the right thing to do be to buy Christmas sweaters for people who have no Christmas sweaters? If you buy a doll for your daughter, wouldn’t the right thing to do be to buy a doll for another child? If you buy a rotary saw for your husband’s hobby, wouldn’t putting a rotary saw in the hands of a man who is willing to work, but can’t afford the proper tools to get started be the right thing to do?
And so let me suggest this:
- Buy some kid’s clothes and give them to a teacher you know to give to the right students.
- Buy some dolls and give them to the elementary school.
- Buy some tools and sewing machines and give them to Gail at Open Heart Ministries at Duff Street Church to give to men and women who want to work.
Look at what you are doing for your family – and do that for people who really need help, who are struggling, who would really benefit from a used computer, a how-to DVD, a book about restaurant cooking, a book on home-made crafts. Think outside the box and get creative about helping your brothers and sisters in this world.
And now I’d like to have a short video about an out-of-the-box way to help people. Think about what you would do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_nuPlE2KU8
Of the people in the video, who would you most trust inviting over to your home? Yet which person would you have most likely invited over to your home before seeing the video?
Think about it.
John compared people to trees in an orchard, and pointed to God as the owner of the orchard. In an orchard, every year about this time of year, the trees that are rotten, the trees that are diseased, the trees that aren’t producing fruit are cut down and burned to keep the rot from spreading. John said: 9 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Have you been producing good fruit for the Master of the Orchard?
John also compared people to wheat that has been harvested. Once again speaking of God as the owner of the farm: 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
After the harvest, the good grain is threshed, it is separated from the chaff, the useless part of the wheat stalk. Have you become good wheat or are you useless chaff, just lying there on the threshing floor doing nothing for God, ready to be burned up?
The King’s Son returns shortly. When He arrived on that dark night long ago, the most powerful Person in the Universe became a humble infant, emptying Himself of all power to be born in the lowest of places that He might show people of God’s love. Perhaps you can be like Him.
Now is the time to turn around your life, becoming humble if you’ve been full of yourself – and lifting up your head if you’ve been burden down with your head to the ground. God wants us to hold an honest understanding of who we are – Princes and Princesses of the Kingdom, representing God on this earth. But God wants us to find our brothers and sisters, who are just like us – only they don’t realize that God loves them as sons and daughters also. It is up to us to show them this truth, this Gospel.
Take a gift to someone new this year. Take the time to balance their self and their ego the way that God wants us all to do. Remember that Christmas is not your birthday, but it is the birthday of Jesus Christ, the Beautiful One who came from God to tell each of us of God’s love, who died for each of us that we would know how deep that love is, how valuable we each are. He came back to life to demonstrate that He was who He claimed to be – God walking upon this earth, the Eternal, Almighty One who loves you despite everything you have done, not because of anything you have done, but because of how good God is and what God has done.
And to think that He came to us as a little Child! Can you imagine what Joseph must have thought that night? Could you imagine having been trusted with Someone who is eternal? You have been trusted with someone who is eternal – bring your neighbors and family and friends into eternity by sharing with them the beauty of what Christ has done for each person this Christmas time.
As you remember what you have done, both good and bad – and what He has done –remember your friends, neighbors, and family – those who think too highly of themselves – and those who think too little of themselves. Speak to them as you are able.
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