Woe to the Flattered

Today we’re talking about the last woe: Woe to you when all speak well of you… or Woe to the Flattered, as I titled my sermon (it fit on the line in the bulletin better).

It seems like an odd thing to say. What’s so wrong about people speaking well of you? It’s our dream as parents that other people will speak well of our kids! Right? In fact, we all like to be liked and have people say nice things about us. It’s natural and normal. It makes us feel validated, affirmed, appreciated, valued, proud, relieved, and just really good.

So, let’s concede that a good reputation may be desirable, but when ALL speak well of you that may be a sign of something else. It sort of reminds me of couples who tell me they never argue, which makes me wonder if they were always honest with each other. My grandma once told me that she and my grandpa never fought… because she always did what he wanted.

Why might it NOT be admirable for everyone to speak well of you? Here are a few ideas. Maybe it signifies that you spend your life trying to please others, you never challenge the system, you’ve never called someone to account, you’ve never spoken truth to power, never been the squeaky wheel or the scratchy voice, or you’re doing something just to get admiration.

We’ve all kept silent or went along with what someone else said just to avoid causing waves and risking dislike and conflict. We’ve all done something (maybe not even something bad) just so people would look favorably on us, or so we’d fit in.

We remember that in this passage Jesus is coaching his disciples and apostles, those who will carry his message to the world. For someone who has been teaching love, compassion, forgiveness, equality, inclusion, mercy, and non-violence, this almost seems like an odd thing to say. Shouldn’t people look up to you as a person of God trying to do all this good? But his messages in the passage have constantly turned our world views upside down. Being a person deeply connected to God means that not everyone will speak well about you, and if you haven’t irritated and frustrated someone along the way, then perhaps it’s to examine your behavior and motives.

This is a hard lesson. I’ve come a long way from being a naïve, idealistic pastor 28 years ago. I thought for sure if I just did my best to be nice, to love everyone, to let them know that God loved them and that they were worthy and enough, that certainly I’d not cause people to dislike me or say bad things about me. That illusion has been shattered over and over again.

Maybe Jesus was saying… if you’re truly going to follow the path I’m laying out, the path of the Spirit, then be prepared, it is not a path on which everyone speaks well of you. Your ancestors spoke well of the false prophets because they were FALSE prophets - they lied, they manipulated, they prophesied things that would get them on everyone’s good side.

The real lovers-of-God dare to risk because they know that in God’s eyes we are all equal, that we all deserve to be treated with dignity and compassion. Followers of Jesus’ “way” are truth-tellers, agitators of conscience and souls, light in the darkness illuminating things people would rather not see. They aren’t speaking to gain friends, but because it is what they must do to be true to God and themselves.

I had an African American seminary professor, Dr. Henry Young, who told a good friend of mine that the world needs scratchy voices. The world needs voices that will risk speaking truth to power… as scary as that may be.

Martin Niemöller was a prominent Lutheran pastor in Germany. In the 1920s and early 1930s, he sympathized with many Nazi ideas and supported radically right-wing political movements. But after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, Niemöller became an outspoken critic of Hitler’s interference in the Protestant Church. He spent the last eight years of Nazi rule, from 1937 to 1945, in Nazi prisons and concentration camps. After the war, Niemöller lectured throughout Western Allied-occupied Germany and is perhaps best remembered for his postwar statement, which reads something like this:

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

His exact words changed according to his audience. However, Niemöller’s message remained consistent: he declared that through silence, indifference, and inaction, Germans had been complicit in the Nazi imprisonment, persecution, and murder of millions of people. He felt that it was particularly appalling that he and other German Protestant church leaders, whom he believed had positions of moral authority, chose to remain silent.

There have been many modern-day versions of this poem, and, sadly, it is easy to adapt to today’s times.

First, they came for the immigrants and their children
Then they came for the Ukrainians
Then they came for the Gazans, Palestinians and Muslims
Then they came for the Universities
Then they came for those on Medicare and Medicaid
Then they came for the poor
They came for public media
Then they came for women
Then they came for LGBTQ+…

The question is, are we speaking out?

Woe to you who are always spoken well of, because you have put flattery and admiration above the Divine Essence that runs through all things, that calls us to be instruments for justice, truth, hope, light and compassion. When you do that, you have forgotten who you are and forgotten God. We must speak out before there is no one else left to do so.

Love & Light!

Kaye