Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem was his first public act proclaiming he was the Messiah – and he chose the humblest possible way to do it.
Here’s a transcript:
This coming Sunday is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week, so I’m thinking about the twenty-first chapter of Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 21:1-11), Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem.
In Matthew, this was really Jesus’ first public proclamation that he was the Messiah. He had discussed it with his disciples, others had speculated about it, but here Jesus actually did something that people would recognize as a Messianic claim. Here Jesus did something that people would recognize as the act of a king.
It was still a somewhat peculiar choice. Jesus chose to have his disciples find a donkey, and in Matthew’s account they also brought a colt, so that he came into the city, matching not lots of other Prophetic or Psalmic descriptions of the arrival of a monarch. Instead, he emulated a prophecy of Zechariah. “Your king comes to you, humble and mounted on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
It is possible, even likely, that on the other side of the city another procession similar but much grander was going on. The Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, would have entered Jerusalem at about this time: his annual visit to coincide with the Passover. That would have included trumpets, that would have included marching soldiers, that would have included the governor mounted on a great big horse.
On the other side of the city, Jesus entered to the accompaniment of cries of “Hosanna!” or “Save us!” His humble beast strode over people’s cloaks and branches that they laid in the road. It was a distinct, dramatic, and telling contrast to what would have happened on the other side of the city.
If it’s big and grand and showy we have to ask ourselves: just how Christian is it?
I come out of a tradition which includes significant influence from the Puritan part of the Protestant Reformation. The Puritans, in addition to concerns about clothing and modesty and all the rest of it, were very concerned about humility. Not always, I grant you, once they got into power.
Jesus, even as he made a proclamation of power did so in the humblest way possible. The twenty-first century since Jesus: so far, at least, it is not a humble age. It is not an age that values humility. It is not an age that rewards humility. Pride and hubris get the attention. Pride and hubris get the rewards.
But pride and hubris are not the ways of Jesus. They are not or should not be the ways of Jesus’ followers. Let us come into this Holy Week faithfully following the one upon a colt, the foal of a donkey, humble and coming to us and hearing our cries of “Hosanna,” “Save us,” “Help us.”
This is our prayer, O Jesus.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
Let’s face it, leaders of religious movements are often peculiar. Moses liked to wander off up mountains leaving everybody unsettled. Elijah wore funny clothes and irritated the monarchs. Monarch-irritating turned out to be a characteristic of many of the “writing prophets,” including Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. Jeremiah’s reputation for telling people things they didn’t want to hear earned him the nickname, “Magor-missabib,” which translates to “Terror on every side.”
Then and now, bullies like to give their opponents insulting nicknames.
John the Baptist, I should say, wasn’t any gentler to those who questioned him and his ministry. “You brood of vipers,” he called the Pharisees and Sadducees who came for baptism. “Bear fruit worthy of repentance.” That was good advice, then and now, but I wonder how well it went over with those he called snakes. King Herod, whom John also criticized, found a way to express his displeasure later on.
John imitated Elijah in wearing funny clothes and irritating monarchs. He imitated the writing prophets in telling people things they didn’t want to hear. He imitated Moses by wandering off into the wilderness. People had to follow him; he didn’t go where they were.
He also looked to trespass on the territory of the priesthood, though that’s a little unclear. We don’t know if he told people that his baptism washed away their sins, or if it merely represented the repentance that washed away their sins. In the ancient Law, one sought God’s forgiveness through proper offering of sacrifices, through the agency of the priests. I’m pretty sure that John’s activities cut into, well, into their business. I’m sure some of the Sadducees who visited his riverbank were earnest seekers after learning, spiritual renewal, and forgiveness. I’m also sure that some of them were simply spies, trying to make a case that John was claiming powers he should not.
They didn’t arrest him. Herod did. John irritated the ruler faster than he irritated the priests.
So there was John, this peculiar religious leader, welcoming people into a public act affirming their repentance. There was John, proclaiming that the times were urgent and special. There was John, promising another person would come, blessed by God, who would be greater than he.
And along came a poor man from Galilee who wanted to be baptized, too.
Only Matthew told the story of this conversation between the two, John and Jesus. John asked, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” to which Jesus replied, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Only Matthew. Of the Gospel writers, Matthew paid more attention than the others to the difficult spots of Jesus’ story. Matthew was the one to tell us that Joseph planned to abandon Mary when she was pregnant – a difficulty that I’m sure Luke recognized but chose to glide over. Mark, Luke, and John all said that Jesus was baptized, but only Matthew made sure to pause for a moment to echo our question in John’s question: “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
Mark Allen Powell writes at Working Preacher, “John’s objection to baptizing Jesus is related to a difference in status. John recognizes Jesus to be the ‘more powerful’ one, the one he has been talking about for some time (3:11). John himself stands in need of what Jesus has to offer: a greater baptism of Spirit and fire (3:11); this is probably what he means when he says, ‘I need to be baptized by you’ (3:14).”
Jesus, however, would have John’s baptism and wouldn’t turn it around. His words, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness,” are the first he speaks in Matthew’s Gospel. It’s a tantalizing reply. It sounds pregnant with meaning, as if understanding will come to us at any moment. In the end, though, I usually find myself wondering, fulfill what righteousness? How did this moment move Jesus’ ministry along?
It did, that’s for sure. The Gospels make it clear that whatever Jesus had been doing before this, he did different things after this. We’ll read Matthew’s account of Jesus’ temptation in a few weeks, which he experienced just after his baptism. Matthew and Mark both wrote that Jesus remained by the Jordan near John until John’s arrest by Herod, and then returned to Galilee to take up his own preaching ministry.
We don’t know what the baptism meant for Jesus. It did change his life. Whatever lay in his days as a young adult, it washed away in the Jordan.
But I’m still back a few minutes, to that conversation between John and Jesus. Would it have been so wrong for Jesus to baptize John? Jesus was, we believe, the very figure John had promised. Jesus was one to baptize with the Holy Spirit. Jesus had power John did not.
Jesus also had the power to swallow his pride. He had the capacity to curb his privilege. He had the grace to be one of the people who wanted to change his life.
Dan Clendenin writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “Jesus’ baptism inaugurated his public ministry by identifying with ‘the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem.’ He identified himself with the faults and failures, the pains and problems, of all the broken people who had flocked to the Jordan River. By wading into the waters with them he took his place beside us.
“Not long into his public mission, the sanctimonious religious leaders derided Jesus as a ‘friend of gluttons and sinners.’ They were more right than they knew.”
Gluttons, sinners, those struggling to do well and not getting it right as often as we’d like: a friend to us. That’s what Jesus did when he won the argument with John. He got right down in the muddy water with us. Some of that mud just comes with living. We know that. We don’t worry too much about washing it away. Some of that mud came with us. Yeah. We rolled in it. We made it soupier or thicker and, God help us, we tried to smear it on other people, didn’t we? But yes. That’s our mud. It’s time to wash it away, John. It’s time to wash it away, Jesus.
We’ll probably pick up more tomorrow, but for today, we’re better than we were yesterday.
As Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “To embrace Christ’s baptism story is to embrace the core truth that we are united, interdependent, connected, one. It is to sit with the staggering reality that we are deeply, deeply loved. Can we bear to embrace these mind-bending truths without flinching away in self-consciousness, cynicism, suspicion, or shame?”
I hope we can. I hope we do.
Now. I have a problem. This morning I told the children a story about humility. Jesus’ humility inspired that story. Jesus’ humility and expansive love is the way of life I want to tell the children about, model for them as best I can, and watch them adopt for themselves.
I want the children to be followers of Jesus, and preferably better followers than I am.
What I can’t tell them, or you, or myself, is that it’s going to work out well for them.
Historically, humility, generosity, and mercy haven’t won too many battles. Partially because they don’t fight battles. Battles are fundamentally contrary to humility, generosity, and mercy. It’s also really hard to do when so many leaders prefer to project their pride beyond even the expected boundaries of their power.
You’ll find in The New York Times, “President Trump declared on Wednesday evening that his power as commander in chief is constrained only by his ‘own morality,’ brushing aside international law and other checks on his ability to use military might to strike, invade or coerce nations around the world.
“Asked in a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times if there were any limits on his global powers, Mr. Trump said: ‘Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.’”
(Interviewers were Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Tyler Pager, Katie Robers, and David E. Sanger)
Quite aside from the legitimate questions of whether there should be and are limits on presidential power: that is not somebody who would have asked John to baptize him. It is not what Jesus ever said. It is not what a follower of Jesus should ever say.
But if anybody asks me, I’ve to admit: it works. Accept no limits upon yourself or your ambition or your greed, and yes, it works. It goes very badly for everybody else around you, but for you: It works.
I’d rather stand with Jesus in the Jordan. I’ll wait my turn – he was first, after all. I might catch the echo of the voice of God, or a glimpse of the Holy Spirit descending like a dove. It’s a bird. I’d love to photograph it.
But then, I’ll bring my muddiness down to John, and let him wash it away. I’ll climb up the bank (and pick up more mud, yes, but that’s all right) and, if I’m daring, I’ll tug on Jesus’ cloak and hope he tells me, “Come and follow me.”
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric makes changes while he preaches, sometimes intentionally, and sometimes accidentally. The sermon as written does not precisely match the sermon as preached.
Of the classic “Seven Deadly Sins” – pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth – I am vulnerable to… all of them. Which makes me, I suspect, much like most human beings.
Of that list, however, the one I’m most conscious of as an ongoing problem is pride. You may have noticed that I have no problem in standing before you from week to week merrily telling you what you should do. It takes a certain amount of gall to do that. And I’ve got it.
Jesus took an ancient proverb about how to behave in the royal court – cautiously – and brought it home. “Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence” became, when Jesus spoke of it, advice to take a seat at the edge of a wedding reception rather than heading for the family table. Jesus’ hearers didn’t spend time in royal courts, unlike those who assembled the collection of proverbs into the book we call, well, Proverbs. They knew all about the complexities of relationships in a Judean or Galilean village.
As E. Trey Clark writes at Working Preacher, “In Greco-Roman society, formal meals like this would often take place at a U-shaped table. Each guest would be assigned a seat at the table that demonstrated their rank or social standing—from highest to lowest. It would be deeply shameful to sit at the place of honor, only to be moved to the lowest place.”
We do not live in a culture that operates the way Jesus’ culture did. The social sanction of shame and the social reward of approval are still powerful, but not as powerful as they were for Jesus and his contemporaries. Still, we would hesitate to cross certain lines, wouldn’t we?
As we enter the autumn, we’re approaching what I tend to think of as “fundraising dinner season” here in Hilo, because aren’t there a lot of them in November and December? Cheryl Lindsay, the UCC’s Minister for Worship and Theology, used to work as an event planner. She writes at UCC.org, “One of the last and most challenging tasks would often be completing the seating chart. Fundraising events, in particular, make this delicate and extremely political work. For events that worked on the first-come, first-served basis, it was a simple matter of tracking reservations in order. Most events, however, did not use that framework. Honored guests, corporate sponsors, organizational leadership were all statuses that needed to be considered in placement. Other relational knowledge, such as collegiality, also played a role. No one worked on seating assignments without having some insider knowledge and sensitivity.”
Having attended more than a few of these dinners over the years, I can attest to that.
Pride, however, isn’t just about putting yourself in a better social position. For me, at least, pride happens when I think I’m right. When I think you’re wrong. In and of itself, being right isn’t pride itself. It’s not hubris to say, “I know something that somebody else doesn’t.” It is, in fact, a likely experience for just about any of us in this fairly specialized work environment of ours. I’ve had training you haven’t; I’m going to know things you don’t. You’ve had training I haven’t. You’re going to know things I don’t.
It’s possible that I’m wrong about some of the things I think I know, even the things that I spent the most time learning. Possible? Let’s face it, it’s likely. I just don’t know what they are. We can all think of things we were taught as true that simply aren’t. The late British fantasy author Terry Pratchett used to refer to education as the process of learning less untrue lies, and there’s something to be said for that idea. I learned the rules of English grammar and they were first taught to me as fairly rigid things. My teachers didn’t mention that some of the best writers broke those rules. In physics, the work of Isaac Newton describes a lot of the reality that we could see and measure in the 18th century – but when we could measure even more things in the 20th century it no longer worked. Along came the ideas of Albert Einstein. Less untrue lies.
Then there are the things that people teach that aren’t true and never were true but people believed it. They still believe it. Things like the inherent moral superiority of this culture over that culture, of this gender over that gender, of this race over that race. Whether it’s Romans, Chinese, Indians, British, or Americans, those things never were true. But they were taught that way. And sometimes we believed them.
Some people still want you to believe them.
Don’t believe them.
You have worth. You matter. But not because of your nationality, the place of your birth, the heritage of your family, your gender, or even your training and education. You have worth because God created you and delights in you. You are special and unique, and everyone is special and unique because God created them and delights in them, too. Even the annoying folks who bring out their pride and tell you what to do as if you didn’t matter as much as they do.
Yes, they have worth. Just don’t believe them when they tell you how much more they’re worth than you are.
“But let’s face it,” writes Debie Thomas at JourneyWithJesus.net, “humility is a tricky thing. We too easily conflate it with self-effacement, low self-esteem, and complicity in the face of oppression. Even if we manage to define it in healthy ways, humility betrays us; the very instant at which I claim to achieve humility is the moment when it eludes me. Worse, very little in our culture rewards or supports the humble. Whether we’re talking entertainment, politics, sports, or even religion, we in Western cultures have an unhealthy admiration for the loudest, the biggest, and the greatest. Whether we recognize it or not, we are known around the world for idolizing the superlative. What would happen to our discourse if we shunned the word ‘best?’”
What would happen if we abandoned the ridiculous assertion time and time again that somebody is the “Greatest of All Time”? I hear it time and again, usually with the acronym “GOAT,” which confused me a lot the first few times I heard it without knowing that the letters stood for “Greatest of All Time.” I grew up on the Peanuts comic strip, in which the one to blame for a failure was often called the goat. I still have that in the back of my mind when somebody gets called the GOAT.
What would happen if we abandoned the notion that each of us has to be the best at something? I’m not the best preacher you’ll ever hear. I’m not the best photographer or poet or musician. That’s OK. I don’t have to be the best. More to the point, I don’t need to insist on being the best. I just need to strive to be better than I was yesterday, to approach the fullness that God imagined at my birth.
I also need to separate knowledge from power. I may be right about something, but most of the time that does not give me license to require it of you. It might not even be appropriate to try to persuade you of it. It might not even be appropriate to mention it. The exceptions are usually when somebody is being harmed. Then it’s time to say, “Somebody is hurting because of what you’re doing. Please stop.” In other matters, though, it’s not my place to tell you what to do.
You know. Like I’m merrily doing now.
As Melissa Bane Sevier writes at her blog, “If you are one of those people who thinks you deserve the best place at the banquet, think again. You need to be humbled. And if you are one of those people who thinks (or you’ve been told) you only deserve the lowest place at the banquet, think again. You need to be strengthened—you need to accept your own privileged status as a child of God.
“At God’s table, every place is the same. There is always enough to go around. There is always room for you. Be strong and be humble. They are not mutually exclusive.”
Pride might feel good for a while. Self-respect, one that knows we have limits, feels a lot better for a lot longer. Pride might make big changes in the world around us, and some of those might be improvements – but in the long run, people who act out of pride will ignore the consequences to those around them, will even adopt cruelty as a means to their ends. Pride might build a family, a business, or even a nation, but these are families, businesses, and nations with a crumbling foundation. It may take centuries, but they will fall.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric makes changes while preaching, so the prepared text above will not precisely match the sermon as he delivered it.
The image is “A Parable – Where to Sit” by Cara B. Hochhalter, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=59048 [retrieved August 31, 2025]. Original source: Cara B. Hochhalter.
Jesus’ advice to wait until people of power and influence notice you won’t help you get wealth or status in the world. It will help you build a relationship with God.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the fourteenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 14:1, 7-14), in which Jesus shared a Sabbath meal at the invitation of a leader of the Pharisees.
This wasn’t terribly uncommon in Jesus’ life. He was a respected and well known teacher. As he traveled, the leaders of the local synagogues (who would have been out of the Pharisaic tradition): they wanted to meet him. They wanted to talk with him. They wanted to learn from him. They probably wanted to argue with him — because that’s what Jewish leaders did in the first century, was have conversations and discussions and arguments about the theological and spiritual questions of the day.
So Jesus accepted the invitation and he watched as other guests found their appropriate places around the tables in the room. It was a hierarchical society (ours is more hierarchical than we like to admit), and so people knew what their place was, at least in a social setting such as a Sabbath meal.
Jesus reminded them of a piece of wisdom that came out of the ancient Hebrew Wisdom tradition, that when you are invited to a banquet go and sit in a lower place than your social standing would entitle you to, so that your host may then invite you to come higher. Jesus followed that, however, with a somewhat different set of advice. Instead of inviting your social equals or your social superiors to a dinner, invite the poor. Invite the disabled. Invite the people who cannot invite you back. Invite the people who cannot improve your social standing.
That, said Jesus, is the way to gain credit, favor, with God.
I have to say that as advice for gaining social, economic, vocational, or political success in the twenty-first century, it’s terrible advice. If you go and sit far away from those in power, those in power will happily ignore you. Those in power —we’ve all seen this — they favor those who are in their face, who are noisy, who are obvious, who make themselves known.
Jesus’ point was that that is not how it is with God. God sees each and every one of us with a clarity that we cannot equal, a clarity that we cannot imagine. So God knows those who are quiet just as well as God knows those who are obvious. God knows those who are humble as well as or even better than those who are prideful.
If you want material success, it’s terrible advice. If you want a depth of spirit, if you want the opportunity to open your heart to God, if you want to follow the way of Jesus, then it is the advice to follow, these are the things to do. You will be seen by God. You will be called close to Jesus’ heart.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
“Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!”
They must have been stoked. Sent out without luggage or even a change of clothing – let’s not think about that for too long – the seventy (or seventy-two, the oldest copies of Luke don’t agree) had been told to bring peace, healing, and teaching to the villages of Galilee where Jesus planned to go. Imagine how nervous they’d have been. Will we find welcome? Will we find words to say what we’re supposed to say? Will we bring peace when we arrive? Most of all: when they bring us somebody who’s sick, will they receive God’s healing through our hands?
The answer to all of those, including the last, was, “Yes.” “Even the demons submit to us! How cool is that?”
Jesus, the great motivational speaker of the first century, then seems to have forgotten everything he knew about motivational speaking. Right? The thing to say was something like, “Well done! You’ve accomplished great things! And look, I’ve got even greater things that you can do! You know you can! Let’s go out and make Judea Great Again!”
But Jesus didn’t do that.
“You think you did great things? I saw Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lighting. Don’t get excited about spirits that come out when you call. That’s small stuff. Calm down. Chill out.”
I don’t think he’d have been a hit on the motivational speaker circuit.
If you want to get excited about something, rejoice that your names are written in heaven.
Well, what does that mean? The phrase only appears once in the entire Bible, right here, so we haven’t got a lot of help. If I ask the question, “Whose name does God know?” the answer I give myself is, “Everyone.”
Rejoice that your name, like everyone’s name, is known by God.
Again, it’s a tough sell for a motivational speaker.
And it’s exactly what Jesus said. The Good News of God’s reign is not about power, even over evil. It’s not about accomplishment, even of healing. It’s not about me being better than you. I’m not (you probably knew that). It is about all of us being held in the heart of God.
Rejoice that you’re held in the heart of God.
When I was in school, I liked to work for extra credit. I’d answer those optional questions on tests; I’d write a few extra paragraphs when invited. Those came with rewards. They’d bring up my average grade. They might even impress the teachers – at least, I thought they did.
Jesus didn’t give extra credit. Even to those who’d gone the extra mile.
Your names are written in heaven. That’s enough, you know. In fact, that’s what there is.
It’s not just school that insists on extra credit. So many parts of our lives scream out, “Here are the great ones. Here are the heroes.” On the weekend of the Fourth of July, American pride in country can be earnest and uniting, but it can also be prideful and jingoistic. C. S. Lewis wrote, “I once ventured to say to an old clergyman who was voicing this sort of patriotism, ‘But, sir, aren’t we told that every people thinks its own men the bravest and its own women the fairest in the world?’ He replied with total gravity—he could not have been graver if he had been saying the Creed at the altar—’Yes, but in England it’s true.’ To be sure, this conviction had not made my friend (God rest his soul) a villain; only an extremely lovable old ass. It can however produce asses that kick and bite. On the lunatic fringe it may shade off into that popular Racialism which Christianity and science equally forbid…”
[Found in “The Four Loves” in The Beloved Works of C. S. Lewis (New York, Inspirational Press), 1998.]
We don’t have any recent experience of that, do we? A combination of American patriotism and Christian belligerence that betrays the best ideals of both?
Well, maybe we do.
If casting out demons doesn’t make a difference in God’s love for us, then how much difference does it make to be British? Or Japanese? Or American? Or Hawaiian? Yes, it makes a lot of difference in human relationships, but are we held differently in the heart of God?
No. It doesn’t seem that we do. All our names are written in heaven. That’s enough to rejoice in.
We still get to participate in bringing that good news to others. Jesus asked for laborers; Jesus got seventy to go out and do the work. It wasn’t complicated. It could be challenging, but not complicated. He kept it simple. Visit the village. Accept hospitality. Share your peace. Heal as God enables you. Move on to the next. It’s simple.
“It’s amazing how often I needlessly complicate the Christian life,” writes Debie Thomas at JourneyWithJesus.net. “’But what does God want me to do?’ I groan. What is God’s will? How shall I hear God’s voice and discern God’s plan?
“Are the answers really all that hard? Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly. Pray, listen, learn, and love. Break the bread, drink the wine, bear the burden, share the peace. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
“Get off your high horse and get in the water. Sit down at the dinner table and speak peace to those who are feeding you.”
Rejoice that you, and they, have our names written in heaven. We are known by God. We are valued by God. We are loved by God.
Written in heaven.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric writes the sermon in advance, but he also makes adjustments as he preaches, so what he wrote does not precisely match what he said.
The photo of a koa’e ula (red-tailed tropicbird) is by Eric Anderson.
I’m thinking about plenty of Scripture during Holy Week, but is there any text more important than Jesus” command to love one another?
Here’s a transcript:
It’s Holy Week, so I’m thinking about a lot of Scripture. For Easter, I’m thinking about the twentieth chapter of John (John 20:1-18); for Good Friday, I’m thinking about the texts that we call “The Seven Last Words of Jesus;” and for Maundy Thursday, I’m thinking about the thirteenth chapter of John (John 13:1-17, 31b-35).
That particular reading comes in two parts. The first part concerns Jesus washing his disciples’ feet before they actually began the meal of the Last Supper. Washing feet was not an unusual thing to do in the first century, but it was unusual for a teacher, a leader, to wash the feet of his students and followers. Simon Peter thought it was so wrong that he protested and declared that Jesus would never wash his feet. Jesus insisted, and Simon Peter gave in.
Jesus then told his disciples to remember that he, their teacher, had done this humble and powerful thing for them.
Later he gave them a new commandment: To love one another. “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” He said those words after washing their feet.
In human relationships, it is easy to stand upon dignity and upon some sense of self-worth which is not self-worth, it’s just simply pride. Self-worth is a good thing. The awareness that we are valued by God, that we are valuable living beings: this is a good thing. But to believe that our self-worth disconnects us from the grime of the world, that it somehow or other separates us from cleaning up around the world, that it keeps us somehow secure from taking care of one another: that’s no longer self-worth. That’s hubris. That’s pride.
On that night, Jesus told his followers to lay aside their pride, to maintain their self-worth but to lay aside their pride. Once that is out of the way, then it is indeed possible for human beings to love one another, to meet one another’s needs, to value one another’s souls, to stand with and walk with and move with and support with one another in the course of our lives through the world.
“A new commandment I give you: that you should love one another. As I have loved you, you also should love one another.”
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
