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LESSONS FROM OUR RABBI
February 17, 2019
Luke 6:17-26
During the life of my three kids I’ve attended a ton of school awards presentations. I really have no idea how many but suffice it to say that I’ve been to every award presentation for each and every one of our three children. It is a big deal, I think, to work hard in school and then be recognized in front of your parents and your peers.
That last group of people, though, is a funny one isn’t it? Your peers. I can remember when my kids were in elementary school and all of the kids seemed to cheer on all of the other kids receiving awards. Sure, there were a handful of outliers in those crowds, but the super-majority of the children celebrated with the students being recognized. After elementary school come the years that around here are called middle school. This, unfortunately, is where things start to change when it comes to the way your peers react when you are being positively recognized in front of them. And sadly, the changes are not good. I saw this firsthand on Friday afternoon when I went to Emma Graces’ eighth grade awards.
In one instance, a majority of the student body laughed when one young man’s name was called and continued laughing as he walked to the podium to receive his award. Now, I’m not sure what they were laughing about, and afterward when I asked Emma Grace I didn’t get the feeling she knew either, but from my observations, this young man was being laughed at by, not laughing with his peers. Why, I don’t know, but if he was being laughed at, the reason is irrelevant.
A second thing wasn’t as much about something that happened at the awards show as much as it was something I noticed about one of Emma Grace’s friends and what I later learned motivated her decision. As this friend rose to make her way to the podium to accept her award, I saw her using crutches. Now, because I know this young woman and know a little something about her injury, I knew she had been prescribed a scooter so I made a mental note to ask Emma Grace why she wasn’t using it. I’m sure you all are familiar with those scooters that doctors prescribe to aid in the injured person’s recovery and rehabilitation. You put the knee of the injured leg on a padded saddle and then use the good leg to scoot wherever you need to go. So, on our way home I asked Emma Grace why her friend wasn’t using the scooter and without even blinking an eye she said, “Oh everyone makes fun of her when she uses it, so she definitely didn’t want to use it on awards day.”
The last thing about this award show I also learned from Emma Grace on our way home. This one, though, stayed with Emma Grace because even yesterday she was still commenting about it. I learned how some students, those close enough to where the ones getting awards stood after receiving the award, chose to make fun of their classmates being recognized, and called them derogatory names. Such behavior never makes sense to me, yet it never seems to stop. I have so many questions when I find out about these things. What is motivating the group of name callers? How is their conduct benefiting them? What does the one being called names take away from that experience? Do they decide it’s just not worth it to work hard, or do they hope to be sick for the next awards presentation? At least that way they will not have to endure the heckling and name calling again. Ultimately this type of behavior, laughing at, making fun of and name calling is hurtful to everyone.
****************************
I wish someone had the ability to teach all of those kids the type of lessons that might transform their lives in positive ways. The thing is, I want those lessons to be taught in the moment of the heckling and name calling. I want the people who have chosen to be so rude to be put on the spot right then and there. Call them out and let them see how it feels to be embarrassed in front of their peers.
When I step back and realize what I saying I discover one big problem with that approach. No one has ever learned not to embarrass other people in front of their peers by being embarrassed in front of their peers. Like so many other times, the ends simply don’t justify the means. These lessons are best taught at some later point in time when the name calling and heckling events are not actually happening. These lessons are best taught in a non-judgmental way. That is when the lessons become transformative.
*****************************
This is a big reason I love Jesus’ approach to teaching as depicted in Luke’s Gospel. All around Jesus that day were people clamoring to be near him. To hear him. To touch him for they believed just hearing him and touching him had the power to heal all that afflicted them.
“There were a lot of sick people in the crowd, Luke says. There were a lot of people with crazy looks in their eyes and others who clearly had not eaten for a while. They had heard about Jesus' power-about how all you had to do was get near him and the demons would fly right out of you. If you had a fever; he could make it go away, and if your leg did not work right he could fix it.”[1]
Many people in that crowd were hurting. Many needed some type of healing and they had come to believe this man had just what they needed. So they came to be with him, hoping amongst hope that they would be the next beneficiaries of his miracles. They had been made fun of by the popular groups. They knew what it was like to be heckled and called names by the “in crowd.” It’s just that those experiences weren’t actually happening when Jesus finally opened his mouth. But just because they weren’t happening then, didn’t mean Jesus didn’t remember they had happened.
So, when he did open his mouth, what the crowd heard were the beatitudes, “short two-part affirmations that sum up common knowledge about the good life”[2] Scholars agree that this type of teaching was well known and familiar to the people of Jesus’ day. For those in that crowd this form of teaching was nothing new. And while the format wasn’t new, the content was. Here Jesus was substituting good things for bad things and bad things for good things. In these lessons the very things those in power had told everyone else to avoid, like poverty, hunger, grief and hatred, Jesus said were the traits of the blessed.
Now, in Matthew’s account there are nine beatitudes, but in Luke’s account there are four, followed by four “woeitudes” as Barbara Brown Taylor calls them. For Luke, not only are certain traits, actions, conditions, and emotions blessed, other are not. And those that were not, were the very things the people in power were saying mattered most.
Jesus was turning this whole idea of whose opinion matters on its head because Jesus was playing a different game than those in power. Jesus was playing the game of living your best life, the life God intended. That is why, it seems to me, these lessons deal directly with popularity. Even more remarkable than that, though, is the way Jesus teaches these lessons. He doesn’t embarrass anyone. He doesn’t out anyone on the spot in front of their peers. In fact, he doesn’t even direct his teachings to anyone. Just look again at these lessons, “[T]here is nothing about them that remotely suggests Jesus was telling anyone what he thought they should do. Jesus does not tell anyone to do anything. Instead, he describes different kinds of people,…, and then he makes the same promise to all of them: that the way things are is not the way they will always be.”[3]
We tend to lose sight of this overall lesson when our focus becomes being part of the “in crowd” or the “popular group.” We lose perspective on what is important when we reduce our lives to a popularity contest. Life – my life, your life, should never be reduced to a popularity contest. No one benefits from that.
The saddest part for me, is witnessing what happens when life is reduced to that. People get laughed at. People get made fun of. People are called names like “nerd” just because they worked hard and were rewarded for that hard work. Life as a popularity contest is even the reason some feel it is their right to stand in front of a large group of people and call others “losers.”
And in the face of all of this, we must remember the lessons from OUR Rabbi – the way things are is not the way they will always be.
[PRAYER]
Amen!
[1] Taylor, Barbara Brown, Home By Another Way, God’s Ferris Wheel pgs. 51-56
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
Luke 6:17-26
During the life of my three kids I’ve attended a ton of school awards presentations. I really have no idea how many but suffice it to say that I’ve been to every award presentation for each and every one of our three children. It is a big deal, I think, to work hard in school and then be recognized in front of your parents and your peers.
That last group of people, though, is a funny one isn’t it? Your peers. I can remember when my kids were in elementary school and all of the kids seemed to cheer on all of the other kids receiving awards. Sure, there were a handful of outliers in those crowds, but the super-majority of the children celebrated with the students being recognized. After elementary school come the years that around here are called middle school. This, unfortunately, is where things start to change when it comes to the way your peers react when you are being positively recognized in front of them. And sadly, the changes are not good. I saw this firsthand on Friday afternoon when I went to Emma Graces’ eighth grade awards.
In one instance, a majority of the student body laughed when one young man’s name was called and continued laughing as he walked to the podium to receive his award. Now, I’m not sure what they were laughing about, and afterward when I asked Emma Grace I didn’t get the feeling she knew either, but from my observations, this young man was being laughed at by, not laughing with his peers. Why, I don’t know, but if he was being laughed at, the reason is irrelevant.
A second thing wasn’t as much about something that happened at the awards show as much as it was something I noticed about one of Emma Grace’s friends and what I later learned motivated her decision. As this friend rose to make her way to the podium to accept her award, I saw her using crutches. Now, because I know this young woman and know a little something about her injury, I knew she had been prescribed a scooter so I made a mental note to ask Emma Grace why she wasn’t using it. I’m sure you all are familiar with those scooters that doctors prescribe to aid in the injured person’s recovery and rehabilitation. You put the knee of the injured leg on a padded saddle and then use the good leg to scoot wherever you need to go. So, on our way home I asked Emma Grace why her friend wasn’t using the scooter and without even blinking an eye she said, “Oh everyone makes fun of her when she uses it, so she definitely didn’t want to use it on awards day.”
The last thing about this award show I also learned from Emma Grace on our way home. This one, though, stayed with Emma Grace because even yesterday she was still commenting about it. I learned how some students, those close enough to where the ones getting awards stood after receiving the award, chose to make fun of their classmates being recognized, and called them derogatory names. Such behavior never makes sense to me, yet it never seems to stop. I have so many questions when I find out about these things. What is motivating the group of name callers? How is their conduct benefiting them? What does the one being called names take away from that experience? Do they decide it’s just not worth it to work hard, or do they hope to be sick for the next awards presentation? At least that way they will not have to endure the heckling and name calling again. Ultimately this type of behavior, laughing at, making fun of and name calling is hurtful to everyone.
****************************
I wish someone had the ability to teach all of those kids the type of lessons that might transform their lives in positive ways. The thing is, I want those lessons to be taught in the moment of the heckling and name calling. I want the people who have chosen to be so rude to be put on the spot right then and there. Call them out and let them see how it feels to be embarrassed in front of their peers.
When I step back and realize what I saying I discover one big problem with that approach. No one has ever learned not to embarrass other people in front of their peers by being embarrassed in front of their peers. Like so many other times, the ends simply don’t justify the means. These lessons are best taught at some later point in time when the name calling and heckling events are not actually happening. These lessons are best taught in a non-judgmental way. That is when the lessons become transformative.
*****************************
This is a big reason I love Jesus’ approach to teaching as depicted in Luke’s Gospel. All around Jesus that day were people clamoring to be near him. To hear him. To touch him for they believed just hearing him and touching him had the power to heal all that afflicted them.
“There were a lot of sick people in the crowd, Luke says. There were a lot of people with crazy looks in their eyes and others who clearly had not eaten for a while. They had heard about Jesus' power-about how all you had to do was get near him and the demons would fly right out of you. If you had a fever; he could make it go away, and if your leg did not work right he could fix it.”[1]
Many people in that crowd were hurting. Many needed some type of healing and they had come to believe this man had just what they needed. So they came to be with him, hoping amongst hope that they would be the next beneficiaries of his miracles. They had been made fun of by the popular groups. They knew what it was like to be heckled and called names by the “in crowd.” It’s just that those experiences weren’t actually happening when Jesus finally opened his mouth. But just because they weren’t happening then, didn’t mean Jesus didn’t remember they had happened.
So, when he did open his mouth, what the crowd heard were the beatitudes, “short two-part affirmations that sum up common knowledge about the good life”[2] Scholars agree that this type of teaching was well known and familiar to the people of Jesus’ day. For those in that crowd this form of teaching was nothing new. And while the format wasn’t new, the content was. Here Jesus was substituting good things for bad things and bad things for good things. In these lessons the very things those in power had told everyone else to avoid, like poverty, hunger, grief and hatred, Jesus said were the traits of the blessed.
Now, in Matthew’s account there are nine beatitudes, but in Luke’s account there are four, followed by four “woeitudes” as Barbara Brown Taylor calls them. For Luke, not only are certain traits, actions, conditions, and emotions blessed, other are not. And those that were not, were the very things the people in power were saying mattered most.
Jesus was turning this whole idea of whose opinion matters on its head because Jesus was playing a different game than those in power. Jesus was playing the game of living your best life, the life God intended. That is why, it seems to me, these lessons deal directly with popularity. Even more remarkable than that, though, is the way Jesus teaches these lessons. He doesn’t embarrass anyone. He doesn’t out anyone on the spot in front of their peers. In fact, he doesn’t even direct his teachings to anyone. Just look again at these lessons, “[T]here is nothing about them that remotely suggests Jesus was telling anyone what he thought they should do. Jesus does not tell anyone to do anything. Instead, he describes different kinds of people,…, and then he makes the same promise to all of them: that the way things are is not the way they will always be.”[3]
We tend to lose sight of this overall lesson when our focus becomes being part of the “in crowd” or the “popular group.” We lose perspective on what is important when we reduce our lives to a popularity contest. Life – my life, your life, should never be reduced to a popularity contest. No one benefits from that.
The saddest part for me, is witnessing what happens when life is reduced to that. People get laughed at. People get made fun of. People are called names like “nerd” just because they worked hard and were rewarded for that hard work. Life as a popularity contest is even the reason some feel it is their right to stand in front of a large group of people and call others “losers.”
And in the face of all of this, we must remember the lessons from OUR Rabbi – the way things are is not the way they will always be.
[PRAYER]
Amen!
[1] Taylor, Barbara Brown, Home By Another Way, God’s Ferris Wheel pgs. 51-56
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
