Success

Lorna and I recently saw the movie First Reformed.  It is a movie about a struggling pastor who has to face his own demons who unfortunately doesn’t do it well.  I’m not sure I would recommend it because there are many flaws in the movie including the ending which is a cop-out.  However, there is one scene which I will refer to because it is a great example of the message behind the Gospel lesson.  In the scene the pastor is meeting with a group of teenagers at the near by Baptist Mega Church.  He is the pastor of a small struggling historic church that the Megachurch sponsors. 

One of the teenagers shares her family struggles; her father has just been laid off as the factory here he works has closed down and moved overseas.  She wonders why God has allowed this to happen because her father is a faithful Christian who attends the church and tries to live a good Christian life.  Another teenager pipes up and says he is tired of worshiping a God who does not allow His followers to succeed.  The pastor doesn’t give much of a response.  He had a great opportunity to tell that boy that Jesus did not come to give us the success as defined by the world.  His success is one in which we love one another as he loves us. 

That pastor did not help the teenager to have eyes to see who Jesus is and ears to hear the message that Jesus came to give us.  As Christians we are not called to succeed as the world defines it.  Success for us is to love one another.  Jesus comes to give us the balm in Gilead to heal our sin-sick souls and to heal the sin-sick world.

The Gospel of Mark gives and account of a man who was deaf and could not speak – he was tongue tied.  Jesus heals the man and he immediately is able to har and can speak.  We have an account of the power and the compassion of Jesus in healing a man that could not hear and consequently could not speak – he was tonged-tied.  You might imagine that the man would be singing the praises of Jesus, the miracle worker after this but Jesus does a very surprizing thing.  He charges everyone present to tell no-one. 

People who knew the man would of course be asking what was the source of this miracle. So why would Jesus have commanded that people not speak of it?  I believe that Jesus knew that people who heard the news would misunderstand what had happened.  Someone who heard about Jesus’ miracles who had not encountered Jesus would focus on the miracles performed by Jesus and not his message.  They would come to him with the misplaced hope that he would miraculously cure them of what ailed them physically.  However, Jesus came to heal them spiritually. 

That is not what Jesus was here for.  He certainly did perform many miracles.  However, they were a demonstration of what he message was not of the message itself.  They were small examples of what was going to happen.  They were signs of the kingdom which God the Father through Jesus was going to bring about on earth.

We need to take heed of the message of Jesus not to get caught up in the hope of miracles.  We need to have eyes to see and ears to hear what to true message of Jesus is.   We need to ensure that we don’t get caught in our desires for Jesus to come and give us all that we desire.  In the words of the great, tragic Janice Joplin, Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?  That is falling into the trap of hoping that we will have success as the world defines it. 

My favourite definition of humility is that the truly humble person is one who sees clearly.  That can be rather confusing.  It was for me when I first read it.  However, if we see ourselves and others clearly, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear clearly the message of Jesus.  We will see we are Children of God.  We will see that all we have comes from God and that the love of God does not depend on our success as the world defines it.  We will hear the great commandment of Jesus to love one another as he loves us and we will speak that truth to the world and not be tongue-tied.  If we do not understand that, Paul tells us, “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” 

For this people’s heart has grown dull,

and their ears are hard of hearing,

and they have shut their eyes;

so that they might not look with their eyes,

and listen with their ears,

and understand with their heart and turn—

and I would heal them.” (Matt 13:15)