You Might be a Poor Spiritual Friend, if you are vainglorious
Last week, we began a conversation about coming together across differences and distinctions. We looked around at the currently world, and said we need reasons to come together. After worship, so many of you indicated that the world I described sounded like where you were living. This week, we take that conversation from poor spiritual friends being jealous to being vainglorious. This is the kind of person who is always bringing the conversation back to themselves. Sometimes to tell you about the latest greatest thing that they have done or are contemplating doing. Sometimes seeking your encouragement, attention, affirmation. This too disrupts our relationships, inserting roadblocks that impede relationships.
It might be that you have never even heard of this word, vainglorious. It is a bit of an old-fashioned word, but its concept is modern. This is needing to have the glory, needing to have the attention in a given situation. The word glory, we often think of in reference to God’s glory. But glory itself only refers to goodness or magnificence. While God’s glory is worthy of praise, we also have and given glory. Ask a gathered group who has the glory in our world today and you will end up with a list of celebrities. Ask the same group who should have the glory, you see a list of personal connections and relationships.
We might easily think of those who seek attention and have an inflated sense of self, first. And we can see pretty quickly how that would interfere with our desire to healthy and strong spiritual friends. Traditionally, we have suggested that vainglory was all about pride and arrogance. And there is no doubt that for some people it is. You’re so vain, you probably think this sermon is about you! However, let us not miss that relationships are also off-kilter and missing out on the potential syncretism when vainglory rises from a place of fear and need. Vainglorious tendencies are not just when you and I want to stare in a mirror all day or tell exaggerated stories of our adventures. Vainglory gets in the way of our friendships and relationships when our fear and need to be affirmed and attended to above all else. This is those of us who are affirmation junkies in need of hearing that people liked and appreciated what we did. This is our challenge when we refuse to continue to serve in the church, or elsewhere because we were not appreciated. When we always need acknowledgement, attention, affirmation, approval, appreciation, we can also be a poor spiritual friend. We put on masks to cover our true selves. We long to be loved and deeply known as real self and loved for that reason. In fact, prideful vainglory is to say that “you’re all that” whereas deprived vainglory is to say that we have fear that we are not all that. I give credit to Dr. Rebecca DeYoung and her book on vainglory. She highlights the backstory and growth areas for the church. [1]
In the early church tradition, there is a story of Abba Marcius in Egypt who speaks to a young monk. The young monk comes to him asking how he can avoid the sin of vainglory. The older, more experienced monk gives the most unusual advice. He tells him to go to a cemetery and shout at the dead. The young monk does so, albeit hesitantly. The young monk yells obscenities and all of his anger at the dead. He comes back to the old monk exhausted and looking for the lesson. Abba Marcius tells him next to shower the dead in praise. Garner all of the positive and uplifting things to those who have died. As he returns, Abba Marcius says, “like the dead take no account of scorn or praises.”
Should we practice shouting in cemeteries? How are we better suited to move from vainglorious needs for attention and affirmation to healthy spiritual friendships? The early church tradition first suggests a few things. First, solitude and silence. In the quiet, we often hear ourselves more clearly. The tradition goes farther to suggest silence as a week of not talking once about yourself. That is to say, not complete silence, but a full week of not mentioning yourself in any way. In our culture, this sounds unheard of and almost unbelievable. Two other suggestions: handle glory well. There are things we do well. There are gifts that we have been given. Understand that you are a recipient of a gift from God and given God the glory for what God has given you. But the second suggestion, I think is even more important. Share the glory in collaboration.
Collaboration is such an old concept that says we need one another, and we are better for it. However, there is actually a great insight into how our culture has so integrated this tendency into our daily life. Previous lists of the seven deadly sins, included vainglory. Since then, it was decided that it is not as bad as the others and got knocked off the list.
When I was ordained, our Bishop said two things that ring in my ear, almost every day. As her hands were on my head, she said, from the liturgy, “Take Thou Authority.” That moment is in some ways the culmination of the path that has come before. Years of serving churches, seminary, commissioning and ordination paperwork and interviews. That moment is a pinnacle of achievement and empowerment. And for a split second, a vainglorious thought pops into my mind and I think, wow! I can do it! I can lead the church forward into God’s preferred future. And then before the thought even comes to completion in my mind. The Bishop, she says with her hands on my stole yanking just a little bit, “Be yoked with Christ …for life.” And in that second, I came back to realization that I was not doing this on my own, anyway. And it was certainly not an equal yoke! Collaboration, dependence on Jesus, was not a nice add-on, but an integral necessity. Every time I put on my stole, the sign of my ordination, both my authority and my yoking, I pray, “let there be more of you and less of me, O God.”
The antidote to vainglory is collaboration. Knowing our need to work with others situates us in proper place. This were Paul’s instructions to the church at Corinth. A church made up of highly effective professionals, who were each convinced they were all the church needed. Paul gives the example of the hypothetical person whose life in Christ was planted by Paul, watered by Apollos, and given growth through God.
Collaboration is a distinct mind-set all together. Collaborations starts from the premise that you and I each have something valuable to bring to the conversation. Collaboration is not unity or sameness. Rather, it explicitly highlights that in our difference is blessing. This come directly from Paul’s writings to Corinth, Rome, Ephesus, and others. Gifts are given differently to different people and we need one another to have the full complement of what God has given us. Collaboration comes from the place that we will have some share rules, like those in Leviticus 19, that will guide how we will treat one another.
Collaboration means that the person who always gives the same exact suggestion has something to offer as does the person who quietly sits in the corner and does not offer much if anything, even when asked.
Collaboration suggests that we need one another to do anything of value. We change our perspective from deterrents to attribute. In our friendships, we move from seeking to be right and have all the credit, to interdependence of what is possible in working together. In work situations, we see value in working with the exchanges that can lead to innovation through collaboration. But particularly apropos to the church, we need one another to usher in the kingdom of God. No one of us can do it alone, no matter how much scripture we can recite, how many mission trips that we have been on, how many tv preachers we have heard or how long we stay at the church after an event.
We need one another. In stillness, we discover we have something to offer. Each of us has been gifted as a child of God. In the solitude, we also discover that we do not have everything we need to have abundant life without God and God’s people. Like a cooperative board game, we need everyone! Like an escape room, we need everyone! Like a jigsaw puzzle, we need everyone!
This is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, thanks be to God, Amen.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4daLZzpHPQo&list=PL9GwT4_YRZdCksWfZJWuVQumA-0sBONcj&index=20, Vainglory: The Forgotten Vice by Rebecca DeYoung.
Old Testament Lesson: Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.
When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God.
You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another. And you shall not swear falsely by my name, profaning the name of your God: I am the Lord.
You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning. You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.
You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor: I am the Lord.
You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
New Testament Lesson: 1 Corinthians 3:4-15
For when one says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human?
What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.
According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire.
Meditations For Your Week
Sunday, February 19~ Saturday, February 25
Sunday: “For when one says, ‘I belong to Paul’, and another, ‘I belong to Apollos’, are you not merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” 1 Corinthians 3: 4-6. God calls us to serve each other; however, we do not always see the full story. Where is God calling you to plant a seed in someone else’s life?
Monday: “So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each,” 1 Corinthians 3: 7-8. Sharing God’s love with others is our common purpose. Prayerfully ask God where you can share God’s love today.
Tuesday: “For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.” 1 Corinthians 3: 9. Faith is not an individual event. How are you working with others in cultivating your faith, and theirs, to usher in the kingdom of God?
Wednesday: “According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 3: 10-11. Christ is our foundation and cornerstone. Prayerfully consider how you might help others build their lives on Christ’s cornerstone by offering God’s dependable grace.
Thursday: “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” Leviticus 19:1-2. Moses spoke on behalf of God. Moses drew apart and listened to know God. Find moments of silence today to listen to God.
Friday: “You shall not render an unjust judgement; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor: I am the Lord.” Leviticus 19: 15-16. The way we care for one another is of highest import to God. Pray for justice in the ways you treat your neighbors.
Saturday: “You shall not hate in your heart a anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” Leviticus 19:17-18. God inspires us to goodness. Prayerfully confess and seek reconciliation with all those you that you have thought poorly of in your heart. Ask God to give you love for your neighbors.