Friday in the Fourth Week

Wisdom 2:1a, 12-24; Psalm 34:15-22; John 7:1-2,10,25-30

Things are heating up between Jesus, his opponents, and the growing crowd who think he might be the One.  He’s been healing, but he keeps breaking Sabbath to do it.  He is especially offensive when he speaks of his relationship with God.  Who does he think he is?

Our first reading gives us an answer.  We see there that the righteous person “professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself [sic] a child of the Lord.”  The righteous one is offensive because “he avoids our ways as unclean” and “boasts that God is his father.”  

This reading does not refer to the Messiah, but to the “righteous man.”  Any righteous man (or woman!).  I’m not making this up: “For God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own nature” (v. 23).  God created us in God’s image.  We can all rightly “boast” that God is our mother/father.  In fact, we must.  To deny it is to deny God’s desire.

We have many reasons for trying to deny this, but I think the core is the fear of others’ envy.  “Who does s/he think s/he is?”  Those voices that tell us not to stand out, not to shine too brightly, not to admit that we have gifts.  Those voices from junior high or middle school that taught us (especially girls) not to show that we were smart or talented or really interested in school.  

One author wrote that envy is the crushing sin, because it actively wills the diminishment of another person.  I don’t have to actively will your diminishment when I want more than my share or ignore your needs (though that may be a side effect).  But when I envy, I’m saying: Be less.  Be less so that I don’t have to be more.

“Through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his company experience it” (Wis 2:24).  Envy kills.

As you choose life this Lent, gird yourself to actively resist envy.  Are you envious of anyone?  What is it they have that you wish for yourself?  You may be surprised to find that you’ve had it all along - talent, love, enough.  Envy blinds us to our own greatness and sufficiency. 

And if someone’s envious of you, notice it and resist it.  You do not have to sacrifice your inheritance to be accepted.  You are made in God’s image, made to shine.

Jesus will pay, and the unrighteous will think they’ve won.  

They’re wrong.

Choose life.