During my sermon on Sunday, September 24, 2023, I mentioned a TED Talk by primatologist Frans de Waal about fairness. I wanted to share the video with you. I found it to be a quite compelling video, particularly as we try and understand our own human reactions to perceived inequality. In retrospect, though, I’m wondering about the difference between the desire for fairness and our inclination toward envy and comparison.

Fairness and envy are easily confused and in watching the video, and considering our parable from Sunday from Matthew 20, I’m realizing that neither of those situations is really even about fairness. So, what is fairness? When asking basic life questions, I often find that children’s books offer a helpful perspective. In a book titled It’s Not Fair, on nearly every page, the title of the book, is exclaimed in response to a variety of apparent inequalities. Why can’t I have a pet giraffe? It’s not fair. … Why now, chicken pox? It’s not fair. Here’s a link to the book being read aloud. It is a fun book, for sure, and my favorite part is the way it ends. There’s no explanation, no attempt to justify the feelings or even try to change the feelings of the people who are comparing their own circumstances to those around them.

I wonder how children would respond to this book. I wonder how you would respond! I know that for me, my response at the end was to reflect on the ways that I’ve felt that things weren’t fair and I envisioned an empathetic and compassionate response of someone looking at me, acknowledging my feelings, and explaining that some of those things just are the way they are. Yes, it doesn’t seem fair, but it also isn’t the fault of the person who receives what we did not. Envy is what happens, though, when our perception of inequality leads us to act out of a desire for what someone else has.

Contemporary theologian Diana Butler Bass writes that “envy is not jealousy. Jealousy is a kind of protective impulse. One is jealous if a lover seems inappropriately attentive to another. You might be jealous to guard your reputation against attack or jealous in defense of familial honor. Envy is resentment, a passionate spite that can become cancerous hostility. Joseph Epstein, in a brilliant little book, called envy ‘a self-poisoning of the mind, envy is usually less about what one lacks than about what other people have.’ Envy grows from rivalry — when we are unable to see our own gifts without comparing them to the gifts of others.”

Like the capuchin monkeys, we are happy with the cucumber until we see someone else receive a grape. I want to be less envious while also seeking fairness. The more I think about our text from Sunday, the study with the monkeys, and even the children’s book, I realize that part of our calling as a faith community is to be people who strive for fairness while also seeking to avoid envy. What a challenging spot for us to be in! Luckily, this is the way of gospel, which also means the Holy Spirit guides us in community as we seek to live the Kingdom of God together here and now!

ec·dy·sis 
/ˈekdəsəs/ 
noun 
the process of shedding the old skin (in reptiles) or casting off the outer cuticle (in insects and other arthropods).

Made you look….or did you already know the definition of ecdysis? Over the weekend I unlocked another new and exciting level to living in Arizona. As I reached down to pick up what I thought was packing tape laying on my patio, I realized my hand was holding skin. A few inches of snake skin. I looked around and to my surprise, I found over 2 feet more of skin shed. I was excited and curious - this was a first for me. The shed contains so much detail…even the eye sockets were identifiable. But I was also undeniably creeped out because this discovery confirms the obvious; snakes live where I do. 

My curiosity won out. I packed up my specimen in an approved suburban mom scientific storage container - a ziplock bag. Tomorrow, my daughter will bring it to preschool. I can imagine her proudly handing it over to be explored under magnifying glass and light alongside her classmates. Today, I bank mom points. Making up for the failed “me book” a few months back. 

I brought the shed inside to share with my daughter. I explained how snakes shed their skin when it’s time to grow. They leave their old skin that no longer serves them behind. This little lesson has stayed with me the last two days. 

Scripture speaks of a spiritual shedding that occurs, or at least should occur, in the life of someone who knows Jesus. The second letter to the Corinthians reads, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” And we are taught to “put off” our old self with regard to our former way of life (Ephesians 4:22). In snake speak, we should be shedding too. Not because of dry heat, but because we want to be more like Jesus himself. Once we have a relationship with Jesus, we change. Once we experience his great love and grace it is life changing. There’s no turning back. And the thing about Jesus…we encounter his love and grace not just once, but over and over again. 

Snakes shed their skin anywhere from 3-6 times per year. I wonder how often I’m shedding my old ways (habits, thoughts, ways of being, etc.) in order for growth to occur in me? If I’m being honest, I think snakes have us beat here. I know that as a disciple of Jesus, I’m called to this process of shedding and growth throughout my life but it’s not easy. Ecdysis isn’t either. 

It can be uncomfortable for a snake to shed its skin as it grows. The same can be said for our own spiritual growth. It’s much more comfortable to stay just the way we are, however, we aren’t called to stay the same. We are invited to drop our nets, step out of our boats, sell our possessions, eat with tax collectors and hang with sinners (which we are too!),and love our enemy. We are called to step out of the comfortable skin we’ve grown into, in order that we might grow into something new too. The fancy word for that is sanctification. The process through which God transforms us and helps us grow to be more like God’s son Jesus. It’s a good thing. It can be an uncomfortable thing. But it’s a God thing. So, are you ready to shed?

SPLASH! A surge of water hit me in the face, as I yelled, “Jump in Mack, I’ll catch you!” I was coaxing young children to jump off the diving board and into the deep end. Treading water, arms outstretched waiting to catch, looking as happy and trustworthy as possible. The young children deciding if they were going to trust their fate to me and toss themselves into tumultuous seas. Some thrilled, some less than excited. Most feeling quite accomplished once on dry land again. 

Jumping off the big diving board is a summer child’s rite of passage. It is an accomplishment of epic proportions! I was always amazed at those who jumped right in. No fear! They yelled for me to get out of their way as they hurled themselves into the water, attempting a variety of tricks: jack-knives, belly flops, cannon balls, and pencil dives. Some forgetting that they hadn’t mastered what came next, the swim to the ladder. In choppy waters and for inexperienced swimmers that ladder swim could be more troublesome than the jump.

Others, quite hesitant, some thinking deeply as they surveyed the scene, weighing the pros and cons carefully. Will she really catch me? Do I trust the person telling me to jump in choppy water that is five times deeper than I am tall? I can barely swim on a good day, who is this instructor anyway? What credentials does she have that give her the right to tell me that I should jump in?! 

There have been times in my life and during my walk with the Lord, where I can identify with those little ones with their toes tightly wrapped over the edge of the diving board. Clinging with all my toe strength to stay on dry land, while I heard God nudging me to take a step forward into the unknown. However, when I look to Scripture I see people in the Bible, who just like me, felt uneasy and unsure on their own accord, yet stepped out of the boat to walk on water, or feeling less than qualified, yet led many people to safety. They were afraid, but they placed their trust in the Lord and jumped in. I have been so encouraged to do the same! To serve where the Lord is leading me, and to trust in Him when what follows the initial jump feels even more unsteady. To keep my eyes on the Lord in all circumstances, to not be discouraged and keep jumping in when He calls my name. 

As three of Pinnacle's pastors and 35 congregation members and friends prepare to journey to the Holy Land in late October, I’ve been thinking about the last time I was in Israel, twenty-three years ago. I went not as a tourist but as a teacher. I had just gotten through my doctoral “comprehensive” exams at Princeton Seminary, and I wanted to do something completely different. I thought about the enriching time I had spent teaching English for the summer in Western China back in 1987, under the auspices of Grand Canyon University, where I was then a student. The dean of students who had coordinated that trip, Treva Gibson, was still working at GCU in 2000. So, I contacted her and asked, “Do you have any international placements for teaching English this summer? Any chance of going back to China?” She responded, “I don’t have anything in China, but I do have something in Jerusalem. Interested?” Well, yes, I was interested! After seven years of theological studies at that point, a trip to the Holy Land seemed like a dream come true. 

Well, I took the opportunity and ended up not in Jerusalem, but in a small Israeli-Arab town, called Baqa al-Gharbiyye, teaching at a small community college, with only six students who’d signed up for my class: Suhair, Rania, Abeer, Jamilla, Heba, & Nour. You may not recognize these names enough to tell, but they are all female. The fact that there were only girls worked out well for our classroom. If male students had been present, the girls would have had to sit in the back of the classroom behind a barrier. They would have had far less opportunity to interact in the class and to vocalize their opinions. 

Because there were no male classmates, these women took the chance to say what they thought. Rania (21) said, “I have had seven to eight proposals of marriage since I was fourteen. My father has always said that his daughter would not marry until she had her education and knew how to drive!” All the girls said the same. Their fathers supported them in getting an education. “Don’t think of us as oppressed as women,” Suhair asserted. “We choose to wear these hijabs (coverings). Our sisters do not wear these. They go to state universities and lead secular lives. We choose this way of life.” 

When I talked to them about their dreams, however, they were less positive. Heba said, “I want to be an astrophysicist!” All the other girls hissed and chided her, “Don’t reach beyond your station. You know such a thing is not possible for us.” These students all affirmed that their position as women in the Islamic world in some ways was limited, but they said, “In the Qur’an we as women have rights. It is our society that limits us. We have the right to own property and to be treated equally within the household. Yes, the Qur’an allows for a man to marry up to five women, if he will treat them all the same. And what man is in any way capable of this?” Through these conversations, I learned a lot about Islamic feminism! These young women each brought a copy of the Qur’an to class, and if at any point they disagreed with something I said, they would flip through the pages of their holy book and say, “Professor, with all respect, the Qur’an says, ….” And I would be put in my place.

I wonder about these young women and what has become of them. They would all be in their mid-forties by now, most likely married, and raising teenagers. Perhaps some of them have been able to emigrate to other countries, where there are greater opportunities. Perhaps Heba has become an astrophysicist after all! Who knows.

I love how education can bring people together, create opportunity, and feed the soul. My soul was definitely fed back in the summer of 2000. I learned a lot even as I sought to teach.

A few years ago, a friend reached into the offering plate and picked up her guiding word for the year ahead. The paper star she held simply read, ‘Yes’. She was confused. Uninspired. Disappointed. Nevertheless, she committed to exploring what this word would reveal to her…or rather how the Holy Spirit would move through this word for the next 12 months. To her surprise, saying yes opened her up to deeper discipleship. 

Each day she lifted up a simple morning prayer. “God, show me where you want me to say ‘yes’ today.” Through the course of the year this led her to take on her first pro-bono case, defending a fellow soldier. It led to opening up her home; creating space for community to gather and form. It also led her to engage with a local mission–helping women escape from sex trafficking in our area (a place no one would imagine this occurs). 

Since my friend’s testimony, I’ve thought a lot about the power of simply saying ‘yes’. So I was excited when I read that our MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) theme this year is “Say Yes”. MOPS leaders agree with my friend–one little word can change your life. How? As MOPS explains, “saying yes opens us up to new ways of thinking and helps cultivate a growth mindset...Developing a ‘yes’ mindset is living intentionally, focused on your goals for yourself and your family. It’s about listening to God’s still, small voice and doing the brave things rather than the easy things.” 

It’s often easier to maintain life “as we know it.” Just staying on the same schedule, the same routine because it’s easier but also because it’s safe. It’s familiar. It doesn’t take as much energy as something new would. It doesn’t require stepping out of your comfort zone. When we move through life this way, life can become pretty mundane. We can miss what’s right in front of us because of familiarity. It’s like praying the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday but not thinking about the meaning of the words. To say ‘yes’ is to be here now. To be fully present with the prayers we pray, within the skin we live and to the people with whom we share the same air. 

One children’s book puts it this way: “The world is awake, it’s a wonderful place. Alive with God’s power and glad with [God’s] grace.” Through a simple ‘yes’, my friend discovered that the world is awake. Her ‘yes’ helped her to see the way God wants to use her gifts and experience to help others. She discovered the ways she can create safe spaces to protect others. And she experienced the blessing of creating community with those who live in the same neighborhood–a community in which her whole family finds belonging. 

I wonder what saying ‘yes’ looks like for you? For me, saying ‘yes’ looks like putting down the phone more often. It looks like learning how to calm my spinning mind. It looks like joining MOPS and being a part of creating a community with deep engagement. It looks like dropping off dinner for my neighbors with a sick daughter. It looks like praying old prayers with new meaning. It looks about as small as the word ‘yes’, but as Zechariah reminds us, “do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin…” (Zechariah 4:10).