Tuesday, 2/26/13
Jesus asked his followers to not seek places of honor at
banquets. He made it clear that he didn’t want people to act like big shots,
but why was that?
Pause a moment. What reasons might Jesus have had for
disliking proud behavior?
One reason you could come up with is that it makes the showoff look ridiculous. That occurs to us when people suggest we list our degrees
after our signatures. We say, “Oh no, people would laugh at me.”
A better reason for not flaunting ourselves is that compared
to God we are just peanuts whatever degrees we might have earned.
But, let’s take a look at another good reason for us not to
exalt ourselves. That reason is that we cannot put ourselves up without putting
others down.
We have all been told that we are created in God’s image and
likeness. Might it not also be true that each of us is like God in our own way?
With that in mind, I began thinking of God as resembling a
many faceted diamond, with each of us created with the unique potential of
mirroring one of God’s facets?
Really fine parents, and our best teachers, are those who
help us develop the God-like potential that constitutes the deep personality of
each of us.
Our worst enemies then would be those who can only boost
themselves by keeping others down. Colonialism was dreadfully sinful when all
of Britain followed Rudyard Kipling in referring to it Indian subjects as “All
that black-faced crew.”
By damaging their self-esteem we rendered those Easterners
incapable of being what God meant them to be. I once asked a Korean student if
he would like to be a priest, and he said, “I’d like to be an American priest,
but not a Korean priest.”
In our century
the Orientals have gained the self-esteem that is essential for them. The U.S.
once limited Oriental immigrants because they were below what we liked
Americans citizens to be. Now we are limiting Oriental enrollment in universities
because they are superior students who crowd out our kids.
No comments:
Post a Comment