← Back
Especially (not) Special
As Presbyterians, I realize that we don't do much in the way of adoration of saints, but if I were to choose a patron for what I hope my ministry is like, it'd be Saint Fred Rogers of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. I remember growing up watching Mr. Rogers show me and so many other children new places and ideas, and all the while showing each of us what it means to be a good neighbor. One of the things about Mr. Rogers that is still resonant to me today is his singing. Often, I find myself humming his tunes at times to myself or to my children, who have also watched Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. One that comes into my mind most often is “You Are Special”. I'm sure you all remember it, too, especially if you had children who grew up watching the show:
You are my friend
You are special
You are my friend
You're special to me.
You are the only one like you.
Like you, my friend, I like
In the daytime
In the nighttime
Any time that you feel's the right time
For a friendship with me, you see
F-R-I-E-N-D special
You are my friend
You're special to me.
There's only one in this wonderful world
You are special.
There is no doubt about the ministry that comes from an adult father- or grandfather- figure who, nigh once a week, reminds people in varying stations in life that they meant something – that they had a friend, and that they, indeed, were unique.
This is a message that our culture tells us all the time, too. From the television to the catalog to the shopping cart on Amazon, there is an intrinsic need to demonstrate that we are special. And, certainly, there is some benefit in knowing that something is special - this alb reminds me of my baptism, and the stole reminds me of the commitment I've made to the work of the church. Yet, like, many other things, there comes a point when being told how special you are becomes too much of a good thing.
Consider the story of Ethan Couch, also known as the “affluenza teen”, who recklessly killed multiple individuals in a underage drunken accident. LeVonna Anderson, one of Couch's teachers at a prestigious private school in Fort Worth, noted that Couch's mom Tonya “loved the boy so much that she couldn't say no to him” and of the father, Fred, that “He believed his son was better. His son was more talented. He was the golden boy.”
Or, even more recently, we have heard much about the case of Brock Turner, the Stanford student who had sexually assaulted a student, only to have his father exhort the judge that Brock was the victim, and not, in fact, the woman who had been injured so grievously. And while I am to some degree sympathetic to the tragedy of a moment's decision completely changing an individual's life, to equate the assault of a woman to a loss of appetite of Turner's favorite meal is, to put it mildly, a bit tone-deaf.
In each of these circumstances, we see an individual who is told he is special so many times that he is the only one who seems to matter, flouting law and common decency to do what he wishes. This is supported by close members of his family.
Interestingly enough, this is not too much different from the story in our Old Testament reading from today. King Ahab believes that he should be able to have whatever he desires, and when he doesn't, he takes to his bed and doesn't eat – he'd rather starve than not get what he wants. Naboth, on the other hand, simply wants to hold onto his family's heritage – something that is honored through the statues laid out by God as the people of Israel developed. At this point, one could be forgiven for not seeing a king, but rather a petulant child (or, perhaps at times, a sweet and still-learning to cope two-year-old) who was just told no.
In a similar way, we have a character in Jezebel who gives Ahab what he wants, disregarding on of the Ten Commandments in order to bear false witness against Naboth, resulting in his death, and Ahab's new vegetable garden. And so, once again, we are left with a difficult reality – because of someone's feeling of specialness and subsequent entitlement results in lives that are destroye.
And while in some occasions like the last three examples, this kind of entitlement can be explicit and tremendously painful, it can also be far more nuanced. The impulse that drove Ahab to his bed is the same one that invites us to cut off the person on the road right behind us; to not apologize to our spouse because clearly, we were the ones who were egriged; and the one that will celebrate major moves toward justice yet leaves the homeless individual on the street still ignored and evermore hungry.
What, then, is the cure for this “affluenza”? Our gospel story provides some insight to that. Once again, it seems, that we have an individual in Simon who, as a Pharisee is special – the name Pharisee itself means “one who is seperated”. Simon invites Jesus to dine with him, when suddenly a woman comes who is caught up in enough trouble that people think a little differently about her (lots of scholars point to her as perhaps a prostitute, although the word used, “ἁμαρτωλός”, is in the NT as someone “devoted to sin”, either bound by it, or especially wicked).
I imagine this scene a little bit like many of the coming-of-age high school movies in the last twenty years. We have the final big bash before everyone goes off to college, sponsored by the popular jock of the class whose family just somehow goes out of town the weekend before graduation. Everything is going as planned until that person arrives. The nerd, the geek, the girl who became pregnant in high school. As soon as he or she walks into the door, the whole house goes silent. Suddenly the host arrives, and in the interest of image, tells the “reject” that they can't stay – they have to go. After all, the host cannot be seen with someone like that.
Jesus, however, as our main protagonist, asks an interesting question – an economic question. Two individuals owe money – one many times more than the other – and both are forgiven. Who, Jesus asks, “will love him more”? The answer, of course, makes sense: the person who owes roughly a year's wage is far more excited than the person who is forgiven a month's wage. Jesus then turns to the woman, and lists all of the things she has done to provide hospitality to Jesus, leaving us as readers to believe that Simon has done none of it. And so Jesus forgives the woman of her sins.
What is especially interesting is Simon's response – or, more correctly, his lack of response. Instead of considering his own debt, we get a sense in Luke's telling that Simon fades back into the crowd, shocked and appalled by someone who things he has to power to “even forgive sins.” And so the moment of self-reflection is lost.
When had my first job after I finished graduate school, I went on a buying bonanza. I finally had income, and I was going to use it! But instead of buying things all at once, I tended to use financing. The $2500 computer I bought now was only $100 a month. The season tickets for the local soccer club weren't $400, but $50. Progressively, however, those numbers began to add up to the point where I recognized that financing so many things began to cut into my budget to pay for other basic needs – I ended up having to see a couple things to make sure I was comfortable again. When I had low amounts of debt, I was very willing to let it slide: it was only when I had a debt of significance did I recognize its weight.
The woman with the alabaster jar knew the weight of her debt, and responded to Jesus with complete gratitude and love. Nowhere does the woman claim to be special or entitled – and given the narrative, she would have likely felt ostracized by the people at the meal by everyone except the one she was there to see. And it is in that moment of recognition and gratitude that Jesus calls her forgiven – perhaps the most special thing of our faith – that we, yet sinners, are forgiven, over and over again! Jesus called the sinful woman her friend, in much a similar way he called the Centurian his friend a couple weeks ago.
The Ethan's, the Brock's, the Ahab's and the Simon's of the world believe themselves to be special. They are able to live in narratives that allow them to be at the center of their own worlds. These worlds, as we have witnessed, however, only lead to destruction, death, and isolation.
The ones who recognize how they are not special, however, are the ones who are greeted with words of reconciliation and redemption, and we hear echoes of the Beatitudes – the meek and the pure in heart. Every single one of us carries a debt. It is only in the moment when we recognize that great debt, and place the best of what we have at the feet of Jesus Christ, do we find our forgiveness. And, that, my brothers and sisters, is truly special. Amen.
You are my friend
You are special
You are my friend
You're special to me.
You are the only one like you.
Like you, my friend, I like
In the daytime
In the nighttime
Any time that you feel's the right time
For a friendship with me, you see
F-R-I-E-N-D special
You are my friend
You're special to me.
There's only one in this wonderful world
You are special.
There is no doubt about the ministry that comes from an adult father- or grandfather- figure who, nigh once a week, reminds people in varying stations in life that they meant something – that they had a friend, and that they, indeed, were unique.
This is a message that our culture tells us all the time, too. From the television to the catalog to the shopping cart on Amazon, there is an intrinsic need to demonstrate that we are special. And, certainly, there is some benefit in knowing that something is special - this alb reminds me of my baptism, and the stole reminds me of the commitment I've made to the work of the church. Yet, like, many other things, there comes a point when being told how special you are becomes too much of a good thing.
Consider the story of Ethan Couch, also known as the “affluenza teen”, who recklessly killed multiple individuals in a underage drunken accident. LeVonna Anderson, one of Couch's teachers at a prestigious private school in Fort Worth, noted that Couch's mom Tonya “loved the boy so much that she couldn't say no to him” and of the father, Fred, that “He believed his son was better. His son was more talented. He was the golden boy.”
Or, even more recently, we have heard much about the case of Brock Turner, the Stanford student who had sexually assaulted a student, only to have his father exhort the judge that Brock was the victim, and not, in fact, the woman who had been injured so grievously. And while I am to some degree sympathetic to the tragedy of a moment's decision completely changing an individual's life, to equate the assault of a woman to a loss of appetite of Turner's favorite meal is, to put it mildly, a bit tone-deaf.
In each of these circumstances, we see an individual who is told he is special so many times that he is the only one who seems to matter, flouting law and common decency to do what he wishes. This is supported by close members of his family.
Interestingly enough, this is not too much different from the story in our Old Testament reading from today. King Ahab believes that he should be able to have whatever he desires, and when he doesn't, he takes to his bed and doesn't eat – he'd rather starve than not get what he wants. Naboth, on the other hand, simply wants to hold onto his family's heritage – something that is honored through the statues laid out by God as the people of Israel developed. At this point, one could be forgiven for not seeing a king, but rather a petulant child (or, perhaps at times, a sweet and still-learning to cope two-year-old) who was just told no.
In a similar way, we have a character in Jezebel who gives Ahab what he wants, disregarding on of the Ten Commandments in order to bear false witness against Naboth, resulting in his death, and Ahab's new vegetable garden. And so, once again, we are left with a difficult reality – because of someone's feeling of specialness and subsequent entitlement results in lives that are destroye.
And while in some occasions like the last three examples, this kind of entitlement can be explicit and tremendously painful, it can also be far more nuanced. The impulse that drove Ahab to his bed is the same one that invites us to cut off the person on the road right behind us; to not apologize to our spouse because clearly, we were the ones who were egriged; and the one that will celebrate major moves toward justice yet leaves the homeless individual on the street still ignored and evermore hungry.
What, then, is the cure for this “affluenza”? Our gospel story provides some insight to that. Once again, it seems, that we have an individual in Simon who, as a Pharisee is special – the name Pharisee itself means “one who is seperated”. Simon invites Jesus to dine with him, when suddenly a woman comes who is caught up in enough trouble that people think a little differently about her (lots of scholars point to her as perhaps a prostitute, although the word used, “ἁμαρτωλός”, is in the NT as someone “devoted to sin”, either bound by it, or especially wicked).
I imagine this scene a little bit like many of the coming-of-age high school movies in the last twenty years. We have the final big bash before everyone goes off to college, sponsored by the popular jock of the class whose family just somehow goes out of town the weekend before graduation. Everything is going as planned until that person arrives. The nerd, the geek, the girl who became pregnant in high school. As soon as he or she walks into the door, the whole house goes silent. Suddenly the host arrives, and in the interest of image, tells the “reject” that they can't stay – they have to go. After all, the host cannot be seen with someone like that.
Jesus, however, as our main protagonist, asks an interesting question – an economic question. Two individuals owe money – one many times more than the other – and both are forgiven. Who, Jesus asks, “will love him more”? The answer, of course, makes sense: the person who owes roughly a year's wage is far more excited than the person who is forgiven a month's wage. Jesus then turns to the woman, and lists all of the things she has done to provide hospitality to Jesus, leaving us as readers to believe that Simon has done none of it. And so Jesus forgives the woman of her sins.
What is especially interesting is Simon's response – or, more correctly, his lack of response. Instead of considering his own debt, we get a sense in Luke's telling that Simon fades back into the crowd, shocked and appalled by someone who things he has to power to “even forgive sins.” And so the moment of self-reflection is lost.
When had my first job after I finished graduate school, I went on a buying bonanza. I finally had income, and I was going to use it! But instead of buying things all at once, I tended to use financing. The $2500 computer I bought now was only $100 a month. The season tickets for the local soccer club weren't $400, but $50. Progressively, however, those numbers began to add up to the point where I recognized that financing so many things began to cut into my budget to pay for other basic needs – I ended up having to see a couple things to make sure I was comfortable again. When I had low amounts of debt, I was very willing to let it slide: it was only when I had a debt of significance did I recognize its weight.
The woman with the alabaster jar knew the weight of her debt, and responded to Jesus with complete gratitude and love. Nowhere does the woman claim to be special or entitled – and given the narrative, she would have likely felt ostracized by the people at the meal by everyone except the one she was there to see. And it is in that moment of recognition and gratitude that Jesus calls her forgiven – perhaps the most special thing of our faith – that we, yet sinners, are forgiven, over and over again! Jesus called the sinful woman her friend, in much a similar way he called the Centurian his friend a couple weeks ago.
The Ethan's, the Brock's, the Ahab's and the Simon's of the world believe themselves to be special. They are able to live in narratives that allow them to be at the center of their own worlds. These worlds, as we have witnessed, however, only lead to destruction, death, and isolation.
The ones who recognize how they are not special, however, are the ones who are greeted with words of reconciliation and redemption, and we hear echoes of the Beatitudes – the meek and the pure in heart. Every single one of us carries a debt. It is only in the moment when we recognize that great debt, and place the best of what we have at the feet of Jesus Christ, do we find our forgiveness. And, that, my brothers and sisters, is truly special. Amen.
Post a comment