STATUS AND REPUTATION

How do we see ourselves? Would we rather be part of our church’s leadership planning group than serve lunch to the handicapped elderly? When you read these notes I’ll be 77 years old. There are many things I don’t like about being old: loss of status and independence, and the slightly patronizing air of some who explain things I already know.

The two incidents that arose among the disciples challenge us all. The first was about their status in relation to each other and the second was about their desire to be part of Jesus’ exciting mission of healing and teaching, without anyone else cashing in. Jesus read their minds and took the hand of a small child. Matthew’s version gives us a slightly different view of this incident (Matt. 18:1–5). He says that the disciples actually came to Jesus and asked who was the greatest in the kingdom! Did they think he would name one or two of them? Holding the small child beside him, in Luke Jesus speaks about welcoming a child, in Matthew about changing and becoming like a child. Then John came to inform the Lord that he had attempted to stop a rival who was using Jesus’ name to heal and cast out demons. If this happened as close to their failure to heal the boy as yesterday’s reading suggests, then John’s act was more about protecting Jesus’ celebrity status and by extension his and the other disciples.

When is your sense of status and reputation challenged? Consider the youth worker who realized that the young people were taking their problems to the church janitor; or the lawyer, a Bible group leader, silenced by sudden uncertainty as a teenager explained the point far more appropriately than she had. When are you called to move beyond your status? Consider the banker who took a wheelchair-bound young man out each week. How do we respond to opportunities to serve others?

“Be ready to accept humiliations; don’t worry about status; use your sense of humor” (John Stott).