Spiritual Hiccups - Look at Me, Look at Me!

I've got the television on as I type, watching a college football game.  College rules don't allow the same sort of end zone celebrations seen in the NFL, but the players still strike poses, flex their muscles, and pat themselves on the chest.  Some of it is genuine celebration, but mostly it's a "grown up" version of "Look at me, look at me!"

Our culture is filled with variations of this.  People who quietly do their jobs without getting much notice rarely advance to the top of their company.  You have to call attention to yourself.  In my denomination, when pastors are looking for a new position, it works much like a secular job search.  We have to sell ourselves, trumpeting our strengths and minimizing our weaknesses so that a search committee will "Look at me!"

It's behavior that comes naturally to many, very similar to behavior in other animals.  Just watch a nature program that shows males posing and strutting as they seek to attract a mate.


So what do we do with Jesus' words in today's gospel?  "For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."


Our culture doesn't value humility, probably because our culture is all about striving to make it, to get ahead.  At its very core, it is a culture of anxiety.  In our anxiety, we are perpetually worried about whether or not we've been noticed, about whether or not we're getting the credit we deserve.

Wouldn't it be nice to live life without worrying, without anxiety?  Wouldn't it me nice if we could simply focus on doing what God calls us to do, trusting that what we need would come to us?  That is, after all, what Jesus tells us when he says in another place in Luke, "Instead, strive for (God's) kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well."

We believe in Jesus, and we want to follow him.  But we sure have a hard time trusting him, don't we.

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