It's Not About Us
John 1:6-8; 19-28
When I was a child, Christmas was great. I could think about what I was "gonna git!!" I was just like the little kid in "Peanuts" who told Charlie Brown about her "git list"--all the things she was gonna git. Charlie Brown asked, "Where's your 'give' list?" He was met with stunned silence.
Yep--that's the way so much of the world around us moves, including us, too, when we're honest.
We weigh so much of what we do and what we participate in with the simple question, "What's in it for me?" Sometimes we catch ourselves listening to another pour out their hearts, but suddenly we've turned the conversation around to us. I once laughed about the way our magazines revealed this turn--first, there was "Life," replaced by "People," which morphed into "Us," and then ended with "Self."
We make everything about us.
Then comes the Baptist.
John went out into the wilderness, following a strange vocation. He went out away from all the world to preach the coming kingdom of God. He tapped into a feeling so many had that something was just not quite as it should be. They would come to him even as he bristled with critique ("You brood of vipers"). They would accept his word, then signal a real desire for something other, dipping into the Jordan to be baptized.
What did John tap into?
We really don't do well when we make it all about us. We begin to feel anxious, isolated, and alienated from everyone else around us. We are fearful that someone will take what little we have. We grow defensive. We grow certain someone is trying to get one over on us.
John answers us by showing a completely different way of being. Note when the crowds try to figure him out, they ask him all sorts of questions that could lead him to elevate himself to a lofty place--Are you the prophet? Are you Elijah? Are the messiah? he could easily seize the day and become a paragon among the people. But he doesn't. Instead, he answers quite flatly, "No, I am none of those." In fact, he goes on to say he's nothing much--only a finger pointing at the moon, so to speak.
How refreshing. John makes sure everybody knows nothing is about him.
The truth is that this stance is powerfully liberating.
When it's not about us, we don't need to be fearful. No one really wants our stuff. No one really needs to usurp our position since we don't really have a position to usurp.
We can settle into the more comfortable position of pointing to the real source of power, promise, and possibility. John points to Jesus who is indeed the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus is the source of our hope and security because he completely reorients our lives on self-giving compassion.
Self-giving compassion frees us because it allows us to empty ourselves so everyone can be together. If we serve one another, everyone gets fed. When everyone gets fed, there can be peace. No one need fear another. We can simply be together.
What a wondrous gift!
Accept it freely.
It is yours.
What joy!
When I was a child, Christmas was great. I could think about what I was "gonna git!!" I was just like the little kid in "Peanuts" who told Charlie Brown about her "git list"--all the things she was gonna git. Charlie Brown asked, "Where's your 'give' list?" He was met with stunned silence.
Yep--that's the way so much of the world around us moves, including us, too, when we're honest.
We weigh so much of what we do and what we participate in with the simple question, "What's in it for me?" Sometimes we catch ourselves listening to another pour out their hearts, but suddenly we've turned the conversation around to us. I once laughed about the way our magazines revealed this turn--first, there was "Life," replaced by "People," which morphed into "Us," and then ended with "Self."
We make everything about us.
Then comes the Baptist.
John went out into the wilderness, following a strange vocation. He went out away from all the world to preach the coming kingdom of God. He tapped into a feeling so many had that something was just not quite as it should be. They would come to him even as he bristled with critique ("You brood of vipers"). They would accept his word, then signal a real desire for something other, dipping into the Jordan to be baptized.
What did John tap into?
We really don't do well when we make it all about us. We begin to feel anxious, isolated, and alienated from everyone else around us. We are fearful that someone will take what little we have. We grow defensive. We grow certain someone is trying to get one over on us.
John answers us by showing a completely different way of being. Note when the crowds try to figure him out, they ask him all sorts of questions that could lead him to elevate himself to a lofty place--Are you the prophet? Are you Elijah? Are the messiah? he could easily seize the day and become a paragon among the people. But he doesn't. Instead, he answers quite flatly, "No, I am none of those." In fact, he goes on to say he's nothing much--only a finger pointing at the moon, so to speak.
How refreshing. John makes sure everybody knows nothing is about him.
The truth is that this stance is powerfully liberating.
When it's not about us, we don't need to be fearful. No one really wants our stuff. No one really needs to usurp our position since we don't really have a position to usurp.
We can settle into the more comfortable position of pointing to the real source of power, promise, and possibility. John points to Jesus who is indeed the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus is the source of our hope and security because he completely reorients our lives on self-giving compassion.
Self-giving compassion frees us because it allows us to empty ourselves so everyone can be together. If we serve one another, everyone gets fed. When everyone gets fed, there can be peace. No one need fear another. We can simply be together.
What a wondrous gift!
Accept it freely.
It is yours.
What joy!
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