Day 20: Matthew 18
TOP OF THE CLASS
When you're at school, there's a sort of social ladder system. Most of us have witnessed it. If you're anything like me, you weren't too bothered about being at the top, as long as you weren't the one at the bottom getting the abuse. In my year I was the only kid I knew of that went to church. Coupled with that, I was one of the cleverer kids (not because I'm particularly smart, my school was just that bad). This should have added up to me being picked on a lot. I got a bit of stick, but I generally avoided it as I played for the school football team, which gave me credibility. I'm grateful that I did, as I don't know how I'd have coped otherwise. I don't say that lightly, as I know that people reading this would've had a really tough time at school, and my heart goes out to you. The ladder is an awful thing, and one which can scar people for years.
As we grow up, measuring ourselves carries on. We can compare ourselves to others based on our wealth or our perceived happiness. We can look at others in relationships and feel that if we're single then we must somehow be woth less than them, and tell ourselves we are less happy than they are. This can feel so natural, and also be really damaging, particularly in the area of being single. I've found that as we get into our twenties, people start feeling that pressure of being single, that somehow getting in a relationship is the ultimate goal and will make us happy. Whilst being in a settled relationship is good, and provides us with feelings of security and love that we crave, it is essential that we don't use that as a replacement for God. Getting a boyfriend/girlfriend cannot and will not turn us automatically from unhappy to happy. There is a greater issue of self-worth that we must wrestle with, and it is vital that we let ourselves be defined by our relationship with God, with our security coming in Him and from no-one else.
As well as relationships, or comparisons within society, most jobs carry a feedback or appraisal system. My old job gave you an overall rating on your performance for the year on a scale of 1-4, 1 being amazing, 4 being rubbish. I got a 3, which basically means I’m OK. Fine. Slightly above awful. Not a complete leper. Hardly motivational. If anything, it makes us bitter, feeling that we deserve better, feeling we've been put too low on the ladder. A few of us were so bitter that we started a Facebook group called 'PwC rated me a 3. Treat.' Don't worry, I'm over this now. Stupid accountants.
It feels like quite a natural thing to work out our 'position' in life. We can judge our intelligence based on exam results and class scores, we can judge our sporting prowess by being picked on teams, and we could even judge our popularity by our number of Facebook friends. Deep down, we want to know that we're not on the bottom rung of the ladder, alone and unpopular.
This was the same in Jesus' time. The religious leaders had invented so many rules to set themselves apart, so they would be seen as 'better' than the average person. When the disciples ask Jesus the question in verse 1, it's probably quite normal. They're probably trying to work out where they fit compared to the religious rulers, trying to assess what their position is.
Jesus' response is simple, and yet challenging. He calls on them to humble themselves like children. This should free us up from concerns of where we stand. Children need to be loved, and they rely on people around them to look after them. I know that as I read this, I need to forget about whether I think I'm 'better' or 'worse' than the people around me.
I know that without God I am nothing. When I'm distant from God, I don't like myself. I get moody, cynical, selfish and bad-tempered. That's where I start having to wrestle with a couple of things. I know God has transformed my life. I know that any measure of 'success' I feel means nothing compared to knowing how much I mean to God, but deep down I still have this urge to prove myself, to show I'm better than people in some way. It's pitiful, but it's what I feel sometimes.
I never realised the passage about being like children went next to the parable of the lost sheep. It makes sense that Jesus tells people to forget who is 'greatest' and then tells them that God's love has come for us all. Jesus spends so much time with the rejected in society to show us this. Jesus hung out with 'sinners', declaring that the kingdom of God was for us all. God had seen years of us being lost sheep. He had people wandering around, looking for something to tell them they were valuable, looking for something which made them 'good' in some way.
If we understand that there's nothing we can do to make God love us all more or less, then we must understand that it means that everyone is loved the same. That means that the worst of criminals are loved by God as much as charity workers, church leaders, nurses and even accountants. Shocking. I'm not saying that there are no consequences of what we do, of course there are and there must be. However, if Jesus dying on the cross forgives all sins, then the truth is that it must also forgive the things that sicken us. It's a tough thought, but if God's grace can't forgive everything, then it is limited. And God's grace has no limits.
The truth is that if you don't know God, he sees you as a lost sheep. He loves you so much that He sent His son to come down and die so that you could have the chance to be called His people. He longs for you to turn to Him. He doesn't want you to wander around, trying to get your way through life without Him. He wants you to know Him, to realise that you were made to love Him and be loved by Him.
The other truth is that if you do know God, he doesn't love you any more than He did previously. What it means is that we can enter into relationship with Him, let His love wash over us and transform us, and hopefully get off the ladder of where we think our 'place' in the world is.
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