Everyday People

Brad Sullivan
Proper 16, Year A
Sunday, August 3rd, 2008
Emmanuel, Houston
Exodus 1:8-2:10
Psalm 124
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20

I’m going to talk today about Paul’s letter to the Romans, specifically when he says “not to think of yourselves more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment…” Now, this is not going to be a sermon in which I remind us all that we’re sinners and we’re not good enough so we should think badly of ourselves in order to feel guilty enough to be better people. If you’d like to hear that, I’m sorry, but I hope to take a little more positive spin on Paul’s words.

I don’t know if any of you have ever struggled with feeling like the world isn’t going the way it should be or maybe the church isn’t going the way it should be. You might have further felt that you know how things should go, if only more people thought the way you did. If only you could convince people you were right things would be better. That’s something I’ve struggled with at various points in my life…something of a hero mentality. Such a mentality is somewhat narcissistic, but I think when people feel this hero mentality, they are also deeply concerned with the problems in the world and want to fix those problems, a worthy goal, but it’s not realistic.

Each of us can and should help soothe some of the problems in the world, but none of us are going to fix the world. None of us can. None of us really should. Taken to its furthest degree, any one person trying to fix the world would end up changing the world into his or her image. Hitler tried that, among others. No one of us can or should change or fix the world. The world doesn’t belong to anyone person; it belongs to God. We each play our part. We each have a place within the Body of Christ. We can help and be agents of change around us and in various ways, but we ought not to think too highly of ourselves, but with sober judgment.

Another nice thing about not having to play the hero is that we don’t have to play the hero. Having to be the hero is a very pressure filled existence, one which it’s awful hard to live up to. Paul reminds us we don’t have to be the hero. We don’t have to win the gold in order to have worth. Yes, I actually am using an Olympics analogy here. The Olympics provide a great example of our some people’s need to be the hero and also an example of the way in which we sometimes thrust people into the role of hero. The Olympics are an example of our exaltation of greatness, or to be more accurate, the way the media and some athletes talk about the Olympics is an example of our exaltation of greatness.

If you’ve been watching the Olympics, did you hear some of the athletes dejectedly say, “well, I was hoping for gold, but I had to settle for silver?” Had to settle for silver? You won silver! Most of the athletes I saw were thrilled with any medal, some were happy just to be there, but some of the athletes seemed truly to believe “second place is the first loser,” or “if you’re not first, you’re last.” Some athletes seemed actually to believe they had failed if they hadn’t won the gold. That’s an awful lot of pressure…gold or failure?

I realize people are there to win gold, but “I settled for silver?” Most of life has got to be really disappointing if one’s approach is gold medal or failure. Some of that pressure probably comes from within, some from coaches, some from entire countries, but you could sometimes see the pressure of athletes who felt they had to be the very best. That’s too much pressure on one person, and it tells all non-gold winners, that they are failures. Look at how highly the media exalted Michael Phelps, nothing against Michael Phelps, poor guy, poor other swimmers.

I saw an interview with another U.S. swimmer, Ryan Lochte, who won gold in the 200m backstroke, and in this interview, the interviewer said, “having won the gold in the backstroke, how did you then, only 40 minutes later, face the daunting challenge of swimming against Michael Phelps in your next race,” almost as if the interviewer was saying, “it’s great that you won the gold, but you do realize you’re still a lesser human than Michael.”

Sometimes the media ended up raising this one athlete up so high, that all others were treated as failures even when they had won the gold. At one point listening to a radio show, the people on the broadcast were jokingly saying what Michael Phelps would do after the Olympics, jokingly exalting him to even greater heights, and I thought, “I think after the Olympics, Michael should climb to the top of Mount Olympus and take his rightful place as our new god.” I say that jokingly to point out how we sometimes tend to overdo our praise of greatness so much so that anything but the absolute pinnacle of achievement is failure, again, “settling for silver.”
It’s great to have heroes. It’s great to be proud of accomplishments, but on the flip side of heroes is that we may sometimes feel there are the titanic, great, larger than life kind of people, and then the losers who really didn’t live up to their potential. The rest of us are just kind of average, pretty disappointing.

Again, think of yourself with sober judgment. No one has to be the very best in order to have worth, at least not in God’s eyes.

We have two examples of people in our other readings today that point to this fact: we don’t have to be the very best or the highest ranked person in order to have worth. I’m talking about the examples of Moses and Peter. Now Moses was a little baby in today’s story; he actually won’t know his place for some time, but we know he ends up leading the people of Israel out of Egypt.

Think of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. He was their big leader, but there were a whole bunch of other Israelites doing exactly what God wanted them to be doing…ok, there was idolatry mixed in, but there were people taking care of their families. There were average, everyday Israelites being average everyday Israelites, which is exactly what God wanted them to be.

Then in the Gospel today, Jesus calls Peter “the rock” on which he will build his church. Ok, so Peter was the rock, but do you think he was the only disciple of whom Jesus was proud. Jesus really loved Peter and the rest were kind of disappointing? I don’t think so. The other disciples had their God given place too. They weren’t less important disciples or failures because they weren’t the rock that Peter was. They were every bit as valuable to Jesus and loved by Jesus as Peter was.

Heroes are great…so are average, everyday folks. We don’t have to be “great” by Olympic gold standards for God. God loves us as we are. God loves us for who we are.
One final point on this idea of looking at ourselves with sober judgment, we don’t have to be perfect to be loved by God. I know that sounds like what I just talked about, but what I mean this time is we don’t have to be sinless. Have you ever felt that, as a Christian, you have to be sinless to be good enough or you have to be sinless not to be a hypocrite? You don’t have to be sinless. You can’t be sinless.

As Christians we strive, we do our best not to sin. We’ve been given ways of life by God which are which are the best ways of life we can live. We’ve been taught to love God. We’ve been taught to love one another. We follow Jesus, the perfect human as our Lord, our example. It may seem then, that when we do sin, we’re no longer following Jesus as our Lord, and when we sin we’re disobeying God so we’re being terrible Christians, we’re being hypocrites. Well, when we sin, we are disobeying God, and when we sin, we aren’t in that instance following Jesus as our Lord, but God doesn’t expect us to lead sinless lives. If he did, and if we actually could be sinless, then Jesus would never have had to come. God knows we’re still going to sin even though we follow Jesus as our Lord.

None of us are going to be sinless as Christians. If any of us were sinless, that person wouldn’t be a Christian, he or she’d be Christ. Oops, that was blasphemy, but so is the thought that we can be sinless. Being a Christian doesn’t mean one never sins. Being a Christian means one has accepted God’s forgiveness of sin. So again, if you feel you have to be sinless to be a Christian, think of yourself with sober judgment.

God does not expect any of us to be perfect. God does not expect any of us to be sinless. God does not expect any of us to be the hero, or the savior of the world. God already is all of those things for us. None of us should think of ourselves too highly, nor do we have to. God’s got that exalted place. Amen.