Where Do You Think You Should Sit? (Reflections on Pentecost 12, Year C 2025)

 

“For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Lule 14:11)

Have you ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger Effect? It’s this wild theory cooked up by two Cornell University psychology students back in 1999 to explain why people think they’re terrific at things they actually suck at. These guys noticed how students who did particularly crappy work on an exam still left the exam room thinking they’d aced it. Basically, the Dunning-Kruger Effect tries to explain why some people are too dumb to know how dumb they are.

Have you ever heard somebody with a small amount of knowledge in an area spout off like he’s just earned a PhD in the subject? That’s the Dunning-Kruger Effect. It’s our tendency to overestimate our own sense of worth and compare ourselves favorably to others. It’s like when 66% of business managers rate themselves as being in the top 5%.

Conversely, Dunning and Kruger reported that individuals with a relatively high level of expertise often questioned their own abilities and status in their chosen arenas. They were smart enough to know they didn’t know everything. They tend, to borrow the metaphor from the Gospel lesson[i] for Pentecost 12 Year C, to take the lower places, believing the higher place might be reserved for another.

Unfortunately, humility has never been humanity’s strong suit. Ever since the serpent told Eve eating the fruit would make her be like God[ii], we’ve been preoccupied with our own sense of self-worth. I’ll bet Jesus was really amused at that banquet as he watched the guests slithering around while trying to make the best impression to receive recognition from their host or fellow guests. I have to wonder if he was chuckling to himself quietly. I also have to wonder where his assigned seat was[iii].

Let’s face it: we all have a certain lust for status. You know this if you’ve ever gone to a high school or college reunion. Everybody wants to show off how well they’ve done, how great and important their work is, how nice their home is, how attractive their kids are, and what great vacations and leisure their hard work and brilliance have allowed them to enjoy[iv]. Imagine if you showed up to one of these shindigs and said, “I still live in my parents’ house. I’m disabled with no job, I never married, have no kids, never travel, and I live on government assistance.” Would you even bother showing up? Perhaps you could augment your revelations by saying, “But God is still good to me.” How do you think the other guests would react to that? How would you react?

It would seem status in the eyes of Jesus is not about earthly achievement but about inclusivity, mercy, and generosity. The “poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” are always welcome guests at his banquet. COVID-19 and the recent public utility workers’ strike in Philadelphia rather dramatically emphasized the gap we have between high status and actual importance. Think about it. What if every construction day laborer, lettuce picker, hotel maid, carwash attendant, nursing home aid, landscape crewmember, and Dunkin Donuts counter worker were suddenly scooped up and packed off to their country of origin? We’d be pretty lost without them. Since this is Labor Day weekend, it might be appropriate to say a prayer of gratitude for those who do the lower status work.

I think we all suffer from our own form of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. It’s so easy to see ourselves as deserving—at least more deserving than that person—when, once we stop to recognize it, we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God[v]. Maturity in faith tells us where our place at the banquet table ought to be. It shows us our faults and our shortcomings and teaches us humble submission to God’s rule and humble gratitude for God’s grace. It also reminds us that, in God’s eyes, we are no more lovely or deserving than anyone else. It teaches us the absurdity of comparison and competition, and it lets us get rid of our own fear of inadequacy or disgrace and lets us make peace with being average. Once we stop coveting that more prominent seat at the table, we can really enjoy the banquet.

I’m so glad you stopped by this week. Please enjoy your Labor Day weekend and come visit my blog again.

PS – Learn more about the Dunning-Kriger Effect by clicking this link: Dunning-Kruger

 

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[i] Luke 11:1, 7-14.

[ii] Genesis 3:5

[iii] Do you think they put the peasant preacher from Nazareth in a lower seat? In verses 2-6, omitted from this lesson, Jesus took one of the guests aside and quietly healed his edema. I’ll bet none of the other guests could do that.

[iv] Also, how thin and fit they still are, compared to you. (Looks like you’ve put on a few pounds since we saw you last)

[v] Romans 3:23

The Healing Community (Reflections on Pentecost 11, Year C 2025)

 

…the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things being done by him. (Luke 13:17b)

Sue and Paul[i] were family friends back in California. They were a comfortable middle-aged couple living in a comfortable development in a very comfortable home where they slept in separate bedrooms. This arrangement was not because of any lack of marital affection between the two, but because Sue suffered from fibromyalgia, was often in chronic pain, and rather desperately needed her sleep. Paul snored like a Chevy El Camino with a broken muffler, so his beloved needed a quiet space to catch her own z’s. They’d wish each other good night, and Sue would retreat to her room where she often worked on some of her literary projects well into the night. In the morning Paul would wake her and bring her a cup of tea.

One morning Paul came to wake Sue as usual and found her lying on the floor. She had suffered a cardiac event during the night and had been dead for several hours. Paul had been asleep when it happened.

I was doing my internship with a congregation in New York when this tragedy occurred. Paul asked if I’d fly back to California to preside at Sue’s memorial. I remember sitting with him on the back patio of his home, and he told me of the sense of isolation he felt. Everything in the world seemed absurdly trivial in the face of his loss, and he experienced a profound sense of separation. He told me with no small amount of bitterness, “People tell me they know how I feel. Well, they don’t.”

Isn’t that the truth?

When we experience a serious, life-changing loss the whole world seems to slip away from us. We enter some kind of invisible bubble from whose interior we can see the rest of the world and all the people in it, but we no longer feel any sense of connection to it or them. Grief and pain isolate. And it’s not just our own feelings, but the rest of the world tends to sneak softly away from our suffering. What do you say to someone who has just been diagnosed with cancer? How do you approach a couple whose child just committed suicide? Is there a proper way to comfort the neighbor who has been out of work for almost a year and has needed to rely on the SNAP program to feed his family?

The anguish felt by the woman in the Gospel lesson for Pentecost 11, Year C in the Revised Common Lectionary (Luke 13: 10-17) may not be only the orthopedic ailment which has crippled her for years. It might also be the awful sense of “otherness”—a sense of not being part of a community. It’s significant, I think, that this unnamed woman did not approach Jesus. Rather, Jesus saw her, knew she was suffering, and called out to her. He broke through that invisible bubble which kept her at a distance from those who understood illness and infirmity only as God’s punishments for some kind of disobedience. Note, too, that the cowardly leader of the synagogue lacks the spherical opulence to condemn Jesus for doing the work of healing on the Sabbath. Rather, this morally pusillanimous hypocrite chastises the woman, the one on the outside of the society, when she didn’t even ask Jesus to heal her!

I can’t help but wonder what the woman was feeling when she came to the synagogue. She certainly didn’t come seeking or expecting the guest rabbi from Nazareth to make her ailing back straight again. Did she come just to be in the presence of the sacred, to hear the words of comfort from the scrolls? Did she stand in the rear, not mixing with the other women, keeping her eyes on the ground, accepting that her infirmity was her permanent burden to bear?

The work Jesus performed on this particular Sabbath was a work of restoration. By restoring this woman to wholeness, Jesus restored her to the community. She was able—and quite joyful—to enter into the praise of God with all the others who had come to that holy place of worship. Jesus was quite clear that the disability which had afflicted this poor lady for eighteen years was not a sign of God’s frowning judgment. She was bound by the Adversary[ii], not by God. He went on to call her a “daughter of Abraham”—further establishing her as one of the family, re-connecting her, and breaking the bubble of suffering which had made her a pariah.

This is the joyful blessing of the Sabbath. It’s the ability to gather as community. I must confess that, in the pre-COVID-19 days, I thought the internet would be as wonderful a tool for the Gospel as the printing press had been in Martin Luther’s day. But I was wrong. There is absolutely nothing to substitute being in the company of your church family on the Sabbath. Our need for warm, interpersonal contact is both nourishing and healing. Yes, there are those who fear betraying their emotions in the sacred space. Perhaps they worry that their anxieties, fears, or griefs will intrude on the devotion of their fellow congregants. I say if such frailties are not excused and embraced by a Christian community that community isn’t doing its job. We don’t always have to know how to approach a hurting brother or sister. We’ll do 90% of our care by simply showing up.

I agreed with my friend Paul those many years ago. Many will claim they understand when they really don’t. I know I didn’t. But that’s okay. You don’t need to understand someone in order to love them. We can all do that. And whenever we gather for Sabbath worship, we can look to the one on the cross. He understands us all.

I truly appreciate you for taking the time to read my blog this week. Please remember the Sabbath day and be in the company of your Christian family. They need you.

 

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[i] Not their real names.

[ii] In Greek, ho Satanas. This didn’t always mean the Devil as we understand him. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the word for Satan can mean the accuser. It could also mean just anything which impedes the work or desire of God. A serious illness is certainly an adversity.

Family Gets Messy (Reflections on Pentecost 10, Year C 2025)

 

“Do you think I’ve come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” (Luke 12:51)

It seems every time I open my laptop and look at the news there’s some gossipy story about Britain’s Royal Family. I have to confess, I suck that stuff down like a toddler with a juice cup. There’s something in me that just loves the castles and the scarlet uniforms and the Church of England and all that classy stuff. But I also think it must suck being part of a clan whose family business is representing the whole nation—especially when you can’t seem to get your act together and every family spat and squabble gets splashed across the world press for nitwits like me to read. I mean, I really hope the King and Harry make up and the two princely brothers can shake hands someday. But it also makes me think just how messy families are. If these pampered, palace-dwelling stiffs can’t manage to get along, there shouldn’t be any shame for the rest of us when we’re not on speaking terms with someone who swims in our gene pool.

In the Gospel lesson for Pentecost 10, Year C in the Revised Common Lectionary (Luke 12:49-56) Jesus warns us that he’s going to create some division within families. He wasn’t kidding. It’s very possible in the world of this text to be kicked out of your family if you decided you wanted to follow this rabbi from Nazareth or any of his disciples. You could even get kicked out of your community. Later, Christians who waffled and denied Jesus in order to save their jobs or their lives in the face of official Roman persecution risked not being allowed back into the church (even though the church was supposed to be teaching love and forgiveness!).

Jesus didn’t come with the purpose of screwing up family relations, but that has often been the result. Obedience to the way of Christ is always going to get under someone’s skin and, sinful, broken children that we are, relations are going to get strained.

Of course, there are good reasons for family discord, and not-so-good reasons. If you happen to be a hereditary monarch and titular head of your nation’s official church, you might take it amiss if your little brother has been hanging out with a notorious pedophile and human trafficker. After all, such behavior reflects rather poorly on both the church and the state. Most of us, however, won’t find ourselves in that sort of situation, so it’s best we examine the motives which lead us to slamming doors, blocking numbers, or banning others from our social media.

I would guess the most likely reason for a righteous exile from family life will have something to do with substance abuse. There may be times when someone’s drinking or drugging means you have to revoke their welcome for the sake of the peace of the rest of the family. Life in Christ means we’re called to forgive sin but not ignore it. I imagine it’s an incredibly painful thing to tell your child or your sibling or your parent that their addiction has cost them their place in the family and they will have to earn their way back.

Obedience to Christ calls us to be witnesses to righteousness and speak truth when we’re confronted with falsehoods. Nobody wants to cause trouble, but if hate speech and ignorance aren’t challenged, they won’t go away on their own. In the First Lesson (Jeremiah 23:23-29) the prophet calls out false prophets who claimed they’d had mystical dreams promising Judah safety and prosperity. Jeremiah knew these guys were liars and suck-ups who were telling the king what he wanted to hear. Jeremiah felt it his responsibility to preach the word of God. This didn’t work out too well for him. He was ostracized, ridiculed, and died in obscurity. But he did what he was called to do.

Not all of us are going to be Jeremiah, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or Martin Luther King. Nevertheless, when your cousin Dave starts using the “N word,” or starts bashing LGBTQ+ people, or starts telling you the Rapture is coming as soon as Israel conquers all of Jerusalem, you need to set him straight. And, to borrow a quote attributed to Elie Weisel, we must never allow anyone to be humiliated in our presence.

Families are messy. So is standing up for the Gospel, but obedience to Christ carries responsibilities. Sometimes it means bringing a little fire to your world.

Be good to your family this week and keep on being a witness.

Waiting for the Burglar? (Reflections on Pentecost 9, Year C)

 

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32)

I will always remember the sound of my brother-in-law Bruce’s voice on the afternoon of February 17, 1989. I had just taught my last period at Stephen M. Wright Junior High in Los Angeles. I was summoned to the school office for a phone call. Bruce phoned the school (there being no cell phones in those pre-historic days) to tell me that my sister had just given birth to their first child, a little girl. The new daddy’s voice pulsated with excitement and love for his new infant daughter. “There’s a new little girl in the world,” he said. “She’s beautiful!”

A year later, when he informed me my sis was pregnant again, he didn’t sound quite so excited. In fact, he had the look of a hedge fund manager whose office was just raided by the FBI. “I don’t know,” he said. “Two babies..? I don’t know how we’ll manage.”

 They managed just fine. But that’s the thing about babies. Like a lot of things in this world, they tend to come around when you’re not expecting them or haven’t planned for them. But God provides. You just have to have a little faith.

I’m not saying there isn’t plenty to worry about these days. In the First Lesson from the RCL for Pentecost 9, Year C (Genesis 15:1-6) Abram is worrying that God won’t ever come through on his promise. He and his missus Sarai have been planning for and expecting a baby, but one just isn’t forthcoming. Abe’s getting discouraged, and his big fear is he will never achieve the desire of his heart—a son and heir. God reassures the old boy that he’ll get what he wants. It’s just not going to be right away. So Abe says, “Okay,” and the Lord reckons it to him as righteousness.

If you’re ever wondering what righteousness looks like, there it is. It’s faith. Not mere assent to a doctrine, but the living belief that it’s the Father’s good pleasure to give us what we need (although not always what we want!). Our baptism is a reminder of God’s grace and goodness. It’s the reminder that we matter to God so we can operate out of faith and not out of fear.

After all, there are really only two ways to live: by faith or by fear. Some may suggest there’s a third way—manly self-reliance. I’m not so sure that’s going to work when your company downsizes you or you or your family member gets a life-changing diagnosis. You’ll be looking to rely on something more than yourself. No. It’s pretty much faith or fear. And we have to decide how we’re going to live and how we want our children to live. Remember, there’s nothing scarier to a kid than fear in an adult.

In our Gospel lesson for Pentecost 9, Year C (Luke 12:32-40) Jesus’ admonition to live fearlessly comes with a pretty scary suggestion. Who wants to sell everything they have and give the money to the poor? Shouldn’t you be saving a little something in case of a stock market collapse or a hurricane or the zombie apocalypse? I think what the Lord is really challenging us to do here is get outside of ourselves. Fear is the result of self-preoccupation. Martin Luther always described sin as the soul curved in on itself. Jesus is urging us to pull our heads out and be part of the world around us. His suggestion about selling our possessions and giving to the poor is a recipe for faithful living. When we transfer some of the blessings God gave us to others—be it through donation of our cash or the donation of our time as volunteers—we’re making two statements of faith. First, we’re saying that we’re going to get along just fine on what’s left over. If we give ten bucks to the March of Dimes, we won’t be ten bucks short at the end of the pay period. We made a choice to trust in God for our own preservation. Second, we’ve said through our gift or volunteering that what we’ve done will matter. We believe someone’s life is going to be just that much better because we’ve reallocated some of our own blessings for the benefit of others.

Another part of this Gospel lesson is a parable Jesus teaches about servants (that could be us) staying alert for the return of their master (that could be Jesus). There are two ways I think you could look at this. You could go the “end-of-the-world-is-coming-soon” rout and start interpreting every story you hear on the news as a harbinger of the Apocalypse, the Second Coming, the End Times, or whatever. Don’t even get me started on that jawn. That’s a sure-fire way to live in fear. It’s also an exercise in heresy since all the nitwits who’ve claimed to have deciphered eschatological Biblical prophecy have really just pulled their interpretations out of their lower GI tract (metaphorically speaking, of course).

The other way to look at this is the Matthew 25 rout where Jesus tells us, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”[i] What I mean is we should always be on the lookout for meeting Jesus. He could be present in a neighbor, a family member, someone in need, a panhandler on the street, or an immigrant behind the counter at Dunkin Donuts. Any chance encounter might be an opportunity to draw closer to God by drawing closer to the ones around us.

Finally, the last part of this Gospel lesson is a weird kind of warning. Yes, if the homeowner knew what hour the thief was coming, he’d have met the guy at the window with a loaded Smith & Wesson. The problem is, we don’t know when stuff is going to happen. Like the arrival of a baby, life-changing moments occur, and we can’t always control them. So, it’s not about what happens, but about how we react. You can live in fear and sit at home all night with your Smith & Wesson on your lap just in case a burglar should try to break in, or you can go out among fellow human beings, risk loving them, and find your purpose.

Fear? Faith? Which one is it going to be?

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[i] Matthew 25:40.