Yesterday, I was traveling on the interstate and noticed something. There were a lot of vehicles, and a couple of lane closures, so the traffic was a bit heavier than usual. As I sat, waiting my turn to move past a bottleneck between Fredericksburg and Springfield, I noticed that individuals were pulling out into the lane to the right. That would have been fine - except that lane merged back into the lane I was in about 300 yards up the road! These individuals were so interested in hurrying up and getting where they were going that they made the bottleneck worse, extending the wait for all the rest of us who were waiting our turn.
Now, I'm not surprised by this behavior on the roads. I've even been guilty of this a time or two myself - so focused on my own convenience (or lack thereof) that I didn't extend to others the common courtesy of simply waiting my turn. This is, after all, how a capitalist society like ours is structured - we're conditioned to look after our own self-interest. When people in society are selfish, it doesn't surprise me.
What does surprise me (or rather, frustrate me) is when this attitude is present in the church. Why? Because the church is supposed to be like Jesus - and Jesus wasn't selfish. We turn to his words and find that he says, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." (Mark 8:34) Why did he say this? Because he did it! He denied the glory and splendor of his Father's courts for a life of sacrifice and death. He preached and fed the people when he was tired and needed a retreat. He spent hour after hour healing the sick and caring for the downtrodden. He poured out his life into his disciples, even when they were obtuse and "didn't get it."
Perhaps Jesus' servanthood and sacrificial nature is best understood in John's account of the night before his death. In John 13, we read how he shed his outer cloak, wrapped the towel around his waist and washed his disciples' feet. Just a little while later, he tells his followers that there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends. (John 15:13) This is the sort of love Jesus calls us to embrace - the love of unselfishness.
And yet...we find the church besieged by selfishness, by church members angry because they didn't get their way, brothers and sisters in Christ who won't talk to each other because of some slight, real or imagined. We let petty squabbles and purely mundane preferences divide our families, our churches, and our communities. An outsider would look at us and swear there was no difference between us and anyone else - except that we claim to be different.
So yesterday, as I watched the cars zip around me and all the other stopped cars simply to have to merge back into our line of traffic 300 yards later, I asked myself: am I selfish? Is my church? And, if we are, what are we going to do about it? Are we going to shrug it off, saying, "Well, everyone else is like that - why shouldn't we be?" Or will we follow in the footsteps of the rabbi from Galilee, the one who Paul tells us humbled himself - even to death on the cross (Phil. 2:8)? If we claim to be his followers, we have to act like him. Are we? Or are we just selfish?
Now, I'm not surprised by this behavior on the roads. I've even been guilty of this a time or two myself - so focused on my own convenience (or lack thereof) that I didn't extend to others the common courtesy of simply waiting my turn. This is, after all, how a capitalist society like ours is structured - we're conditioned to look after our own self-interest. When people in society are selfish, it doesn't surprise me.
What does surprise me (or rather, frustrate me) is when this attitude is present in the church. Why? Because the church is supposed to be like Jesus - and Jesus wasn't selfish. We turn to his words and find that he says, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." (Mark 8:34) Why did he say this? Because he did it! He denied the glory and splendor of his Father's courts for a life of sacrifice and death. He preached and fed the people when he was tired and needed a retreat. He spent hour after hour healing the sick and caring for the downtrodden. He poured out his life into his disciples, even when they were obtuse and "didn't get it."
Perhaps Jesus' servanthood and sacrificial nature is best understood in John's account of the night before his death. In John 13, we read how he shed his outer cloak, wrapped the towel around his waist and washed his disciples' feet. Just a little while later, he tells his followers that there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends. (John 15:13) This is the sort of love Jesus calls us to embrace - the love of unselfishness.
And yet...we find the church besieged by selfishness, by church members angry because they didn't get their way, brothers and sisters in Christ who won't talk to each other because of some slight, real or imagined. We let petty squabbles and purely mundane preferences divide our families, our churches, and our communities. An outsider would look at us and swear there was no difference between us and anyone else - except that we claim to be different.
So yesterday, as I watched the cars zip around me and all the other stopped cars simply to have to merge back into our line of traffic 300 yards later, I asked myself: am I selfish? Is my church? And, if we are, what are we going to do about it? Are we going to shrug it off, saying, "Well, everyone else is like that - why shouldn't we be?" Or will we follow in the footsteps of the rabbi from Galilee, the one who Paul tells us humbled himself - even to death on the cross (Phil. 2:8)? If we claim to be his followers, we have to act like him. Are we? Or are we just selfish?
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