The Greatest

Many people today want to be great: great athletes, great musicians, great actors, great teachers, even great preachers. We live in a highly competitive society in which excellence is highly valued. We seek better homes, better cars, better weapons. We start children on the road to greatness even pre-natally now, by exposing them to music and other cultural experiences while still in the womb. Just so they don't want to take field trips. So caught up are we in the cultural value of greatness that we have no time for those who are not great. We have gifted classes, gifted camps, gifted schools. I'd like to see us start a mediocre camp where we could send our kids and they'd walk in the woods and go fishing and swimming and canoeing and have a great time but not learn anything except how to have a good time.

Books have been written, slogans generated, programs developed to make us great. But very little is being done to make us more human. We all want to get out of where we are, so a diet, a workout, an intellectual exercise, a study course on making a million dollars in pork belly futures, or perhaps the Midwest School of Poultry Science: dedicated to the perfect turkey. Greatness is valued in and of itself, while the rest of us walk around apologizing for being normal. There is a thorough-going sense of failure that we aren't great, our kids aren't great, our dogs aren't great. Now I have this guppy . . .

How do we get ourselves out of this cycle? Only a few of us are going to be great, by definition. In a nation of geniuses, the genius is average. We are condemning ourselves to a lemming-like existence, moving in great waves one direction or another as the faceless "they" tell us which way to stampede. Only every once and a while one of the lemmings stops, and asks itself "Why am I doing this? Where are we going? What is the meaning of all this?" A truly thoughtful lemming. But then the rest of the lemmings come along and say, "Hey, lets get moving here. You're holding up progress." And so the lemming scampers off to its destruction, just like everybody else.

Now I am not against improving ourselves, I am not against excellence. What bothers me is that we have lost sight of why we want to excel and have glorified greatness in and of itself. The other piece of that which worries me is that we are setting ourselves and our children up for failure. If we convey the message that only the great are O.K., then what of the rest of us? For every champion there are thousands of contenders; for every Olympian there are thousands of hopefuls, for every rock superstar there are thousands of kids making strange noises in their basements and garages and hundreds of cats hiding in trees. There's nothing wrong with failure as such, either. We probably learn more from our failures than our successes. What is wrong is when we confuse the goal for the quest, and think that only the winners succeed. All who have tried their best, who have worked hard and sacrificed much--they are winners too, if we will let ourselves realize it. The other problem I have with this unmitigated quest for success is that we often focus the most attention on the things that matter the least. The men and women devoting long days and nights for the cure for cancer, or for new strains of foodstuffs to feed the hungry world, or those on the cutting edge of insight in ethics, in theology, in philosophy, these receive substantially less recognition and reward than those working on the perfect forward pass, or the perfect beer commercial.

Jesus said, whoever would be great must be servant, whoever would be first must be last, whoever would be exalted would be humble, whoever would be comforted must mourn, whoever would be satisfied would hunger and thirst for righteousness, whoever would live must learn to die. It just doesn't make sense to a competitive world, to a world where winning is everything. Jesus noted that even in the religious domain, there is competitiveness and pride. We want bigger and better churches, nicer sanctuaries, more people, more programs. And then we're shocked and dismayed when leaders are found to be corrupt. Have we encouraged them toward corruption when we want more beautiful churches, more lavish spectacle, more entertaining services, a perfect man or woman we can look up to? None of this is important in and of itself, but only insofar as it gives glory to God. We are not to call attention to ourselves, to how holy and pious we are, to how well we preach or how nicely we sing, but rather give glory to God.

Our task as Christians is to become transparent, so God can be seen through us. Jesus did not call attention to himself, but rather always gave the glory to the Father. Have we diverted monies intended for those Jesus came to serve for our own comfort and convenience? Have we erected whited sepulchres, all beauty and glitter on the outside, but corrupt and decadent within, for we have forgotten why we're here. We're not here to be entertained, we're not here to escape from the world, we're not here to put on a good front, we're not here simply to feel good: we're here to glorify and praise God. Now in that process yes, we will feel better, yes we will enjoy ourselves, yes we will lead better lives, but we had best get the goal and the quest firmly in mind. The goal is God and the Kingdom of God, the quest is the Christian life. The journey which we have undertaken is important; it is important how we travel. But it is more important that we travel. And it is important that we eventually arrive at our destination, no matter how we travel or how far we wander off the trail, still our destination is God and God's Kingdom.

As we travel, then, we experience in an anticipatory way the destination. If our traveling is marked by bickering and unpleasantness, we have not yet learned what the journey is like. We are like the kids in the back seat, "Are we there yet. . . I'm thirsty . . . Can we stop for lunch now?" We have not yet learned about the journey because we have not yet learned about the destination. The nature and direction of our journey is determined by the nature and position of our destination. We are in covenant together as fellow travelers, pilgrims on the highway to God. And as we travel we take time to help the lame and the halt, to minister to those who have fallen by the way, to lend a hand and a shoulder to lean on to those who are weary. We travel as servants of the king, and wherever we find his children, we minister to them. We may not always recognize his children, but we suspect that all in need are related to the king, for the king has many children.

We travel as gypsies, living off the land, stopping to put on a show from time to time. We travel as vagabond musicians, stopping to play for whomever has time to listen, and the song is the same, sung in parts, sung in unison, but never sung alone. The song is the same, different words, different music, "For all the saints", "Holy, Holy, Holy" "Amazing Grace" Glory, Glory to the Lamb.

A young Catholic priest named Damien arrived at the leper colony on the Hawaiian island of Molokai in 1873 to minister the the patients there. He found conditions there made horrible by not only the wasting of the disease, but the corruption of officials that needed medicines and supplies did not arrive. Men and women, condemned by their disease, left off all semblance of humanity and civility, for they were as good as dead. Father Damien made slow progress in improving their living conditions and morale until he himself contracted the disease, and, at Mass, raised his hands to show his lesions to the lepers and said, "Now, I am one of you."

A young Jewish rabbi came to Israel to minister to the people there. He found conditions made horrible not simply by the wasting of human sinfulness, but by the corruption and neglect of government and religious leaders. Men and women, condemned by their own sin, left off all semblance of humanity and civility, for we were as good as dead. Jesus Christ made slow progress in improving our condition until we turned on him in our rage and crucified him. The son of God was not to be deterred by death, and rising to life, showed us the wounds in his hands and said, "Now, I am one of you." Whoever would be first among you must be your servant, and whoever would be great among you must be slave of all. Amen.

Rev. John