It's Not About You!

Reflection/Poem for the 26^th Sunday After Pentecost              Thomas E Wilson, Guest Celebrant

Church of the Holy Trinity, Hertford, NC                                 November 5, 2023

Joshua 3:7-17      Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37      1 Thessalonians 2:9-13     Matthew 23:1-12

It's Not About You!

One of the themes in the lessons for today has to do with the avoidance of arrogance. In the Hebrew Testament lesson, “The Lord said to Joshua, “This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, so that they may know that I will be with you as I was with Moses.” Notice the exaltation has nothing to do with Joshua's innate special talents but because it is a sign that the power comes from the power greater than ourselves.

In the Epistle for today, Paul is writing to the people in Thessaloniki, not to brag about what he has done, which was considerable, but to give thanks for what the Spirit of the Living Christ is doing among them. Paul did have a high opinion of himself, but he avoided arrogance because he understood his own brokenness and God's grace redeeming all.

In the Gospel lesson, Jesus warns the disciples not to be filled with the arrogance of the teachers of the law “The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

The warnings about arrogance are not just a Christian teaching but was universal. Greek comedies had the central theme of laughing at the vanity of the characters and Greek Tragedies had as their central theme the the downfall and punishment of those who in their arrogance saw themselves as the equals of the Gods.

In the Roman Empire, the Commanders of the Armies who were victorious in the field were welcomed back for a Triumph in Rome. They were allowed to drive their chariot through the streets of Rome leading their prisoners and booty to the exultation of the crowd. However, behind each Commander celebrating his victory in the chariot stood a slave, holding a Laurel Crown over the head of the Victor, with the slave instructed to say over and over again, “Memento Mori”, “Remember, you are a mortal.”

In the Diocese this last week there were two ordinations to the Priesthood. I had wanted to attend but I was still struggling with the remnants of Covid. There is a moment in the Ordination service where the Bishop lays hands on the kneeling Ordinand, and the other Priests present gather around and lay their own hands in prayer on the Ordinand; it looks like for all the world like a football huddle. The Priests who were honest knew how difficult it is to be a Priest and they were saying by their participation that you can't make it by yourself.

One of the things that happens to people who become ordained is that many of us had seen the same movies about Ordained folk whose message is always the same: just have to work harder, and if you just work harder and keep the faith you will survive; not only survive but thrive. There is the 1941 Movie “One Foot In Heaven” where Frederic March plays the Methodist Pastor who survives and against all odds thrives and ends the movie having the entire town rush out into the streets to sing “The Church is One Foundation” while he plays high up in the New Carillon. There is the the 1944 “Keys of the Kingdom” with Gregory Peck who is able to triumph and become beloved as a Roman Catholic Priest in China. There is the 1950 Joel McCrea vehicle: Stars In My Crown” as the young preacher who is able to tame a small Southern town. There is the 1955 “A Man Called Peter” with Richard Todd as Presbyterian Pastor Peter Marshall who packs churches and becomes a symbol of America at its best. There was the 1963 epic The Cardinal with Tom Tryon as the good looking version of Father What a Waste fighting singlehandedly Nazis and prejudice. Then when I went to seminary some the seminarians and wives would gather to see Richard Chamberlain wrestle with temptation in the 1983 mini series The Thornbirds.

I thought back on my own Ordination to the Priesthood. Professionally I was doing well but my marriage was falling apart and my daughter was having a rough time. I stuffed everything down and worked harder to be a success. I kept up a facade of looking like I was in charge. I put on a show of confidence and it seemed to work for people who did not look deep enough.

There was one person who who looked deeper. I had met her two weeks after I was Ordained to the Diaconate in Western North Carolina and moved to Virginia to take up a position. When I was ordained a Deacon, there was nothing humble about me. I knew the church was lucky to have me. I had worked darn hard to get there! I was the hero of my story and the Episcopal Church was lucky to have me. This person was very unimpressed when she met me, and I was less than impressed with her. She worked for the Diocese and saw my arrogance and refused to attend my ordination to the Priesthood. I think if she had attended, she might have stood up to object to my ordination at the appropriate time in the service when the Bishop asks if anyone has an objection.

A year later, I took a position of Rector of a Church in another town. I was very good at Preaching and ministering but my marriage ended in divorce and I submitted my resignation because I had let them down. The Vestry told me to put away my resignation and they accepted me as the broken person that I was. They did not excuse me, they did not forgive me; they just accepted the fact.

I remember attending the installation of of a Rector when a neighboring Priest stood up to object to the Rector at the time for what he saw as a moral failure that the search committee had overlooked. The Bishop stopped the service and took the complainant and the Rector designate back into the sacristy and we all waited. The Bishop came out and allowed the service to continue. I spent the rest of the service, breathing a sigh of relief that my early years as ordained did not have someone call me out on how shallow I had been and how often I had not honored God's call to forgive abundantly.

I want to give excuses for my arrogance. But there is no excuse since I was so filled with my pride and my fears that my pride would be exposed. C. S. Lewis wrote about the difference between forgiving and excusing.

“I find that when I think I am asking God to forgive me I am often in reality (unless I watch myself very carefully) asking Him to do something quite different. I am asking him not to forgive me but to excuse me. But there is all the difference in the world between forgiving and excusing. Forgiveness says, “Yes, you have done this thing, but I accept your apology; I will never hold it against you and everything between us two will be exactly as it was before.” But excusing says, “I see that you couldn’t help it or didn’t mean it; you weren’t really to blame.” If one was not really to blame then there is nothing to forgive. In that sense forgiveness and excusing are almost opposite.

As is my practice, I try to write a poem to focus on what I think the Holy is asking me to see before I start writing sermon text . One of the people being Ordained this last week was a colleague on the Outer Banks. I wrote a poem for that occasion. The poem took me to remember my own ordination almost 40 years ago. Lots of prancing around, but I knew I was being open to a whole new way of believing on having a place in the heart of God. I saw in him the desire that burned in my heart to be God's servant and wanted him to avoid the sin of arrogance that I struggled through.

It's Not About You!

You are not the Center of the Universe,

You're catching a ride passing through;

God knows where what you are to do,

Be free to take as a blessing or a curse!

Funniest costumers you've ever seen,

Prance around to make you feel swell;

Egos expands to either heaven or hell,

But now has a glimmer of hope's been.

There is a power greater than ourselves,

Being unleashed into a new imagination

Of your place in a Heart of God's station,

Blowing religious dust off souls' shelves.

The Holy is touching your tongue

To sing the songs that our Jesus sung.