Sermon preached at the Ordination of Jaclyn Mayo
It would be hard to deny the prevalence of individualism in American culture, it is not unique to The United States, but it is generally defined differently here than in other places. For nearly two centuries’ Americans have drawn a direct connection between individual liberty and the belief that hard-work will achieve greatness. As technology has advanced, especially in the last twenty years, there has been a shift in our culture that has significantly changed how we interact with each other. It is a shift that is not entirely explainable, at least not yet, but what is becoming clear is that the American Dream, the idea that hard work can and will lead to success is not only alive and well, it has been heightened by an unwritten set of rules that require unfettered competition with everyone and everything, including social interactions. The subliminal pressure to be number one, to be the top-rated employee, to be the straight A student, to be the highest performing athlete is not only real, it is damaging to our health. The number of young adults, aged 18-25, who have reported feelings of anxiety has more than doubled in the past twenty years. My own students tell me that even though their parents do not pressure them directly to perform at their best, they feel pressured to do so. They fear that if they don’t stretch themselves to their limits that they will have no future, and the saddest thing for me is that I rarely see any joy in their eyes, I rarely see anything except their ambition to get ahead of everyone else so that they can go to college and make lots of money so that they can afford to live.
While our culture has certainly shifted, I am also aware fact that little has actually changed since the first century. Paul told the Philippians to do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, which means that you have a baseless sense of superiority. What is the American dream if not selfish ambition wrapped in a bow of empty conceit? Now before you get your pitchforks, I am not saying that the idea of hard work leading to success is wrong or bad because it isn’t; the issue is that we have placed our sights on the wrong prize. As Christians we claim to desire humility, and love, and peace; yet the second our ideas are challenged on Facebook or Instagram or whatever technology we turn to, our inner tiger comes out and whether we reply or not, we get riled up because what we believe and what we want has been threatened. That, my friends, is the rearing of the empty conceit we all thought, just a moment ago, doesn’t apply to us.
Paul tells us that God emptied themself of all their power and took the form of a servant, a servant that is to this day revered as one of the most influential persons to have ever lived and not just by his followers. According to Luke, that very servant told his followers that “the greatest among you must become like the youngest and the leader like one who serves.” So here we have God, in the form of Jesus, telling their followers that when they achieve greatness, of any kind, that it is then time to set aside your own greatness and “humbly regard others as better than yourself”.
It is of course easy for me to stand here and say that we all need to be humble, that we all need to act like servants. We all know that there just isn’t enough time in the day. There just isn’t time to volunteer at the soup kitchen, or to drop off those extra blankets we never use; there just isn’t time to plan a bible study, or give Alice a ride to the doctor; there just isn’t time do anything except work hard so that we have enough money to pay the rent, to make sure that we meet the deadline at work, to run our kids to ten different events that they don’t even want to do. The phrase “there isn’t time” is a fallacy and it is evidence that we all participate in the culture that values rabid individualism and competition over community and the only reason there isn’t time for things is because we refuse to change our behavior.
The amazing thing about the life of Jesus is that he was the person we all want to be, and even though he has given us everything we need to lead a countercultural life, because that is what Christianity is, countercultural, we fail at it time and time again. We just can’t let go of the rat race, we can’t step out of our own way, we can’t bring ourselves to put others first, not even when we purposefully try to do so. For example, when do we volunteer? When do we protest for what is right? When do we stop working on the big work project? When do we write a letter or an email or make a call to a friend just to say hey, how are you? When we have time, that’s when.
Jackie, today you are continuing a journey that began before you were born. You are choosing to accept a mantle of leadership that asks you to be countercultural and I am not going to sugarcoat the fact that this mantle is heavy. Choosing to live an ordered life, a life based on scripture, and prayer, and love, and humility while also bearing the burdens that come with wearing a collar is life changing. While you may not feel different after today because you are still the person God made you to be, you are still you, you are the deacon God wants in their church; how other people see you and interact with you will be different and that will change you because that is how it all works. The perceptions of others change who we are, it is our own fear that others might think we are unsuccessful or lazy to fuel our work ethic and allow our ambition to guide our life decisions instead of turning to the thing that we all know to be true, which is that we really want nothing more than to be loved. The role of a deacon is truly undefinable; yeah, we have our prayer book definition and every deacon in this room can tell you the song and dance about having one foot in the church and one foot in the world, but that doesn’t come close to truly describing who deacons are, it simply gives us parameters for our work. There will be times when you will be called upon to be a pillar of strength and it will feel like you are holding the weight of the entire world on your shoulders. There will also be times when you will want to burn it all down and just before you light the match realize that if you do it, if you do burn it all down, you will in fact be burning yourself down right along with it, which brings me back to how I started this long diatribe of randomness.
Jesus has asked us to be countercultural, he has asked us to step back from the rat race and try, just try, to approach life from a perspective of love and doing so requires humility and it requires that we stop making excuses about time and energy. I actually believe that sharing God’s love with each other is quite simple, what isn’t simple is setting aside the parts of ourselves that want to win the race at all costs so that we can be sure that our future is secure. Humility requires risk and we don’t like risk. It is far easier to just run the race to win and suffer the consequences than it is to slow our pace and invite God and our neighbor to run with us. The American love affair with hard work is not wrong in principle, but let’s make sure that the hard work is the kind of work we should be doing in the first place. Let’s work on things like love, and prayer, and humility, and empathy, and God forbid compassion. What’s the point of being first, if itmeans you are all alone? God emptied themself of power, they humbled themself to the point of death by execution so that we could understand that a different way is possible. Being a Christian is hard work, it is transformative, it is life giving, but only if we are willing to trust God enough to run a different race, a race that will still involve pain, and anxiety, and even death; but also, a race that guarantees, by the resurrection, that everyone crosses the finish line, so be countercultural, and in humility regard others as better than yourself. Amen.
Learning by Fire! 