Christian Responses to Ego Games

Our first reading today, from the Book of Wisdom, was probably written in the first century BC, in Alexandria, a cosmopolitan city of learning, Greek-speaking, near where the Nile flows into the Mediterranean. It was a city awash in philosophical debate: Stoics, Epicureans, Skeptics, and varieties of Platonists. The book of Wisdom is defending God’s ways against these competing philosophies.
 
Today’s reading is setting up a debate about suffering, why bad things happen to good people. This excerpt is the opening step in a conversation about how God is at work, even when rivals maneuver against the innocent, plotting tests and tricks. Not all religions give the same answers to deep questions like that, and today’s readings unfold the Christian answer.
 
The second reading, the Psalm, is at a different moment in history, but still wrestling with the same question: how is God at work, what is God asking of me, when haughty men plot against me, when rivals scheme.
 
Our third reading, from James’ epistle, says that the ultimate roots of these conflicts are in the human heart. James says disorder flows from coveting, envy, and being unwilling to say “no” to our passions and egos, but peace flows from a repentant, pure heart.
 
In the Gospel, our fourth reading, we see how it works. In this scene, even the disciples are playing ego games with each other. They are contending for status, each one trying to come out on top. It’s a moment of conversational one-upping, an everyday moment of insecurity and rivalry.
 
It’s interesting that in an aside, the Gospel says that the disciples were afraid to ask Jesus questions. I wonder if maybe they didn’t want to understand, if they wanted to keep Jesus at arm’s length, because then they would have to surrender in the ego game. It can be frightening to take that step, to make yourself vulnerable and really listen to him.
 
And in response to all of this, as an illustration of a pure heart, Jesus places a child in the middle of them: putting his arms around a little boy or a little girl – literally, giving him or her a hug – and he says to them “whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me.”
 
This is not a sentimental moment. Jesus has just been talking about his death. In ancient Greece and Rome, infanticide was common. Inconvenient children could also be sold into slavery. The status hierarchy in the pagan Mediterranean was brutal. Jesus was asking his followers to imitate children, well aware of the connotations.
 
Jesus subverts the status game by refusing to play. In response to threats – whether it’s literal matters of life and death, or simply threats to our ego – Jesus doesn’t say get savvy, assert your prerogatives, play the game better, win. That would be the pagan way. Thinking back to our first reading, the Stoics might say tough it out. The Epicureans might say eat, drink, numb it with pleasure. The Skeptics might mock any attempt to respond morally. The Platonists might say transcend it, don’t get caught up in it, look beyond it.
 
Instead Jesus says the way to be first is to be last, to serve. He says become like this child: innocent, dependent, open to correction.
 
Have you ever gone on a nature walk with a happy toddler or young child? If you let them set the pace, a one-minute walk will take ten minutes. They stop all the time to look at things, to pick flowers, to poke at puddles, to show you a pebble. They are full of wonder. They look at reality with wide, expectant eyes.
 
When an adult makes an internal decision to try and inhabit reality like that – to trust Jesus and his way, to look at the world and its hardship, and not deny the suffering, but to drop the ego, to walk the path like a child – it’s practically a super power, a wonderful lightness and freedom.
 
This is why we need a plan, to be deliberate about our spiritual life. Because cultivating a Christ-like servant’s heart, a childlike heart, is not easy. It is the work of a lifetime. It takes prayer, sacraments, confession, service, suffering. It takes mentoring, being part of a community, because when you try and live like this, you will find yourself in tricky situations requiring discernment and support.
 
Jesus does not always save his children from suffering. Today, he gives the child a hug, but the disciple earn a rebuke. In another scene in another passage, Jesus will tell us to follow him along the way of the cross. He knows what we need and when we need it. One way or another, his mission of redemption is not to exempt us from suffering, but to form and shape us until we love with his love, to desire and will with his desire and will. The school of suffering can be quite useful for learning to love, if we are open to it. Jesus is drawing us into himself, not accommodating and flattering our egos, but with both hugs and crosses, raising us up so that we can know him and share his inner life.
 
His invitation to this communion is always there. Our job is to step into the circle as his child, to offer our selves over to his way of teaching, open, humble, dependent, receptive, obedient. The solution to sin is always to make a gift of our selves to him, to unite with Jesus as a servant, even to the point of sacrifice.
 
As we approach this Eucharist, let’s pray to meet Jesus like a child in every circumstance. Let’s ask for the grace to surrender in the ego wars, and live like a Christian, not a Greek or a Roman pagan. No matter what is making us anxious, his invitation is always fresh: he loves us, and gives us the gift of himself. He can remake and reconfigure our hearts, so that we’re holy, living human nature as it was created to be.

Invited into the circle with an open, child-like heart. 

Maybe you know a teen who would flourish as a student in our community. Our next open house will be Wednesday, October 9th, at 7pm.