The Greatest Virtue (Rock Springs UMC)

Our scripture reading today is Genesis 32, verses 3 through 8.

Genesis 32:3–8

Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau and the

land of Seer, the country of Edom.

He instructed them, This is what you are to say to my Lord Esau,

your servant. Jacob says I have been staying

with Laban and have remained there till now.

I have cattle and donkeys, sheep and goats, male and female

servants. Now I am sending this message to

my Lord I that I may find favor in your eyes.

When the messengers returned Jacob to Jacob, they said we

went to your brother Esau and now he is coming to meet you and

400 men are with him, and great fear and distress.

Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups,

and the flocks and the herds and camels as well.

He thought if Esau comes and attacks one group, the group

that is left may escape. May the Lord add His blessing to

the reading and hearing of His Word.

We are in the season of Lent now, the 40 days prior to

Easter, 40 days not including Sundays.

Technically, Eva is Eva still, she's still there.

Technically during Lent. You can, you can do on Sunday

the thing that you've given up. Just just so you know that's,

that's always a possibility. You don't have to do it that

way, but you can, you can 40 because each Sunday is

considered a little Easter And, and so, so the fasting that

happens during Lent. Often people will say that

they'll fast on everyday but Sunday, but that's all right, No

pressure, no pressure. So during this time, this time

of Lent, I, I love Lent because unlike, I love, I love Christmas

too, of course, But unlike Christmas, Christmas, the whole

world knows it's Christmas, right?

There's the, the celebration is big, it's loud, it's colorful.

There are TV shows and songs and movies, everything that happens

and, and, and that, that, that you can almost not escape the

reality that Christmas time is here when Christmas time is

here. But Lent is very different.

Lent is much quieter. Lent is something that if you're

not part of a church that celebrates Lent, you probably

don't even know about Lent. And it's not a big celebration.

It's not loud. It's more of a quiet,

introspective looking at ourselves and looking at God.

It reminds us of the 40 days that Jesus spent in the

wilderness before beginning his public ministry, that that 40

days of testing and temptation apart from all resources,

including food and water out there, just him and God.

And so the invitation every year at Lent is to take this time,

often through fasting of some sort, but in other ways as well,

prayer and study and reflection to to look at our lives and, and

see how God is calling us. See maybe what are the things

that that God is saying. It's time to change this.

It's time to give that up. It's time to take this on.

It's time to take a step in this direction or pull back from that

direction. This this time of Lent, a time

of reflection. This year during Lent, I'm

asking us to reflect on this question that what does it mean

to be faithful in a system that's stacked against you?

Because we do live in a system that's stacked against us, lots

of systems that are stacked against us.

And if you were here for the Ash Wednesday service, the beginning

of the sermon today is going to be a little bit of a repeat,

repeat from Ash Wednesday. But, but just just the beginning

here. But we live in, we live in

political systems, economic systems, philosophical systems,

ideological systems, educational systems, all sorts of systems

that are designed not to help us be faithful to God, but are in

fact designed to help us not be faithful to God.

One of the easiest ones to see in America is the economic

system of capitalism. Now, I'm not here to trash

capitalism. I'm not here to sing the praises

of capitalism. Capitalism is the worst economic

system there is, except for all the others.

And and capitalism is designed. Yeah, thanks for I got a little

bit of laugh there, you know, and there wasn't even a word

that sounds like a cuss word in that so.

But capitalism is designed to foster greed and self-interest.

That's the way it works. And, and way back in the 1980s

when the stock market was booming, there were folks like

Ivan Boesky and others who openly out loud said things like

greed is good. When people behave in, in, in

self interested greed within a capitalist system, they generate

wealth for themselves and for other people.

Greed is good. That was the the philosophy

behind the movie Wall Street. That was sort of loosely based

on the lives of some of these stock market Wall Street bigwigs

that were out there. That's the opposite of what

Jesus says. It's the opposite of what Jesus

says. So how are we in all of these

systems that that actively push us against being faithful to

God? How can we stay faithful to God?

And to do that, I want to talk about another thing that I

mentioned on Wednesday night, which is the difference between

strategy and tactics. In a lot of churches, as in a

lot of large organizations, they put a great deal of emphasis on

strategy and strategic planning. I I read a book a number of

years ago by a man by the name of Emmanuel Katangale, a native

of Rwanda who grew up and did a lot of his growing up in a

neighboring country in Africa, but now is in the United States

and teaches seminary in the United States, theology, church

history, those kinds of things. And and in his book Mirror to

the Church is a phenomenal book. If you ever get a chance to read

it, I highly recommend it. He talks about the difference

between strategy and tactics and he says that Jesus did not give

us strategy. Jesus gave us tactics.

Jesus came to establish the Kingdom of God and that process

is ongoing, not fully completed yet.

But Jesus did not give us a grand strategy to realize and to

build the Kingdom of God in this world.

What Jesus gave us was tactics. And this is the distinction that

he makes between strategy and tactics.

I just want to read a a bit of a quote from his book.

Strategy is how people in power plan the way they want things to

work. Strategy is always realistic,

even when it's ambitious. It lays out a step by step

process for moving with predictable results from where

we are to where we want to be. Strategy is the posture of the

powerful. It sets goals and commits to

measurable outcomes. It is not comfortable with

uncertainties, but always accounts for them as a

predictable variable. Strategy is for people in power.

Strategy is for boardrooms and corporations.

Strategy is for government organization.

Strategy is for teams that are controlling as many variables as

they can when they're trying to figure out how to defeat their

opponents. On the other hand, Katangale

says, tactics are tools of the week, the wisdom of the week

about how to survive in a world they do not own.

Tactics assume that the system we live under cannot be reformed

or reorganized in its entirety. Instead, tactics plot to subvert

the reigning system at those places where it is weak.

Tactics are worked out on the fly and passed on in the jungle

under the cover of night. Like strategy, they are

realistic. But tactics do not pretend to

know for certain what will happen in the future.

Tactics depend on the art of improvisation.

When situations change, tactics change with them.

I I think Katangale is right that in the vast majority of

time, the church and followers of Jesus in this world are not

in positions of power where strategy is the appropriate way

forward. But we are working within

systems that are stacked against us, where tactics are the best

response that we have. And that seems to be what Jesus

has given us. Jesus did not give a grand

strategy for establishing the Kingdom of God on earth.

Jesus gave his followers tactics for how to be faithful in

systems that are stacked against them, how to be faithful in a

world that we do not own, for we do not own this world.

There are way too many things beyond our control to say that

we own this world. And today we're we're looking at

what is the greatest virtue that we can have as we are trying to

be faithful within a system that is stacked against us and these

systems that are stacked against us.

We already talked about strategy versus tactics.

I hit the wrong button again. Jesus gives us tactics, as

Katangale says, for attacking and undermining weak spots in

the world's systems. I want to talk about Jacob's

tactics and I want to read a little bit more of that passage

before we get into Jacob's tactics.

And this is, this is kind of the, the, the next chapter, a

portion of the next chapter. Jacob has divided up his

resources, split them in half and he has, he sent them across

the river. First he stayed behind, wrestled

with God. We talked about all of that on

Wednesday night. And now it's the next day and

Jacob is crossing the river himself and Esau's band of men,

400 men. Esau is brought to greet his

brother and Jacob has no idea whether the last word he heard

from Esau was I am going to kill you.

And now Esau is coming at him with 400 men and Jacob is

scared. And this is what happens.

This is what happens. But Esau ran to meet Jacob and

embraced him. He threw his arms around his

neck and kissed him, and they wept.

Then Esau looked up and saw the women and children.

Who are these with you? We asked.

And Jacob answered that they are the children God has graciously

given your servant. Then the female servants and

their children approached and bowed down.

Next Leah and her children came and bowed down.

Last of all came Joseph and Rachel, and they too bowed down.

Esau asked. What's the meaning of all these

flocks and herds that I met? To find favor in your eyes, my

Lord, he said. But Esau said, I already have

plenty. My brother, keep what you have

for yourself. No, please, said Jacob, if I

have found favor in your eyes, accept this gift for me.

For to see your face is like seeing the face of God.

Now that you have received me favorably, please accept the

present that was brought to you, for God has been gracious to me,

and I have all that I need. And because Jacob insisted, Esau

accepted it. We see Jacob's strategy at work

through these two readings from the two chaters here.

And the first thing, the first piece of Jacob's strategy was

that he divided his assets. This was clearly Plan B.

This was clearly the backup plan for the worst case scenario.

Esau is coming with 400 people. He's still mad.

He's still angry because I cheated him and then I stole

from him and he is coming to seek his vengeance against me.

So worst case scenario, he's coming to attack.

I divide my resources, including my family, so at least half of

us can escape. That's that's one of his

tactics. The second tactic that's very

prominent is his generosity. He sends gifts ahead of him to

Esau, Very extravagant gifts, very generous gifts, flocks,

herds, sheep, goat, cattle, you know, all different sorts of

things he's sending as a gift to give to Esau.

So he's dividing his resources to protect at least half, and

he's giving gifts two of the three tactics that that Jacob

adopts. These two alone are not enough

because when you're really angry with someone, you don't want to

be bought off and and being bought off as then an insult as

much as anything else. Oh wow, you think you can do all

of this to me and then just give me money and it's going to be

OK? You got another thing coming

here. It's going to take more than

that. Dividing his resources at best

was going to save half of his resources.

Jacob's third tactic was the key to the whole thing, and that was

humility. Humility that was the greatest

of the three. All throughout this, he sends

his servants. Go find my brother Esau.

Tell him these are a gift to my Lord from your servant Jacob.

When they meet face to face, it's over and over again.

My Lord, I am your servant, my Lord, your servant, my Lord,

your servant. These are your servants.

Children, this is your servant's family.

God has blessed your servant, my Lord.

Jacob came to his brother with humility, and he was in a system

that was stacked against him. Everything culturally put Jacob

at a disadvantage in his encounter with his brother.

Jacob had dishonored their father by lying to him and

stealing the blessing that their father intended to give to Esau

and honoring the parent, the particularly the patriarch of

the family, which is who Isaac was, that the head of the entire

family. Honoring that person was the

highest order value you could find.

And Jacob had dishonored his father by lying to him and

stealing from him. Jacob was the second born.

Every custom and tradition in the culture said that the first

born son inherited the lion's share of the father's estate and

the father's wealth and inherited the father's authority

over the whole family. Now we know and Jacob knew that

God had already decided to give that authority to Jacob himself.

But Jacob didn't come in claiming his God-given power and

authority. He didn't come in claiming his

God-given status over his brother.

He came in with humility and said to his brother, You are my

Lord, I am your servant, and that was his greatest asset.

Without the humility, the gifts just look like an arrogant

person trying to pay off their debts without any real cost to

themselves. He's already wealthy, he can

give a lot away and it doesn't really hurt him anyway.

A fine to a rich man is no punishment at all.

But he came in with humility and he placed himself at his

brother's service. And because of that humility,

there was reconciliation. Now, humility doesn't always

lead to reconciliation, but particularly when we have

wronged another person, as Jacob had wronged Esau, Jacob had

wronged his brother. Esau had a genuine, legitimate

grievance against Jacob. When we come into that with

humility, it at least opens the door for the possibility of

reconciliation, as opposed to coming in with arrogance and

claiming our rights and our power and our privileges and our

status and our position, which is almost guaranteed to drive

the wedge even deeper. He's reflecting what Jesus said

hundreds of years later when he said, hey, before you go to

worship God, before you go to the temple to make your

sacrifices and offer your worship to God.

If you have a brother, if you have a neighbor, if there's

anyone that has anything against you, you go and be reconciled to

that person before you come and try to be reconciled to God.

The reconciliation was the goal and the most important virtue,

the greatest asset, the best tactic that Jacob had for

reconciliation was humility. In a system stacked against you,

humility is your greatest virtue.

Not demanding our rights, not shouting, not.

This is another area where our culture pushes us in the

opposite direction. You know, you get on social

media, you'll turn on the news. Clearly the greatest virtue is

to be loud. Rage baiting is is one of the

greatest virtue and the strongest tactics.

See how mad you can get the other person.

See if you can get them to do something that will embarrass

themselves. Or even better yet, do something

that's illegal that will get them in trouble with the law.

See if you can get them to do something that will cause them

shame, humiliation, embarrassment.

Cut them off, drive them out, beat them down with words and

with actions. That's what the world is telling

us to do. If you've got a grievance

against someone, destroy them is what the world says to do.

Jesus says if someone's got a grievance against you, go to

them with humility. Humble yourself before them.

So what Paul taught us in his letter to the church in

Philippi, he said think like Jesus thought, Have the same

mind that our Lord has. And our Lord, who though he was

equal with God, did not cling to that status, but he made himself

nothing, taking on the form and nature of a servant.

Literally, it was a slave. He humbled himself.

Jesus did, and he calls us to do the same.

Humility is the greatest virtue that we can have living in a

world that we do not own, dealing with systems that are

stacked against us. Not shame, not shouting, not

judgment, not condemnation, not demanding our God-given rights,

But humility, humility, humility is.

It's good to know if we're going to talk about humility being the

worst thing, talking about what humility actually is is

important too. Humility is not thinking awfully

of ourselves. It's not thinking less of

ourselves. It's not the worm theology.

I'm an awful human being. I deserve to suffer and

therefore whatever anybody does to me is OK because I'm an awful

person and I deserve to suffer. That is not humility.

That is humiliation. And those are two different

things. Humility is not thinking of

ourselves or not. Humility is not thinking less of

ourselves. Humility is thinking of yourself

less. It's it's, it's putting the

other person in the spotlight, making the other person the

center, going into a group and saying not how can I be the

center of attention? But how can I, how can I bring

some joy and glory and hope to someone else?

Not how can I get everything I want, but how can I make sure

other people get what they need now?

How can I get all the respect and all the adoration and all

the praise? But who can I find to show

respect to? Who can I find to lift up?

Who can I find to praise? Who can I find to build up in

this group? It's not thinking less of

ourselves. It's thinking of ourselves less.

We're not the center of our own universe.

God is the center, and other people are the objects of our

love and our service. And it's thinking rightly about

yourself too often. Again, we think of humility as

thinking badly of ourselves. But it's really thinking rightly

of ourselves. It means recognizing not only

your weaknesses, but also your strengths.

Not only your failings, but also your successes.

What are you good at? I mean, that's the way to be a

blessing to other folks of finding the ways that we're

things that we're good at and doing those for other people,

not hiding and pretending that we don't have those.

Sometimes what we're good at is making money and being

financially generous is the way to be a blessing to other folks.

Sometimes it's fixing cars. Sometimes it's tending wounds.

Sometimes, you know, it's teaching or leading all

different kinds of ways. The strengths that we have are

just as important as the weaknesses, not to make

ourselves the center of attention, but to make ourselves

it like Thomas the Tank Engine. Remember Thomas the Tank Engine?

I love Thomas the Tank Engine. I was knocked off my socks when

I realized that doesn't make any sense.

Knocked out of my socks, knocked off my feet when I realized that

was George Carlin voicing Thomas the Tank Engine.

It's not George Carlin's normal style, but anyway.

But wonder what Thomas said. Thomas wanted to be a really

useful engine, and being useful isn't the highest ideal that we

can have. Loving is, but it's good to be

useful at times. It's good to put ourselves, our

skills, and our assets at the service of other folks, at the

service of our neighbors, our family, our church, our

community, our school. It's good to do that thinking

rightly about ourselves, thinking of ourselves less.

This is humility. The other flips.

The other part of this, though, the other side of this coin, is

that in a system stacked against you, relationships are your most

valuable resource. Humility is the greatest virtue.

Relationships are the most valuable resource.

See, when you're in a position of power, you don't need

relationships. In your position of power, you

use people to make money, to increase wealth for yourself.

You don't need really, you don't need people.

You use people. But when we're in a position of

weakness and the systems around us, the relationships become the

most important thing. Let's go back and look again at

what happened with Jacob and Esau here.

Jacob says, if I have found favor in your eyes, accept this

gift for me from me. For to see your face is like

seeing the face of God now that you have received me favorably.

Jacob had grown up in his twenty year absence from home.

He left home a young knucklehead who couldn't care less about a

relationship with his brother, Esau, who couldn't care less

about a relationship with his father.

The only relationship he seemed to care about was the one with

his mother, and he had to abandon that because he had

ticked off his brother and his father so much.

Esau and Isaac were simply people to be used by Jacob to

increase his own wealth and his own power and his own position.

Now after 20 years of working for Laban, who did the same

thing to him, after 20 years of that, Jacob had grown up and he

realized in this world the relationship is more important.

What matters to me is not my wealth.

I'll give my wealth away if will help me build the relationship

with my brother. I'll give my power away if will

help me reconcile in my relationship with my brother.

That's the most important thing. They were both strangers in a

strange land. They didn't own the real estate.

They were there at the mercy of others.

There were powerful kings and kingdoms all around them, and

the most important resource they had was each other.

That bond of friendship, the bond of love, the bond of family

that allowed them to face a hostile world with someone at

their back. This is the most important thing

that we have. The greatest resource that we

have in this world is each other.

It's our family and our friends. It's our ability to stay

together in love and in humility.

Jesus talked about this. Jesus said, I tell you what, use

worldly wealth to gain friends for yourself so that when it's

gone you will be welcomed into eternal blessings.

Don't use people to gain wealth. Use wealth to gain

relationships. Don't use people to get rich.

Use your riches to get people to build those relationships, to

establish them so that when the money runs out and it all

they're you know what they're. I have yet in all of my years of

of going to funerals and officiating a Funeral services,

I have yet to see a hearse pulling a U-Haul.

It just doesn't happen. Everyone's stuff at some point

becomes meaningless to them. But I see family gathering and

love and joy and hope around folks who were rich and folks

who were poor, folks who were well known, and folks who were

known only to a few. Those relationships?

At the end of the day, those are what matter.

Those are what matter. Jesus said it this way too.

You can't serve 2 masters. You'll hate one, you'll love the

other. You'll be devoted to the one and

despise the other. You cannot serve both God and

money. If our goal is to make money, we

will use people to do that. If our goal is to build

relationships, we will use money to do that.

Jesus said don't use people, love people, use money, use

wealth, use riches to bless people and build those

relationships to reconcile with others.

When it is possible, when it is possible that I love that line,

Jacob, when, when? Now that you've received me

favorably, seeing your face is like seeing the face of God.

I don't know if I didn't check to see if this was the

inspiration for it, but the musical Les Miserables uses a

very similar line. At the end of the musical, Jean

Valjean, the main character, sings to love another person is

to see the face of God. I should have checked to see

whether the line was inspired by Jacob's words here or not.

I kind of think it probably was, but I don't know for sure.

But in a world Rick had to leave, he was preaching

someplace else this morning. In a world where we have to make

a case for Christ and, and, and people are are reluctant to put

their faith in someone or something that they can't see.

You know, Jesus has told us how to see the face of God whenever

we want to remember. He said at the end of times,

God's going to divide the world up into sheep and goats.

And to the sheep, he's going to say welcome into my Kingdom.

When I was hungry, you gave me food.

When I was naked, you clothed me.

When I was sick or in prison, you visited me.

When I was homeless, you gave me shelter.

He's going to say to the goats depart from me forever.

I never knew you when I was hungry.

You didn't give me anything to eat.

When I was naked, you didn't clothe me.

When I was sick and in prison, you didn't visit me.

When I was homeless, you didn't give me shelter.

And they said, when did we do these things for you?

When did we fail to do these things for you?

And Jesus said what you did for the least of these sisters and

brothers of mine, you did for me.

And what you failed to do for the least of these brothers and

sisters of mine, you failed to do for me.

If we want to see the face of God, all we have to do is love

someone, particularly someone in a desperate situation.

Find someone who doesn't have enough and help them have

enough. Find someone desperately wounded

in their soul and love them. Be there for them.

Find someone afraid, filled with anxiety and fear and be a

reassurance to them. Find folks that are in desperate

situations from the least to the greatest and love them and get

to see the face of God. We get to see God face to face.

It's the third time Jacob has said he's seen God, First time

when he's had that dream. The latter second time was when

he wrestled, and now the third time is when he has reconciled

with his brother and restored a relationship that seemed to have

been broken forever. We live in a system stacked

against us. We live among forces that push

us to rage bait each other, that push us to greedily use other

people for our own profit and our own gain, that push us to

hate, to divide, to conquer. Jesus says, and we're living in

that kind of situation as his followers.

The greatest virtue we can have is humility.

The greatest resource we can have is other people,

relationships. And these are the tactics he's

given us to undermine these systems out there that are

stacked against us in Jesus name.

Amen. Amen.