The Greatest Virtue (Chester UMC)

We are in the season of Lent now and it is, it's, it's one of

those wonderful times of the year that the, that the church

celebrates that the world is largely unaware of.

Unlike the Christmas season, which which the world is very

aware of, this is a this, it's very big, it's very loud, it's

very celebratory, very joyous, very out there.

And, and Lent is, is kind of the opposite.

It's more of a stepping back and a stepping away, a time to re

evaluate and reassess, a time really to look and reflect.

The 40 days of Lent, not counting Sundays, remind us of

the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness when he stepped

away from everything in order to connect more fully and

completely with God as he was about to begin his public

ministry. During this time this year, I

want us to reflect on this question of of how can we be

faithful in a world where the systems of the world are stacked

against us? The world is not set up and

designed the the philosophies, the political systems, the

economic systems, even the educational systems and many

religious systems. These are not set up to help us

be faithful to God. In fact, they, they are set up

to help us do the opposite. They're set up to help us to

promote the, the opposite kinds of, of virtues and, and

lifestyles that God calls us to. One example of this, and I'm

again, I'm going to, if I ruffle feathers, well, I don't really

apologize. It's my job.

But if you think of capitalism and, and I'll say up front,

capitalism is the worst economic system there is, except for all

the others. But capitalism, if you remember

way back in the 1980s speech by, and I, I want to say Ivan

Boesky, but it wasn't Ivan Boesky.

It was another one of the, the bigwigs who made a lot of money

in the stock market back then and delivered a speech that was

very famous, speech that became the basis for a movie.

And the speech was called Greed is Good.

And, and it was all about how greed is not a vice at all, that

in a capitalist system, the the greedier a person is, the better

it is for everyone. And, and whether you love

capitalism or whether you hate capitalism, that is absolutely

true about capitalism. It promotes greed.

It encourages people to behave in a way that says the more I

can get for myself, the better it is for everyone else.

Whether it's really better for everyone else is questionable,

but that's what the system promotes.

And, and that's the system that we live in, like it or not.

And, and it's, you know, there are lots of different systems,

again, political, economic, philosophical.

How can we be faithful to God in these systems that are set up

and designed to encourage us to be the opposite of what God

calls us to be? That's what we're going to be

reflecting. On Ash Wednesday, we talked

about wrestling with God. Today we're talking about, you

know, what's the greatest virtue that we can have, the greatest

virtue we can possess and, and exhibit when we're living in

systems that are stacked against us before we get into that.

And if you came to the Ash Wednesday service, this is a

little bit of a repeat from there.

But I want to I want to hit this again as as we're thinking about

these things, I want us to make a distinction between strategies

and tactics. As we're thinking about how can

we be faithful in a system stacked against US, strategy.

And the distinction I'm making, I learned from a book by

Emmanuel Katangale, who is ethnically Rwandan, grew up in

Africa and and now lives in the United States as a professor, a

seminary professor in the United States.

And he's written a book, several books.

This book in particular is called Mirror to the Church,

where he's reflecting on the genocide in Rwanda that happened

decades ago. This in in this reflection,

Katangale makes a distinction between strategies and tactics

and and this is what he says is the difference.

He says strategy is how people in power plan.

They want 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.

Strategies are what folks in boardrooms come up with.

Strategies. Again, when when you have the

power to control variables, to control outcomes.

In many ways strategy is the way to go.

But Jesus followers are are seldom in positions of power and

and seldom have power in society to really be about the business

of strategy. And Katangale makes the argument

that Jesus didn't give. Jesus came when he came to

establish the Kingdom of God, a thing that is still ongoing.

He did not give his followers a a a grand strategy for

overflowing, overthrowing the kingdoms of this world and

establishing the Kingdom of God. Instead, what he gave his

followers, us included, were tactics.

And this is what Katangale says about tactics.

On the other hand, tactics are the tools of the weak, the

wisdom of the weak about how to survive in a world they do not

own. Tactics assume that the system

we live in live under cannot be reformed or reorganized in its

entirety. Instead, tactics plot to subvert

the the reigning system at those places where it is weak.

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

and the 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 and a world we

do not own, which is this world filled with systems that are

stacked against us. What Jesus offers us are tactics

for undermining that system, tactics for finding its weak

spots, tactics that require us to improvise and, and to change,

to pivot on a moment's notice. And that's what we're going to

be looking at our tactics and, and, and a weird sense this

virtue today that I'm talking about.

I'm talking about as a tactic, strategies versus tactics.

Jesus gives us tactics for attacking and undermining the

weak spots in the world's systems.

Let's talk about Jacob's tactics because Jacob is in a situation

where again, he is not the one with the power.

He is not the one in the position of influence.

He stole from his brother. He deceived his father, and the

cultural system that he lived in was stacked against him to do

those things. Honoring your father and your

mother was a high level value, not just among the Israelites,

but among all peoples of that region.

Honoring parents, particularly the father, the patriarch, was

one of, if not the highest level value.

And Jacob dishonored his father when he disguised himself as his

brother and pretended to be his brother so that his father would

give him the blessing his father meant to give his brother.

And that put Jacob on the outside of the system.

Jacob was the second born. Esau was his twin.

But Esau, you know, got out first.

That's probably not the best way to say that.

Esau was born 1st and and that gave him priority and position.

That made him the heir to the majority of their father's

estate. It made him leader and Lord over

his brother and for the covenant people of God, Abraham's

descendants. It made him heir to the

covenant. But Jacob used a moment of

weakness in Esau to manipulate Esau into selling him his

birthright. And Esau, by the time all this

has happened, Esau is so angry he did.

The last thing Jacob heard Esau say to him or about him was that

I am going to kill you. And now Jacob's been gone for 20

years and he's coming back in. The system is stacked against

him. His brother has prospered in his

absence. He's not only very wealthy, he

has lots of men and his employ and under his leadership, the

culture says that Jacob wronged his father and his brother.

And now God is saying, Jacob, you need to go home.

You need to go back into that. And Jacob goes in with with

three tactics to respond to his brother in this situation where

he is without the power. The first tactic is he divides

his assets. The first tactic is Plan B.

I'm going to split everything up so that if my brother comes to

kill me, at least half of my family and my goods will

survive. We'll put them in two different

places two different times so that so that one can get away.

This is clearly Plan B. This is clearly the the worst

case scenario for Jacob. So he's dividing his assets.

That's one tactic and part of his tactics.

The second tactic that he has is generosity.

He sends gifts to his brother, very extravagant gifts.

God has blessed Jacob too. He is now very wealthy.

He now has large herds and large flocks and and he sends

tremendous gifts to his brother. But dividing your assets and

generosity can only go so far against an enemy that really

despises you. It's they're both, in a sense,

signs of weakness, admissions that I'm not strong enough to

overthrow my brother, so I've got to divide my assets and and

you can read the gifts of generosity contemptuously as

bribes. Jacob.

Just Esau could have read those, as you know.

Oh, well, my brother's attempting to buy me off for the

rotten things that he did. I'll teach that dirty rotten son

of a gun. Without the third one, I think

the first two make no meaningful impact.

And the third tactic that Jacob has is humility.

Humility from the beginning when he sends the gifts out to his

brother Esau. It's with the message that my

Lord, your servant comes to you. My Lord this, my Lord, that your

servant, this your servant, that.

Jacob humbles himself before his brother, before he put himself

above his brother, based on words that God had spoken to his

mother even before he was born, that he would be the heir to the

covenant, that he would rule over his older brother.

But now, instead of asserting his God-given dominance, Jacob

comes in humbly and he places himself beneath his brother in

terms of position, authority, rights, and duties.

I belong to you, I serve you, I bow before you.

This is that greatest virtue. Of these three tactics, the

greatest is humility. And that's the virtue.

It's the greatest tactic in a system where the in a world

where the systems are stacked against us, the greatest tactic,

the greatest virtue that we can have as followers of Jesus is

humility, not asserting dominance, not exercising power

over, but humbling ourselves before others.

This is what Paul said. It's what he said Jesus did and

he told followers of Jesus when he wrote his letter to the

church in Philippi, he said have the same mind that Jesus had,

have the same mindset that our Lord had who humbled himself and

made himself a servant, literally a slave when he came

into this world. Jesus did not come in exercising

dominance over the world. Jesus did not come in demanding

respect. Jesus did not come in claiming

power and authority. In fact, he surrendered all of

those things. And Paul says who understood a

thing or two about being faithful in systems that are

stacked against you. Paul says, this is the this is

the attitude, this is the approach, this is the posture

that Jesus, we as Jesus followers need to adopt as well.

A posture of humility in another place.

He said, consider others needs ahead of your own.

This tactic of humility is the greatest virtue that we can

possess. That's not the only thing that

we're going to take a look at here.

But in a system stacked against you, humility is your greatest

virtue. Not strength, not power, not

authority, not wealth. Again, people know when they're

being bought. People know when they're being

flattered. People know when they're being

manipulated most of the time. But genuine humility to someone

who has a grudge against you, who has, who has reason to be

angry with you, Genuine humility before those Pope, those folks.

It's not a guarantee of a particular outcome, but it can

be very disarming. And it gives us the greatest

opportunity to reconcile humility rather than pride,

rather than power, rather than assertions of dominance.

Humility gives us the greatest opportunity for reconciliation,

which is what Jacob was after. Jacob didn't want to come back

and fight his brother. He didn't want to come back and

overthrow his brother. He probably knew he didn't have

the power and the resources to do that anyway.

What Jacob wanted was to reconcile with someone whom he

had wronged, and the way to do that was with humility.

The flip side, Well, this humility, just brief word on

humility because humility too often we think of humility

wrongly and we think of humility as thinking less of ourselves.

That the worm theology. Oh, I'm a worm, I'm awful, I'm

nothing, I'm terrible. You know, woe is me.

I'm you know, that's not humility.

That's humiliation, which is different than humility.

Humility is not thinking less of ourselves.

Humility is see that where we go?

Come on. My goodness.

I'm jumping all over the place here.

Yeah. Humility is not thinking less of

ourselves. It's thinking of yourself less.

It's taking yourself off center stage.

It's saying I'm not. I don't need to be the center of

attention. My wants, my needs, my desires

don't need to rule the day. It gives us the space in the

room to say, what does someone else need?

It gives us the space in the room to say, how can I be of

service even if the even if my agenda at the end of the day is

not met? How can I help others?

How can I lift others up? How can I build others up?

How can I encourage someone else rather than how can I arrange

things so that I'm the one that's lift up, I'm the one

that's center of attention, I'm the one that's encouraged Not

thinking less of ourselves. It has nothing to do with saying

I'm a bad person and has everything to do with saying how

can I be a blessing to the other folks around me thinking of

ourselves less. Another way to think about

humility is to think rightly about yourself, to recognize the

strengths and assets that you have as well as your weaknesses,

because those strengths and assets are very often going to

be the ways that you're going to be a blessing and service to

other people as well. So a story that I remember from

years and years ago, back when I was on staff at Camp Otterbein,

our director there, Chuck Morris, would bring in folks

during staff training to do some specialized kinds of trainings.

And there was a woman he he invited in a couple of different

summers when I was there. I have no idea what her real

name was. Everyone called her Cork I.

That might have been her real name, I don't know.

Corks. Corks.

How do I say it? Cork was trying to think the

Elon Musk of summer camping in the sense that that there was

really only one right way to do it and it was her way, and if

you didn't do it her way, you were wrong and you were out and

she had a lot of rule. No blue jeans at camp, ever.

It was immoral, unsafe. People will die if you wear blue

jeans at this was Cork's attitude.

So she's very focused, very passionate about her work and

very passionate about providing good camping experience for the

campers. And she prided herself on that.

She was talking about her husband at one point who who was

also very deeply involved in camping And, and, and again, she

was an expert mountaineering, you know, using a compass and

everything else to guide your even if you don't have trails

and maps, you know, or you don't have a trail, you got a map, you

got to, you can find where you're going, orienteering and

that sort of thing. She was great at all of that

stuff. And she talked about a training

that husband went on and they were in a group and they were

given an orienteering task with a compass.

And and she said her husband held back to let other people

figure it out because, you know, he didn't want to be a know it

all. And his group in this

competition spent hours and hours and hours on it.

And when they learned toward the end that he had known exactly

how to do it from the beginning, his group was ticked with him.

Like, why didn't you tell us? We could have been done with

this two hours ago if you would just shared the information that

you have. Humility isn't pretending

stupidity. When we have intelligence, it

isn't pretending ignorance. It isn't pretending weakness.

It's acknowledging who we really are, strengths and weaknesses,

assets and disadvantages, and utilizing what we have and being

honest about what we have and who we are in order, again, to

be a blessing to the people that are around us.

This is humility. This is what we're called to do

and the attitude and the approach that we are called to

have as we interact not only with each other, but people with

the world around us. There's another thing on here

though, that in a system stacked against you, humility is the

greatest virtue, but relationships are your most

valuable resource. Prioritizing relationships is

one of the most important things that anybody can do in a system

stacked against them, prioritizing relationships.

We see this in the story with Jacob and Esau.

We see it Jesus repeating this truth in a variety of different

ways. But do you remember this, this

line from from Jacob when he finally sees his brother and

again is is fearful when he learns that his brother is

coming with 400 men. He assumes his brother is coming

to attack him. But instead his brother greets

him. He welcomes him, he hugs him, he

kisses him and and and and and Jacob's just overwhelmed.

And Esau says, hey, keep this stuff.

You don't need to give that to me.

God has blessed me. And Jacob said God has blessed

me too. I want you to have it.

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

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

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

When he was still a kid, when he was a young knucklehead, Jacob

could not have cared less about his relationship with Esau.

If you want to have a relationship with someone, you

don't RIP them off. If you want to have a

relationship with someone, you don't steal from them.

When he was a young knucklehead, Jacob wanted the stuff.

He wanted the power. He wanted the position, he

wanted the authority, he wanted the prestige.

Now that Jacob has grown up and spent 20 years working for

someone who'd been lying and stealing and ripping him off,

Jacob understood the difference. And now his priority is not

power over his brother, but relationship with his brother.

And that relationship is not just friendship.

It's not just family. It is seeing the face of God.

Now, I didn't check this. I know we've got some Les

Miserables fans in, in, in in the room.

And I'm a big Les Miserables fan.

But one of the one of the there's a beautiful line that in

in the musical where to love another person is to see the

face of God. And I don't know if that's where

you know, the the lyricist for Les Mis got this line or not,

but it's so true. When we can and humility go to

others and love them and serve them and bless them and lift

them up, we have the chance to see the face of God.

This is what happened in Les Mis When when Jean Valjean, through

a situation of tremendous stress and and and ignorance about the

plight of Fantine, puts her in a very desperate situation and

which ultimately costs her her life.

But when he sees what he's done, he goes to her with humility and

he blesses her as he is able and her final sickness.

And then he goes in humility and and adopts her daughter and

raises her daughter as his own, spending his life making sure

that she has what he what she needs, even if it costs him his

safety, his security, his reputation.

To love another person is to see the face of God.

And Jacob had learned that it took him 20 long years, but he

learned it. That if I want to see God, if I

want to see God in this life, I don't need wealth, I don't need

power, I need relationship. I need to love another human

being. And for Jacob, that meant loving

a human being whom he had grievously wronged.

But to go back and do what he could to make that right and

restore that relationship is to see the face of God.

Jesus taught us the same thing. Jesus said, remember that when

he was talking about the, the, the unrighteous manager, the the

dishonest manager who, you know, basically stole from his

employer in order to build relationship.

You know, the employer fired him and then let him still have

control over the books. Never a good plan.

And and he used his employers resources to, you know, buy some

friends. And Jesus instead of condemning

him in this parable, praises him.

And he says use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves.

This is the opposite of what the philosophies of this world say.

The philosophies of this world say use other people to gain

wealth for yourself because it is in wealth that you will find

security and you will find happiness.

And Jesus said, we've got it completely backwards.

Use wealth to gain friends for yourself.

Because it is in our friendships and our relationships, in these

bonds of love that we can find true security and joy even in

the midst of suffering. Perhaps this is how Paul who was

able and his situations of powerless, being arrested over

and over again, being beaten over and over again, being

jailed and imprisoned over and over again, being stoned over

and over again, but facing it with joy and with hope and with

with with humility and never alone, always with others,

always friends around him, always people who he was lifting

up and people who were lifting him up.

It wasn't the wealth. He wasn't spreading the Kingdom

of God by going out to see how much money he could get so he

could do great things. He was spreading the Kingdom of

God with the strategy of going in and speaking boldly with with

humility of serving others and putting their interests and

their needs ahead of his own, even at great risk to himself,

and it cost him a great deal. But what he gained in the end

was this opportunity over and over and over again to see the

face of God. Jesus said no one can serve 2

masters either. You hate 1 and love the other,

you will be devoted 1 and despise the other.

You cannot serve both God and money.

If money is our goal, If wealth is our goal, If power is our

goal, If influence is our goal, we will not be serving God.

We will be serving whatever it is that we're seeking.

But if we serve God and trust God to provide us with whatever

resources and influence that we need with favor in the lives of

others like he, He gave Jacob favor and his brother Esau's

eyes. If we trust God with those

things, then then we can live in peace.

We can live in joy. We can we can see the face of

God. If you ever talk to folks,

you're like, you know, how Can you believe in God that you

can't see? And we can see God anytime we

want to, anytime we want to. Remember what Jesus said.

He said that there's going to be a day come when everyone's going

to be divided and sheep and the goats and God's going to look at

the sheep and say come join me in my Kingdom for you.

When I was hungry, you clothed me, or when I was hungry, you

fed me. When I was naked, you clothed

me. When I was sick, you attended to

me. When I was homeless, you gave me

shelter. When I was in prison, you

visited me. You said to the goats depart

from me forever because when I was hungry, you didn't feed me.

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

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

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

And they said, when did we do these things to you or when we

fail to do these things to you. And God says, whatever you have

done to the least of these brothers and sisters of mine,

you've done to me, whether you've failed to do, you have

failed to do for me. All we have to do is spend time

around poor folks being a blessing to them.

And we can see the face of God lifting up another human being

in a desperate situation. We can see the face of God being

a blessing to another and their time of need and their hour of

distress and pain and discomfort and heartache and loss.

And we can see the face of God just like Jacob did with Esau,

just like Valjean did with Fantine and Cosette and so many

others, being faithful and a system stacked against you.

The greatest virtue is humility. It's the greatest virtue that we

have as we go out into a world that we do not own.

To spread and share the Kingdom of God and the good news of

Jesus Christ is not arrogance. It's not being loud, it's not

being obnoxious. It's not yelling and screaming

and hollering. You know that that makes it's

great click bait. It's you know, it was another

thing is that you know, click farming click bait rages.

Rage is a wonderful way to get clicks.

Humiliating people is a great way to get attention and ads.

It is the exact opposite of what Jesus calls us to do and to be,

but instead to be humble and instead of using other people to

get their wealth or to get their clicks or to get influence,

instead of using them we use what God has given us to gain

their friendship, their relationship in Jesus name.

Amen. Amen.