7 - 10 - 17 Lookin' Stupid
“he [Jesus] said, ‘Go away! The
girl is not dead but sleeping.’ And they ridiculed him.”
How many times have we thought of a
very faithful response to a question, but then remembered the kind of reception
it would receive and rethought our response. We temper our testimony for fear
of alienating our friends who we think
do not want to hear about how our faith impacts our life. On the other hand,
they probably see us and wonder why we bother with Church as it doesn’t seem to
be doing us any good, at least not that they hear about.
If we’re going to give effective
testimony with our lives, we also need to explain it with our words. Surely if
your friends see you doing terrible things and being ungenerous to the people
in your life they probably won’t care to listen to you too much about how your
faith improves you. But the almost always silent admiration you can gain from
your peers when you’re being a particularly unselfish person can only be used
to draw them into the Church if they think of the Church when they think of
you.
Simply seeing a kind act doesn’t
necessarily make me want to go to church. Nor does seeing a remarkably kind
person. What’s going to convince me to go is if that very kind person tells me
how they got that way, what’s helping them along, what tools they have that I
do not have. We should be walking billboards for Jesus in our daily lives, even
if the image is a bit crude.
I think part of the reason it’s
crude is because the person we imagine wearing a billboard looks quite silly.
The fear of looking stupid can be a debilitating one. It’s what keeps people
off karaoke stages and dance floors, but it’s also part of what keeps people
from approaching someone who could be their soulmate, or quitting a job they
hate to pursue something they love.
The conclusion I’ve come to is that
I’m going to look stupid anyways, most likely every day, so I may as well
embrace it. The other thing I like to consider is whether I’m really saving
face by not doing what I think would make me look silly. If everyone else at
the wedding is dancing and having a good time, aren’t you the fool for having a
straight face? If a little kid hands you a play phone and says the call is for
you would you be more embarrassed by playing along or refusing a five-year-old?
Another consideration is what our
motive is for the action. If we’re debating whether or not to do something
stupid just for the attention, I think we could be cautious. For the happiness
of others we love? There may be a stronger inclination to proceed. When we
believe we will look stupid by acting out our faith, we must decide to look
foolish.
A few stares, a joke or two at our
expense, is nothing compared to a crucifixion.
I once heard a bit in a Lewis book
(at least I think it was) about having to be humbled to develop humility. One
of the ways we are most frequently humbled is by this social embarrassment, the
condescending jabs of our peers. So let’s embrace the opportunity to be uncool.
Along a similar vein I can think of
few better ways to develop the kind of cheer and good humor that will go so far
in assisting our journey as accustoming ourselves to being the butt of the
joke, and even openly inviting it. Self-deprecating humor is one of the less
painful and most direct ways to combat pride in ourselves, so long as we are
not simply being actors on a stage.
In an early part of the Gospel
reading for today, a woman desires to touch Jesus’s cloak as she knows it will
heal her. When she does he turns and says “Courage, daughter! Your faith has
saved you.”
There are two virtues the woman
exhibits in this story, even though it’s only about eight lines long.
Firstly, she desires a closeness to
God. We need to really think about this one. Superficially, it seems
immediately obvious that we would desire to be close to God but we really need
to consider what kind of things are and are not happening close to God. We
can’t bring our vices with us if we’re going to hang out with God. We can’t
bring our meanness and pettiness, and we certainly cannot still harbor our
jealousies. Once we really think about what a closeness to God entails, and
still decide that we do desire that closeness, we have taken a large step
forward in our development as Children.
Second is her sincere faith. She
risks ridicule to chase down a notable rabbi and grab his clothing. I’m not
sure that she was risking any physical harm to herself but it’s certainly an
unusual action. And she exhibits not only this disregard for convention but
such an elevated view of His power that she knows she does not need to draw his
attention, to even speak to him, to even touch his flesh. She knows that she
needs merely to touch the tassel on his cloak for the enormity of his healing
power to extend to her.
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