Sermon

Do not be afraid, then; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Matthew 10:31

There are few issues more critical or more delicate than the issues surrounding our sense

of personal worth. If we feel worthless, we feel utterly wretched and find it almost

impossible to do anything for ourselves or for anyone else. If we feel too important, we

tend to downgrade everyone else, and become insufferable.

Parents struggle with this issue, wanting their children to feel good about who they are,

but wanting them also to recognize that some of their impulses and some of their actions

are wrong. I recall one person, aged about forty at the time, breaking into tears and

saying that nothing she had ever done was good enough for her parents. They were always

trying to convince her that she could do better. I am sure that her parents were trying to

bring out the best in her, but years later, the pain was still there.

If we look through the Bible with this in mind, we get the impression that the Lord faces

the same problem with us. Message after message is telling us that we have done wrong,

that we must change, that trouble lies in store for us if we continue on the path we have

set for ourselves. And message after message adds, "I am telling you this because you are

of such value to me." "I have made you a little lower than God [which is what the Hebrew

text of Psalm eight says], and have crowned you with glory and honor." "Since you were

precious in my sight, you have been honorable, and I have loved you; therefore I will give

a man in exchange for you, and a people in exchange for your life." "Do not be afraid,

then; you are of more value than many sparrows."

The message is clear enough. We are of inestimable value, but not in our own right. Our

value is the value our Creator places upon us. As one T-shirt says, "God made me, and God

don't make junk."

That may be clear, but it does not really solve our problem. We can still take that

valuation as though we deserved it and think that anything we do is good, or we can

believe that no matter how highly the Lord prizes us, we know that we are actually pretty

rotten. In other words, what the Lord thinks of us and what we think of ourselves may be

two different things. They are different views because they are views from different

perspectives. The Lord sees us perfectly and in the context of the rest of humanity. We

see ourselves partially, and differently from the way we see everyone else. We see

ourselves from the inside, so to speak, and not from the outside. It can be quite a shock

to see oneself on videotape for the first time--to see what everyone else has been seeing

all these years. Conversely, we see everyone else from the outside, and try to figure out

what is going on inside. Sometimes we ask very directly--"Where on earth did that come

from?"

Scripture, together with our theology, points to a way out of the dilemma we find

ourselves in. We are reminded in the gospel of Matthew (as elsewhere) that some things are

covered and hidden, things that will eventually be revealed and known. It does not take

very much mental effort to realize that there is a great deal we do not know about

ourselves. There are countless memories buried beyond our immediate recall. Motives

surface that surprise us. We look at what we have done or said, and wonder where that came

from.

If we were to try to evaluate ourselves on the basis of our performance, we would have no

greater success. Suppose we were to try to evaluate just one day. We got some things done

pretty well. We did not accomplish everything we set out to do. There were some things we

know we could have done better. There were certainly some thoughts and impulses that we

disapprove of, and it is entirely possible that we said or did some things that we might

regret, or would certainly question.

There are all the pieces--now how do we add up the score? How many points do we get for

the accomplishments? How many do we deduct for the things we could have done better, or

for the things we never got to? What allowances do we make for the difficulties that were

not of our making? What allowance do we make for the fact that our own parents did not do

a perfect job of raising us, that our own teachers were not perfect--that we have not been

perfectly prepared to meet all these situations? How do we really know, that is, exactly

what we are responsible for, how much we can expect of ourselves?

Well, situation by situation, we do seem to know, more or less. We have a reasonably clear

idea of our abilities, a reasonably clear idea of what it means to do our best, and of

what that best is in specific instances. We know a lot of things about ourselves. But the

point is--and I think it is a very important point--we have no way of knowing how it all

adds up. There is simply no way whatever that we can sit down with a piece of paper, or

better yet, with a mainframe computer, list all these bits and pieces, all these pros and

cons, and come out with a statement of our net worth as human beings. We may feel good

about ourselves, we may feel rotten about ourselves, we may prefer not to think about

ourselves--we don't know.

Above all, we cannot compare ourselves with others in terms of ultimate worth. We can

certainly say that we are more productive than some, more law-abiding than some, and so

on; but we cannot say what we would be like if we were in someone else's shoes. The big

problem with the "Just say no" approach to drug education is not in the "say no" part, it

is in the "just." "Just say no" implies that "that's all there is to it. It's simple." I

was told recently about a television program in which a schoolboy told of the devious

route he had to take, through back streets and alleys and areaways, in order to get to

school without being harassed by drug dealers. I don't know how hard it is for someone in

those circumstances to "say no." I know there are situations in my own life in which I

find it awfully difficult. So if I wanted to compare myself to the addict in terms of "net

worth," I would have to discover, among other things, how we handled "No's" of comparable

difficulty.

It would seem, then, that one of the reasons this question of personal worth is so

difficult for us is that it involves searching for an answer that we will never find. No

matter how we feel about ourselves, there is no way we can gather the evidence we need to

know with certainty that our feelings are justified by the facts. We will always be

guessing, and the sooner we admit it, the sooner we will stop beating our heads against

that particular wall.

This does not seem to be a very satisfactory place to leave ourselves, though, and in fact

our theology points us a step further. I have in mind one of my favorite passages, from

Heaven and Hell ¶ 302:

If only we believed the way things really are, that everything good flows in from the Lord

and everything evil from hell, then we would not make anything good in ourselves a matter

of personal merit, nor would we lay blame on ourselves. In everything good we thought or

did, we would focus on the Lord, and everything evil that flowed in we would send back to

the hell it came from. But since we do not believe in any inflow from heaven or hell, we

think that everything we do is rooted in ourselves and therefore comes from ourselves. So

we blame ourselves for the evil, and pollute the good that flows in with a sense of our

own merit.

This is a dangerous doctrine. It is telling us that we do not need to care about our own

self-image. We don't need to pat ourselves on the back for our good impulses or blame

ourselves for our evil ones. Yet we know perfectly well that there are times when only our

concern for our self-image keeps us on the straight and narrow. "Even if nobody else would

ever find out, I couldn't do that, because I don't want to believe that I am that kind of

person."

Yet the danger is easily avoided. We are ready for this doctrine when we find that it

helps us lead more responsible lives. When we discover that it is easier to sit down to

the unwelcome task if we stop thinking that we will be bad people if we do not, when we

discover that it is easier to resist the uncharitable impulse if it is not an issue of our

own virtue, then we are ready for this doctrine. Then we can simply look at a situation

and say, "This needs to be done, this needs to be not done," and do or not do, without

getting all tangled up in how wonderful or how terrible we are.

There is a little sign I put up on my office door from time to time--"When virtue is

inevitable, relax and enjoy it." A lot of the things we "should" do are really not all

that unpleasant in and of themselves. We make them unpleasant by our reluctance. There

isn't a great deal of difference between swing a baseball bat and swinging an axe, and yet

we call one play and the other work. "I'd love to play ball, but I have to split wood."

It is truly sad to see others, or ourselves, doing something that is quite painless-maybe

doing the dishes--and resenting it, focusing on everything that it isn't rather than

noticing what satisfactions it has to offer. People who don't want to get to work anyway

get angry when the traffic is slow. The car may have every creature comfort there is,

including elegant stereo sound, but there seems to be a determination not to enjoy it when

there is no choice. We seem drawn to the questionable delights of self-pity.

Helen Keller, being blind and deaf, had every reason for self-pity, and knew what it was

like. She wrote the words I would close with:

Sometimes, it is true, a sense of isolation enfolds me like a cold mist as I sit alone and

wait at live's shut gate. Beyond there is light, and music, and sweet companionship, but I

may not enter. Fate, silent, pitiless, bars the way. . . . Silence sits immense upon my

soul. Then comes hope with a smile and whispers, "There is joy in self-forgetfulness."

Amen.