Saturday after Epiphany
As I fumbled with how to start this reflection I typed nonsense, wriggled my fingers above the key board, typed and deleted several attempts and then was convinced that I had no good way to start today's reflection. I mentioned this to my wife, Bess. She simply said, “Maybe that's what you should do. Just write about that and I bet it will tie in somehow.” Obviously, since this wasn't my idea, I thought it was preposterous... but low and behold, here we are. She was right – I imagine any wives reading this right now are nodding their heads knowingly. The whole encounter took me back a week.
Last week, Bess and I talked with my dad about the house we want to buy. He gave us advice about pricing that I was a bit wary about, but Bess was gung ho for. So naturally his advice to her was that she should try and make me feel like it was my idea to offer the amount that she wanted to offer. Isn't that the way of pride, making an idol of ourselves? An idea is never as good as when it comes from me. Yet, John warns us in the last line of his letter, “Children, be on your guard against idols” (1 John 5:21). Unfortunately, we aren't the only idol we are capable of creating. Fortunately, however, both our Johns today offer us an antidote to making an idol of self, an idol of others, and an idol of things.
Pride, the idol of self. We are so familiar with this one I think. We defend it with mantras like, 'You gotta look out for number 1.' It becomes the source of our self-centeredness, our hyper self-reliant attitudes, and so much sin. When we become our own idols we become afraid of: the fact that we are less than perfect, of someone doing better than us, and surrendering our plan and glory to God. In light of all of this, John the Baptist's words ring so true as he says, “You yourselves can testify that I said that I am not the Christ … He must increase; I must decrease” (John 3:28, 30). If only, all of the people we looked up to possessed the humility of John the Baptist!
People that we look up to can easily become an idol. I'm not implying that people are running around offering true worship to these people, but I am suggesting that during our faith lives, we have the tendency to ground our faith in another person. It is less similar to viewing them as God, and more like tying a spiritual lifeline to them. And should something happen with them, our faith is severely shaken. Maybe we have that attachment to a priest who is moved to another diocese. Maybe we have an on fire friend who we find is now an ardent atheist. Maybe we know someone that seemed rock solid, and we discover they are living in serious sin. Or maybe we have been personally betrayed by a strong role model in faith. What does John offer us in this instance? There are two verses we can use to address this idol. The first is the call to pray for one another when we see each other in sin (cf. 1 John 5:16). To pray for someone reminds us that they need the Lord as much as we do. The second is in the words, “And we are in the one who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20). I see this as a reminder that from Pope Francis to my recently baptized Godson, we are all in Jesus Christ. If we are all in Him, then, so to our faith should be rooted in Him. My faith can be encouraged and built up by Pope Francis, but it is not dependent upon his holiness. I should pray for it, but without forgetting the giver of the grace.
Thus the final antidote, “And if we know that he hears us in regard to whatever we ask, we know that what we have asked him for is ours” (1 John 5:15). I want to focus on the significance of the relationship between our request and us. The relationship is possessive. “Why?” we might ask. It is not because Ohio State got the win I'm sure plenty of people were praying for, or that I got the windfall of money I prayed for, or even that some have experienced the healing they have sought. I think John is calling us to correctly prioritize these things. They are ours, not because we have them, but because in the grand scheme of things they would belong to us, not us to them. When we belong to them, they become our idol.
This language of belonging is really the missing puzzle piece. We prevent self idolatry by remembering that we belong to God, not Him to us. Not only do we belong to God, but all our brothers and sisters belong to Him as well, thus we are with them on this journey, but they are alongside us, not ahead of us for us to idolize and not behind us for us to be their idol. Finally, the proper place of things, whether they are as small as a sports victory or as significant as our health, is in ours and God's possession, not us in their possession.
Knowing where I started this reflection, I pray that we may all have a humility closer to John's. That we may all be 'Best Men' and 'Maids' or Matrons of Honor' at the Bridegroom's wedding (cf. John 3:29). That we may find our joy there to be complete, and that we never forget that the glory of the wedding is because of the glory of the Bridegroom and that no matter our role, our rightful place is at His side, wherever he calls us, and no matter what He gives us. Even if it is an extra dose of humility... the hard way.
- Spencer Hargadon