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expectation, honesty, humility, intention, Matthew, Philippians, promise, The Sophia Center for Spirituality
Say what you mean and mean what you say. That seems to be an adage that has gone out of favor these days. It’s easy to agree with what is being asked if your opinion is requested, especially if disagreement would meet with disapproval or argument. But what happens if that conversation is followed by expectation of performance? I’m speaking about situations like that of the gospel reading today. (MT 21:28-32)
The father had two sons. He told the first one to go and work in his vineyard. The son refused but later went as he had been asked. When the father gave the same directive to his second son, this one agreed to go but did not fulfill that promise to his father. Jesus uses this parable to illustrate belief/non-belief in “the way of righteousness.” Having read the preceding text (PHIL 2:6-11) from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, I was drawn also to the qualities of honesty and humility in speech and performance found there and as they relate to the gospel.
If I am asked to do something, the hope is that I will be honest in my reply and the fulfillment or denial of the request. Sometimes it takes humility – emptying ourselves of our own will – to do what is asked of us as well as to be honest about our intention to do or not do it. Even more frequent perhaps is the case in which we are simply asked our opinion on something controversial. If you know you disagree with the majority, are you willing to state an honest opinion? When might that be difficult for you? Why?
Jealousy is a very dangerous trait in a person. It seems to me a bit more serious than envy although it appears in the dictionary as envy’s synonym. I might be envious of someone’s good looks or good luck but, if I have a positive attitude about my own life, I don’t spend a lot of time comparing my lot with those of others. If jealousy takes hold of my life, however, it can lead to wishing harm to others – sometimes instigating events that will cause very bad things to happen.
Sometimes it seems too difficult to tell “the whole truth and nothing but the truth” when such speaking will reveal a fault or failing about ourselves. It seems much easier to obfuscate – a great word that means to obscure, blur or overcomplicate things so we don’t look so bad in the eyes of other people. The difficulty with this practice is that it doesn’t make us feel better because we have hidden our true self; rather we feel worse. The irony is that many times the failure we’re trying to cover up is so minor that we are the only ones who would judge it harshly if it were known. Everyone else would easily forgive the imperfection.
Last evening we welcomed 14 people to a Wisdom School here in Windsor. As an ice breaker, we made two concentric circles, facing each other, with the inner circle moving one person to the right each time a chime rang – once every 15 seconds. The task was simply to look the person in front of us in the eyes and hold that gaze until it was time to move.
Thinking about the situation of those in the path today of Hurricane Maria, people who will be blasted for the second time in two weeks by devastation, I picked up Meg Wheatley’s book, Perseverance, since there is nothing I can say of any relevance on my own. What I found was a quote from a 14th century Japanese Samurai Warrior. It was not what I was looking for but did make me think. What if it seemed I had lost everything? I mused. What would be left that would make me refuse to lie down and die? The answer focused on inner strength and so I repeat it here as a hope for those whose lives seem empty at this moment and a way to consider hope when all outer hope is gone.
One of the “tricky” faculties of the human mind is our ability to judge. We need to be “razor-sharp” in using the quality of discrimination – knowing first the two sides of that “coin” – while refraining from making judgments based on insufficient information, hearsay or our own narrow perspective. To clarify what might sound rather complicated in that sentence, I have two examples.
