Then an argument started among them about who would be the greatest of them.  But Jesus, knowing the thoughts of their hearts,took a little child and had him stand next to Him. He told them, “Whoever welcomes this little child in My name welcomes Me. And whoever welcomes Me welcomes Him who sent Me. For whoever is least among you—this one is great.” Lk 9:46-48

On my daily morning commute to work I heard Chuck Swindoll speak on this passage briefly.  He spoke on it regarding confronting biblically, but it resonated with me in a much different way.

One of the things that I struggle with most in my job is affirmation and recognition.  Most of the time I don’t find it an issue.  I try my best to do my job, do it well, and go home.  However it’s not hard to get discouraged at times, especially when hard work gets overlooked over and over again.  I had a discussion with a friend who felt in the same position, finding that overwork and poor boundaries tend to get rewarded.  We both found the desire to draw more attention to ourselves in order to earn what we thought was our share of praise and glory.

We looked around though, and found that in many cases the exemplary “employee of the month” is the first to burn out.  In that light, was the praise worth it?

In this passage from Luke we find a similar struggle going on among the disciples.  Who’s the greatest?  Who’s the “disciple of the month?”  Who goes over and above?  Jesus, in this passage, directs rebuke not at their apparent behavior but at the cause of their behavior – pride, leading to resentment and division.  Rather than pick one of the disciples to stand at his side, he chooses a child.  The disciples did not have a good track record with children, shooing them away from Jesus at about any occasion they could.  Yet Jesus sought out children precisely for this reason.

Children long to be recognized, to be affirmed.  The minute one grabs the spotlight and says “look at me!”, another tries to trump it.  I think we are born strivers to some degree, some more than others.  Is such striving learned or inherent?

I can’t say, but I want to unlearn it.

Some time ago I read Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead (ok – I listened to it in the car).  The hero of the book is a striver as well, but not to impress others.  The architect/hero Roarke savored the intrinsic satisfaction of living up to what he saw as his own inherent potential.  He cared less what others thought, going so far as to blow up one of his own buildings because it had been altered from his specifications.  He stated,

Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. The things which are sacred or precious to us are the things we withdraw from promiscuous sharing. But now we are taught to throw everything within us into public light and common pawing.

I wish I could do that.  And perhaps that has something to with the Luke passage as well.  I can cling to the recognition of others as a marker of who I am and the value of what I’ve accomplished.  I can also cast that aside to find myself as I am in Jesus’ eyes, who doesn’t care what tricks I do.  My own pride so often comes between me and my Lord, not to mention my wife, my co-workers, and my friends.

Readings: John 11:32-44 (the death of Lazarus), Hebrews 2:10-15  

“In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.  Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family.  So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.  He says, “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.”  And again, “I will put my trust in him.”  And again he says, “Here am I, and the children God has given me.”  Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death – that is the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”

There are many ideas in Christianity that are difficult, if not nearly impossible, to understand.  These facets of our faith that are the most difficult, though, also happen to be some of the most critical.  One of these is the nature of Jesus Christ himself.  Jesus is not merely favored by God, or God-like, but is God.  John declares him to be “the Word”, eternal and unchanging.  Jesus is also, scripture tells us, fully human.  He ate, slept, bled, and probably had toothaches, stubbed toes and everything else that comes with life.  Not only that but he felt as we feel: he got angry, cried, laughed, admonished, and as we see here in the Gospel, grieved. Continue reading →

Much has been said about this passage, and it’s a very interesting one.  Throughout the book of Mark, indeed throughout most of the gospels, you see that the disciples – the ones who were the closest to Jesus – don’t really get him.  They often seem perplexed as they follow Jesus around on his mission and ministry.  When Jesus calms the stormy sea in Matthew, they say “who is this that can even command the wind and waves?”  At the tomb of Lazarus, nobody even considers that Jesus could raise Lazarus from the dead and even try to prevent him from doing so.  On one occasion, Jesus’ family even came to collect him because they thought he had lost it. Continue reading →

The following is taken from a funeral I performed on 3/18/10.  Please note that names have been changed.

“Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matt. 11:28-30

While I do have the occasion to perform funerals for our hospice patients from time to time, it’s not often that I get to include a eulogy.  I always have some sort of message where I try to speak of what I learned from this person, or provide some words of comfort.  But I usually don’t know the person whom I am speaking of well enough to provide an actual eulogy.  However I did know Norman more than I knew almost all of our patients because we had him on for over two years – he outlasted most of our other patients and several of our own staff.  But Norm was also different because he and I could talk and actually get to know each other.  That’s relatively uncommon in my line of work.  So I wanted to speak not only of what Norm taught me, but of him as a person and a friend. Continue reading →