1
Proper 25A (2017)
Matthew 22:34-46
Dr. Walter Trobisch and his wife, Ingrid Hult, were pioneers in the field of family counseling. Some years ago after they had given a lecture at one of the universities in Sweden, a beautiful young woman came to see them at their hotel. As they talked about her problems, one basic issue kept coming up – one that seemed to underlie all her problems. She did not love herself. In fact, she hated herself so much that she was only a step away from ending her own life. The young woman had been raised in a very strict, religious home. Her parents were sincere, no doubt, but they had given her a terribly distorted understanding of the Christian life. Because of what her parents and pastors had taught her, she was afraid of affirming anything positive about herself. She was afraid that self-appreciation would lead to pride, and pride would lead to alienation from God. So, for her, the life of faith required self-deprecation. She believed that rejection of the self was the only way to God. That’s how her religious convictions brought her to the brink of suicide.
During the counseling session, Dr. Trobisch led her to a mirror where he asked her to look carefully at her image. She turned away, unable to look at herself. He held her head gently but firmly and made her look into her own eyes. The experience was painful for her emotionally. Dr. Trobisch asked her to repeat after him, “I am a beautiful girl.” But shewould not do it, because in her eyes that was sinful.
Where did we ever get the idea that to affirm and appreciate ourselves is wrong? Certainly not from Jesus. When we read the gospels, we discover that Jesus went around day after day looking for the good in people and asking them to celebrate it. And that leads us to today’s Gospel where Jesus tells us to love our neighbors. How? As we love ourselves. Notice that Jesus does not say we are to love our neighbors instead of ourselves. We are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Let me take that a step further and make this bold statement: it is impossible for you to love yourself too much. Of course, we can love ourselves in unhealthy ways, but that is a problem of kind, not degree. Authentic self- love is always healthy and life-giving. It is “self-centeredness” that is the real danger. Self-centeredness is claiming a place for ourselves which rightly belongs only to God. It is placing ourselves at the center of life and pushing God and others out to the periphery.
Do you remember the character Narcissus from Greek mythology? Narcissus was a beautiful youth who was gazing at his reflection in a pool one day. The more he stared, the more he became enamored of himself. He fell so in love with his own reflection that he lost the will to live. That was not self-love – certainly not in the healthy sense of that word. It was self-centeredness, and that is always destructive. The world was created to function in a God-centered way. Nothing works out very well until we understand that. But let’s get it straight once and for all. While we could do with less self-centeredness, we don’t need less self- love. In fact, I will go so far as to say that one of our biggest problems is that we fail to love ourselves enough! Regardless of how many problems are caused by conceit, a far greater number of problems are caused by a low self image!
I know so many people who have sold themselves short for their entire lives and continue to do so even in their senior years – people who have so much talent and ability, so much to offer others, but who are unable to turn off the tape in their head that keeps saying, you can’t succeed at that so don’t even try. They will not attempt anything of significance because they do not believe in themselves. Perhaps when they were children they were told that they were dumb, slow, ugly, fat, or bad. You supply the adjective. Somewhere along the way, someone gave them a negative self-image; they embraced it, and they have never moved beyond it. Talk to any counselor and they will confirm out of their own experience the truth from the Book of Proverbs which says, “As a person thinks in his heart, so shall he be”. Most criminals have a low self image, so why try to live up to anything better? Many school drop-outs, teens who have children outside of marriage, and people living on the margins of society are all people who have never come to believe in themselves. So much of our daily discontent comes from the fact that most of us are more aware of our weaknesses than our strengths, more aware of our failures than our successes. The world is full of people with low self images who get up in the morning and go off to work feeling that they must prove their worth. They must earn the approval and acceptance of others. Deep down, so many people believe that they can’t do it – that they will never measure up! That’s a hellish way to live.
I don’t want to hear anyone say ever again, “I’m not important – my life doesn’t count for much – I can’t make any contribution – I don’t have any talent.” That is insulting to God. To say that you are without gifts is to discredit God’s creation. I can’t believe that God would create anyone without capacity for contribution. I like the idea expressed in some tenement graffiti. Written with pride in big red letters were the words, “God don’t make no junk!” Of course He doesn’t!
The Psalmist wrote: “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;What is man, that thou art mindful of him?...For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.” That’s what the Bible thinks of you – “a little lower than the angels”. We are the children of a God who loves us so very, very much. We are the sons and daughters of God! Our problem is not in thinking too highly of ourselves. Our problem is in catching up with the Bible’s vision of our greatness!
So, if you are good looking, acknowledge that. If you are smart, give thanks for that. If you have an out-going personality, celebrate that. If you have talent, use it. Every good gift is from God, so whatever your gifts are, discover them, celebrate them, and use them. That’s not arrogance, that’s honesty. As Dizzy Dean used to say, “It ain’t braggin’ if you done it!”
In a few minutes we will welcome Saylor into the fellowship of Christ’s Church, but even now, before baptism, from the moment of her birth she has been a child of God – a unique, unrepeatable miracle of God’s creative power. There is no one in the entire world exactly like her. A person who feels that she is loved. A person who will have a healthy understanding of her gifts and abilities. A person who will know that her life matters, and through the careful instruction of her parents and family, she will learn that the lives of others also matter. That it is her calling to love all others, as she is loved.
What I say to Saylor, I say to all of you. You are a person of worth because you are a child of God – you are one for whom Christ has died. If you understand that, then you will love yourself for the best of all possible reasons: God loves me, so I must be worth loving. Who am I to argue with God? So, say it to yourself over and over again: “I am a child of God!”For us Christians, that’s where everything starts. We experience God’s love for us. Because of that love, we begin to love ourselves. Then, loving ourselves, we are able to love our neighbors in healthy, life-giving ways. That’s the way it works. It begins with God, flows through us, and then extends to our neighbors.
I’ve been talking about the importance of loving ourselves. How do we do that? First, we are to accept ourselves as we are, saying “yes” to the realities of our lives. We stop putting ourselves down for not being like someone else, for not being better looking, for not having more or different talents, for not being in a different situation, that sort of thing. We accept ourselves as we are and we celebrate “the goodness of being me”. That means accepting our limitations as well as strengths. It means refusing to waste time saying, “If only this…wouldn’t it be nice if that…”
Second, to love yourself in a healthy way means being able to forgive yourself. God has already forgiven us, but a great many people have difficulty forgiving themselves. The fact is, no one is perfect. We have all made mistakes and done things which we regret. But that’s what sunsets are for – to ring down the curtain on a day. At the end of every day, God cuts us free from everything we failed in, helps us to learn from our mistakes, and then strengthens us to do better tomorrow. So, whatever your past has been, it doesn’t have to cast a shadow on your future. God has forgiven you. Accept His forgiveness and forgive yourself!
A final part of loving yourself is to expect the best from yourself. If you remember that you are a child of God, then unworthy behavior is unthinkable. If you remember that you are a child of God, then a loftier, more noble lifestyle befits you. It is true, “As a person thinks in his heart, so shall he be.” The more we act according to our own high expectations, the more we become worthy of our own self respect. One of the most important things in life, is to be able to look at oneself in the mirror, and feel good about the person you see. And I’ll tell you when that counts most. It’s when we come to the end of our journey, and we find that we can look back upon the previous 80 or 90 years with a genuine sense of satisfaction and say, “I have no regrets”.
You can never get away from yourself. Wherever you go, there you are. You are stuck with yourself, so you had better become a person you can love, for it is only then that you can fulfill the command of Jesus to “Love your neighbor, as you love yourself.”