Keeping Up Appearances
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Text: Mark 12:38-44
The one thing about being a minister is that I have been told or have read a number of stories about how clergy and their families relate to their community. Part of it is either how they choose to relate to their community, or what their congregation or the town expects of them. Sometimes these stories are pretty funny… but at the same time they have an edge of the tragic that comes with them. My wife tells me one story from when she started in a small rural town as minister of the community’s church. Even though she used the washing and drying machines inside the manse, she was still provided a list of laundry items that were and were not allowed to be hung outside. I’ll let your imagination take care of the details, but the implication is that people in the town paid attention to what others hung on their laundry lines.
Similarly, my Dad has often related stories of from his years growing up in Cape Breton about how people carefully scrutinized the laundry lines of their neighbours, to catch up on the real gossip. For instance, if a widow had a male boarder at her house, there had better be two sets of bed sheets hanging from the line… and even if she did, the word would go around that she was doing that just to “throw us off.” Maybe it’s a generational thing, maybe I’ve been removed from it growing up at west, but I still shake my head and wonder why such conversations were so much a part of the culture. My response would be “who cares?”
Yet keeping up appearances seems to be very much a part of our culture… and while the dirty laundry stories aren’t really something I understand, I am probably just as guilty as anyone else about worrying what someone else might think. After all, like virtually everyone here, I was in high school… I know that want, that need to not just to fit in… but to be accepted by our peers… and by extension that sense of “popularity.” Almost universally, it seems, it is based on appearances. Retrospectively we know that it’s hollow, we know that it’s shallow… and yet it is the world to the teenager looking to fit in. Not only that, as much as we would like to think that we’ve left it back in our teenage years, this want and need of being accepted, and yet it continues to follow us throughout our lives… and it still manifests itself in this want and need to “keep up appearances” –worrying about what others may think. Clergy, it seems, are not immune to it either… It’s human nature, and it has been that way for thousands of years.
The story from Mark’s Gospel this morning talks to the human tendency to keep up appearances. He’s not particularly happy about it either… Picking up in verse 38 of chapter 12, we heard Jesus saying “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and like to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets!” He then goes on to say some rather less-than-kind things about these good, upstanding citizens, who contribute great sums of money to the work of the Temple.
This is not easy for us to hear. While the scribes are singled out, Jesus directs his frustration at anyone who is more concerned about rank, privilege and appearance than they are about genuinely living out their faith. As one who is currently wearing a long robe, and is often greeted as “reverend” this is a passage that should really give me pause. I do think us clergy types have really over-enjoyed our “position of privilege” within the church community, and we need this kind of reminder to put us back in our place.
But…
Jesus simply points out the scribe or the scholar as the example. I think at any point where we become so concerned about how we look, how we appear to others, is when we begin to lose focus. The reason that Jesus points out the scribes and Pharisees is because as a whole, these are good church attending folk who should know better! He makes a much harsher judgment upon them, because they’re abusing their position by equating it with rank and privilege. I think Jesus is getting after the root cause, of that human tendency to be so concerned with what other people see we lose sight of what who we really are.
I think we often forget exactly where Jesus was on the social ladder. Presuming that the tradition is correct, Jesus worked as a carpenter in Nazareth. Today, we think of that as being a respectable trade, but in the first century, peasant carpenters were those who for whatever reason were too poor to actually work in the field. In other words, Jesus was perhaps amongst the poorest of the poor. Jesus would not exactly be enamoured with blatant displays of one’s wealth or social status. Perhaps he had more freedom that way, precisely because he didn’t care about rank and privilege…
When Jesus visited the Temple or the synagogue, he was often left in the margins because of his social status and appearance. He would make observations of those who would come to visit the Temple. It would only change when he turned over the tables of the money changers in the temple, and he would attract the attention of those with rank and privilege in a very negative way. Before this, we have a few stories of Jesus making commentary of those who come through the temple doors. His complaint is that many are simply keeping up appearances, rather than living out their faith of sense of gratitude. Jesus compares the rich scribes and their long robes, with the widow who contributes two small mites… barely the sum of a penny, drawing attention to the reality that she gave everything she had. It isn’t about how she looks to her neighbours of anyone else who might see her offering, it is about the fact that she genuinely lives out her faith in God by contributing her all… or perhaps he’s wondering out loud why this poor widow gives more of herself than she really is able to, when those who can don’t… or when they do, make a big production out of it.
The caution Jesus offers is against keeping up appearances. Perhaps we spend so much looking trying to look the part that we forget how to actually live it. After all, following Christ is not about keeping up the appearance of faith, but honestly living it.
Some of you may be aware of the impending advertising campaign that the United Church is launching this fall. It’s called the Emerging Spirit, and I have a unique insight on it since my wife has been attending some of the seminars this weekend. For those of you who have been reading the articles in the Toronto Star or various other media outlets, they haven’t quite given us the full picture of what the campaign is intended to do. It’s much more than simply a media blitz, but an effort and opportunity for people to form relationships that matter.
Somewhere along the way, churches are waking up to the fact that we as a whole have an image problem. In some cases, it’s individual congregations, in others… it’s whole denominations. A little over a year ago, I went to a presentation by church futurist Leonard Sweet. During the presentation he talked about a survey amongst the general population of the United States. In the survey, the people were asked if they could describe Christians in one word or phrase, what would that be? The top three answers were not what you might expect: boring, hypocritical, and money-grubbing. While I wasn’t able to find the survey myself, I found another one that added a few other choice words: overbearing, obnoxious, and even “lost.” I know that for most of us, that’s not something that we experience in our own congregation… but on the whole, the church has an image problem. Ask anyone who is 30-45 who don’t attend church, and it starts coming into sharp focus. The United church’s current ten-month effort is trying to address this problem. Sarah was telling me that with the recent publicity around the ad that features a bobble-headed Jesus, the number one inquiry has been “where can I get one of those??”
The concern, as always, when a church engages in such an advertising campaign, does it reflect the genuine article, or is it keeping up appearances? Ultimately, the proof will be amongst the rank-and-file congregations, will be when people do come through their doors that they will find the genuine article… but there’s an interesting rub to this. In the market research that preceded this campaign, they discovered that most people aged 30-45 have no idea what the United Church is about. This means that as a Presbyterian congregation, we may well have people walking through our doors. Now it’s no longer about what they are doing, but we have to ask ourselves what we are doing. As a congregation we are starting to look ahead, to do some planning for the long-term.
The concern that Jesus had with the scribes still has resonance today. It’s not about worrying about what others think of us. It’s about asking ourselves and answering honestly – are we going to be like the scribes and spend our time keeping up appearances? Or will we be like the poor widow that Jesus makes an example out of, genuinely and honestly living out our faith by giving our all – our hearts, soul, mind, gifts and talents – to God? Good question.
Amen.
Text: Mark 12:38-44
The one thing about being a minister is that I have been told or have read a number of stories about how clergy and their families relate to their community. Part of it is either how they choose to relate to their community, or what their congregation or the town expects of them. Sometimes these stories are pretty funny… but at the same time they have an edge of the tragic that comes with them. My wife tells me one story from when she started in a small rural town as minister of the community’s church. Even though she used the washing and drying machines inside the manse, she was still provided a list of laundry items that were and were not allowed to be hung outside. I’ll let your imagination take care of the details, but the implication is that people in the town paid attention to what others hung on their laundry lines.
Similarly, my Dad has often related stories of from his years growing up in Cape Breton about how people carefully scrutinized the laundry lines of their neighbours, to catch up on the real gossip. For instance, if a widow had a male boarder at her house, there had better be two sets of bed sheets hanging from the line… and even if she did, the word would go around that she was doing that just to “throw us off.” Maybe it’s a generational thing, maybe I’ve been removed from it growing up at west, but I still shake my head and wonder why such conversations were so much a part of the culture. My response would be “who cares?”
Yet keeping up appearances seems to be very much a part of our culture… and while the dirty laundry stories aren’t really something I understand, I am probably just as guilty as anyone else about worrying what someone else might think. After all, like virtually everyone here, I was in high school… I know that want, that need to not just to fit in… but to be accepted by our peers… and by extension that sense of “popularity.” Almost universally, it seems, it is based on appearances. Retrospectively we know that it’s hollow, we know that it’s shallow… and yet it is the world to the teenager looking to fit in. Not only that, as much as we would like to think that we’ve left it back in our teenage years, this want and need of being accepted, and yet it continues to follow us throughout our lives… and it still manifests itself in this want and need to “keep up appearances” –worrying about what others may think. Clergy, it seems, are not immune to it either… It’s human nature, and it has been that way for thousands of years.
The story from Mark’s Gospel this morning talks to the human tendency to keep up appearances. He’s not particularly happy about it either… Picking up in verse 38 of chapter 12, we heard Jesus saying “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and like to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets!” He then goes on to say some rather less-than-kind things about these good, upstanding citizens, who contribute great sums of money to the work of the Temple.
This is not easy for us to hear. While the scribes are singled out, Jesus directs his frustration at anyone who is more concerned about rank, privilege and appearance than they are about genuinely living out their faith. As one who is currently wearing a long robe, and is often greeted as “reverend” this is a passage that should really give me pause. I do think us clergy types have really over-enjoyed our “position of privilege” within the church community, and we need this kind of reminder to put us back in our place.
But…
Jesus simply points out the scribe or the scholar as the example. I think at any point where we become so concerned about how we look, how we appear to others, is when we begin to lose focus. The reason that Jesus points out the scribes and Pharisees is because as a whole, these are good church attending folk who should know better! He makes a much harsher judgment upon them, because they’re abusing their position by equating it with rank and privilege. I think Jesus is getting after the root cause, of that human tendency to be so concerned with what other people see we lose sight of what who we really are.
I think we often forget exactly where Jesus was on the social ladder. Presuming that the tradition is correct, Jesus worked as a carpenter in Nazareth. Today, we think of that as being a respectable trade, but in the first century, peasant carpenters were those who for whatever reason were too poor to actually work in the field. In other words, Jesus was perhaps amongst the poorest of the poor. Jesus would not exactly be enamoured with blatant displays of one’s wealth or social status. Perhaps he had more freedom that way, precisely because he didn’t care about rank and privilege…
When Jesus visited the Temple or the synagogue, he was often left in the margins because of his social status and appearance. He would make observations of those who would come to visit the Temple. It would only change when he turned over the tables of the money changers in the temple, and he would attract the attention of those with rank and privilege in a very negative way. Before this, we have a few stories of Jesus making commentary of those who come through the temple doors. His complaint is that many are simply keeping up appearances, rather than living out their faith of sense of gratitude. Jesus compares the rich scribes and their long robes, with the widow who contributes two small mites… barely the sum of a penny, drawing attention to the reality that she gave everything she had. It isn’t about how she looks to her neighbours of anyone else who might see her offering, it is about the fact that she genuinely lives out her faith in God by contributing her all… or perhaps he’s wondering out loud why this poor widow gives more of herself than she really is able to, when those who can don’t… or when they do, make a big production out of it.
The caution Jesus offers is against keeping up appearances. Perhaps we spend so much looking trying to look the part that we forget how to actually live it. After all, following Christ is not about keeping up the appearance of faith, but honestly living it.
Some of you may be aware of the impending advertising campaign that the United Church is launching this fall. It’s called the Emerging Spirit, and I have a unique insight on it since my wife has been attending some of the seminars this weekend. For those of you who have been reading the articles in the Toronto Star or various other media outlets, they haven’t quite given us the full picture of what the campaign is intended to do. It’s much more than simply a media blitz, but an effort and opportunity for people to form relationships that matter.
Somewhere along the way, churches are waking up to the fact that we as a whole have an image problem. In some cases, it’s individual congregations, in others… it’s whole denominations. A little over a year ago, I went to a presentation by church futurist Leonard Sweet. During the presentation he talked about a survey amongst the general population of the United States. In the survey, the people were asked if they could describe Christians in one word or phrase, what would that be? The top three answers were not what you might expect: boring, hypocritical, and money-grubbing. While I wasn’t able to find the survey myself, I found another one that added a few other choice words: overbearing, obnoxious, and even “lost.” I know that for most of us, that’s not something that we experience in our own congregation… but on the whole, the church has an image problem. Ask anyone who is 30-45 who don’t attend church, and it starts coming into sharp focus. The United church’s current ten-month effort is trying to address this problem. Sarah was telling me that with the recent publicity around the ad that features a bobble-headed Jesus, the number one inquiry has been “where can I get one of those??”
The concern, as always, when a church engages in such an advertising campaign, does it reflect the genuine article, or is it keeping up appearances? Ultimately, the proof will be amongst the rank-and-file congregations, will be when people do come through their doors that they will find the genuine article… but there’s an interesting rub to this. In the market research that preceded this campaign, they discovered that most people aged 30-45 have no idea what the United Church is about. This means that as a Presbyterian congregation, we may well have people walking through our doors. Now it’s no longer about what they are doing, but we have to ask ourselves what we are doing. As a congregation we are starting to look ahead, to do some planning for the long-term.
The concern that Jesus had with the scribes still has resonance today. It’s not about worrying about what others think of us. It’s about asking ourselves and answering honestly – are we going to be like the scribes and spend our time keeping up appearances? Or will we be like the poor widow that Jesus makes an example out of, genuinely and honestly living out our faith by giving our all – our hearts, soul, mind, gifts and talents – to God? Good question.
Amen.
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