February 21, 2008
Have It Your Way
Growing up if you had a meal at Grandma’s you were expected to eat what ever was put on the table. If you didn’t like a particular dish, when it was passed you just didn’t put any of it on you plate. I don’t think Grandma ever asked anyone what they wanted for supper. Quite the contrary, if you smelled something good coming from the kitchen you asked Grandma, ‘What’s for supper?’ Today, whether cooking for my family or company, I’m always trying to pleased everyone…and it just doesn’t work. I think we’ve become so accustom to having it our way that if Jesus were here to feed the 5,000 most of us would miss the miracle. We’d be asking for special order fish and chips - baked, fried, broiled or sushi.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----”You can’t please everyone,” is one of those truths of life used as a cop-out to excuse us from our neighbor‘s needs. Paul tells us to please him and to seek his interest. Love that does not demand its own way frees us to do that. But this life has been subjected to corruption like a sponge subjected to water. The corruption is saturating to the point that all living things even eat each other for food. Do you think it is that way in heaven? God’s creatures are food to each other there? I don’t. But we do not cop-out on our efforts to live righteously because we have passed a slice of Ol’ Bessie’s backside through the fire and now have it on a dinner plate.
-----In any gathering of people it is not possible to please everyone at the same time. But given enough time, it is possible to please each one, one at a time. And in so trying to do, the others learn over and over the lessen that the name of Christ involves the nature of pleasing others for their good and edification. Then as the whole gathering begins to learn this, the practice of pleasing others begins to happen naturally. At that time Paul’s intent of I Cor 15:2 comes to life among us: it is not just the leaders, or one, two, or a few that are to please everyone. Everyone is to please one another. And it is understood that, in a situation as your Grandmother’s dinner, there is the dynamic of one faced with the challenge of pleasing the whole gathering.
-----But it is an opportunity for the wisdom of the servant. Last year at Thanksgiving, my family became involved in a discussion about someone who served Lasagna for Thanksgiving. The discussion at the time centered on the appropriateness of tradition. Adding to the discussion a slight bend to our context, most people still feel turkey is a must on Thanksgiving. To invite a giant gathering of family to your house for Thanksgiving and then to surprise them with Lasagna would lead to a noticeable decline in common pleasure. On the other hand, when I was a child, my Dad’s family was invited to an acquaintance’s for Thanksgiving, and we were also invited to guess what was on the menu in place of turkey. After our first few testing tastes, we were all quite pleased to eat the raccoon. Pleasure is a highly malleable substance in the hands of one skilled at shaping an event to it and inspiring the participants to receive it.
-----The most important thing about pleasing others is that it is done for their good and for their edification. One has to be careful with these two words, especially with “good.” Being such open terms they are easily reshaped by alpha-types to take advantage of others in actually achieving the pleasure of the alpha-type’s own selfish-ambition by use of others. This is why I have so much angst about church leaders. The statement made by a baby-boomer elder of your church about the choice of only contemporary music was an absolute exposure of an alpha-type in Jesus-clothes. He unabashedly affirmed, “I’ve been doing traditional hymns my whole life. It is my turn, now, and I am having fun up there with my guitar,” referring to his participation in the celebration service band. Now, of course, that was spoken in a closed meeting you and I both attended. But the message to the general audience is always, “Why approach a living Savior with dirge music? He is alive! You all need to celebrate that!” Meaning that by the alpha-type’s prerogative to define good for you, what he wants himself actually becomes the supply for that good. While sadly, to many others, the old music was not at all a dirge, but reverence, and in it was the edifying good to them. The most important thing about pleasing your neighbor is that you pay attention to your neighbor’s definition of what is good and edifying, as it is weighed by the truth of the Word.
-----So it is that the wise person in charge of serving any gathering will consider those gathered, who they are, and what they need. The wise person will understand that it will not be possible to please everyone to the last detail. But enough mix can be introduced into his service to please everyone basically. Then he can especially please this few now by trimming with these peculiar details, and later, please another few then by trimming with those peculiar details. And he will strive to do that, because the wise servant understands that the seed of edification in pleasing a neighbor is planted by the acknowledgement an effort to please communicates. In as much as Jesus Christ has called each soul to Himself and has made each one alive, each soul is important to Him. Read Matthew 25:32-46.
-----So if Jesus is to be important to us, not in words only, but actually in truth, then what is important to Him must also be important to us. Therefore each soul needs its importance to Jesus acknowledged. God has intended each soul to eternally continue in individual uniqueness, for He gives each of us a new name in heaven. He has chosen us as individuals. So we all need acknowledged as individuals. And Paul tells us to each please our neighbor.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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