Rock Paper Scissors

Luke 18:9-14 (NRSV)

9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: 10'Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, "God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income." 13But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" 14I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.'

I found myself telling my coworker the other day that I was awesome.    I had a customer call the office about a house he was buying that day that he thought he'd already gotten insurance on.  He hadn't.  We didn't even know he was buying a house.   Fifteen minutes later, he had insurance, the bank had a binder, and, from what I heard, his closing went smoothly.    That morning, I was pretty awesome at my job.   Several days later, however, in a moment of complete and total idiocy, I did rock, paper, scissor (No lizard or Spock) to see who would take the phone customer and who would take the one in the lobby at (not with) a coworker.   Naturally, instead of seeing through this moment of total insanity to my good-natured awesomeness, our customer took offense and left.   Even revved the engine on his truck.   He came back, and told the personal lines manager (that person I had informed of my awesomeness not too long before) what had happened.  

I have a thousand excuses for that situation.   The only one that makes any sense at all being that it was the stupidest thing I've done in a long time.  Oh, I was overwhelmed and exasperated and trying to figure out how we were going to do everything all at once and I was at that point where you can either laugh or cry, but that guy did not deserve that.  

Would I have walked out in that situation?  Probably not, I probably would have laughed my butt off.   I'm a little different, though, as we have already established, and not at all normal.   I also found myself making excuses.  He was high strung.  The receptionist made it worse.  The customer had terrible timing.   Just about everything but I was having one of the most unprofessional moments of my adult life. 

I imagine the pharisee in the parable was having the same kind of day.   He found himself at the temple and instead of coming up with something meaningful to say to God he started declaring his own...awesomeness.   "God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income."  How precious!  If you never do anything wrong, why do you fast twice a week?  We're all suspicious of this guy having a body in his basement or the first century equivalent of a tax shelter in a Swiss bank account but he probably wasn't anything more evil than the rest of us.    Probably doing his best, coming along nicely even, and then he gets a little too confident.   Doesn't even realize that if it wasn't for the grace of God and even a little help from other people that he might have been a thief, a rogue or a tax collector. 

Then he prays to God about how grateful he is that he's not somebody else.  He plays rock paper scissors in the temple.  He does something really really stupid.   We need to slow down sometimes when we get good at our jobs, or start doing really well, or get comfortable in the way we approach worship and shake things up a bit.  Evaluate why we're doing well, why we're getting good at our jobs, and realize it's not because other people are losers and we're winners.   It's not even because God likes us and not someone else. Not at all.

I don't really have much of a point past that.   I don't know why some people win and some people lose.  I know the reason I'm good at my job---which I'm not doing incredibly stupid things---is because I've been fortunate enough to have good bosses who helped me learn to care about what I'm doing by making me realize that it does matter.  It mattered when I was clearing dishes from tables at the Sage Room at age 17 and it mattered when I was working at McDonald's in college.  What we does matter, whether it's big or small.   I didn't learn that on my own.  I had good people showing me how the smallest thing can turn someone's day around ---for good or ill--- and that anything from taking out the garbage to writing an insurance policy can done for the glory of God for the sake of the Kingdom.

Even if sometimes we talk to ourselves more than God in our prayers.