Looking Good

Status in society can be heady stuff. 
We like to be recognized, honored, favored above others and blessed more than others.
We like the status that our name, our position, our power and/or wealth can provide.
We like to look good to others and to be lifted up because we have high standing in society.
If that were not so, there would be fewer famous people, particularly famous folk who are famous
     just for being before us in "reality tv" programs and for what last name they hold, regardless of
     what they have achieved in life or contributed to society.


The Scribes were the same.  The problem was that they were the religiously famous of their day.  They were the ones whose names were known because they held and exploited their positions of power over others in the religious community.  They liked their status.  They flaunted it in public by what they wore.  They demanded respect out in public and made an appearance in order to be publicly adored.  They had their reserved parking spots and restaurant tables and seats of honor in the assemblies and they always sat at the head table at dinners, with all the recognition that came with that.  They liked their status and made the most of it.


There are two problems with this.


1. Their position was meant to be one of service.  Their function was one of helping others with their faith.  They were to serve God by serving God's people in humility and with honor.  They and the status-driven society in which they lived turned it into a show of status.  Jesus, who said that He (Son of God), came not to be served but to serve (as Son of Man) (10:45), criticized them and exposed their unfaithfulness to God. 


2. They used their status to exploit others by abusing the power that came with it.  They lined their own pockets at the expense of the most vulnerable because their status allowed them to do so.  They did what they needed to do in order to appear to be pious, faithful, spiritual, godly and upright.  Their words and public actions were a good show.  But they took what little the poor and desperate had for their own gain, exploiting the status that was normative in the Roman Empire and adopting Empire values for their own personal profit at the expense of the most vulnerable. 


Jesus said that they will receive the greater condemnation in the Kingdom of God.  They have pretended to represent the Kingdom while representing and upholding empire values.  They have embodied everything that is wrong with empire, while claiming to be faithful to God and God's Kingdom.  It seems clear that they could not have done that without others expressing their adoption of empire values and valuing the status that they gave them in the society.  This unfaithfulness was a communal one, to be sure.  Folk would not be famous except that people have made them so.


Juxtapose this with the lowly, ignored, poor widow who gave her best and even last faithfully.  She offered her pittance without fanfare and was lifted up by Jesus as an example of faithfulness.  She had no sycophants adoring her every word or action.  Faithfulness is not about how much we have for ourselves or how much we give to keep up appearances or with the expectation of any kind of return.  It is about our humility in heart and generosity toward God and one another.  That is the way of Agape Love.  That is the way of Jesus.


Status is necessarily not a Kingdom of God value.  It is a construct within empire to promote the other empire values of power and wealth, and the getting more and flaunting more of both.  It runs contrary to the humble living of Agape Love that Jesus taught, commanded and modeled for us - in the witness of the Gospels.  In the Kingdom, even this part of it, what is valued is what we humbly and generously give for the sake of the other.  That is faithfulness to God and Neighbor.


Pastor Jamie