Beyond Boasting

The overview effect

So there's a strange thing that happens to astronauts when they leave Earth. We talked about this a couple weeks ago when we began the series that we're in on Ephesians. And what people call it is the overview effect.

Astronauts, they travel far enough away from Earth that suddenly they can see the whole thing. The blue curve, the oceans, the continents, that impossibly thin layer of atmosphere that somehow allows us all to live. And something happens to these astronauts.

The Earth, it hasn't changed. Their house is still where they left it. Their family is still there. The nations haven't disappeared. The problems haven't disappeared. But they have seen the world differently. And once you've seen it that way, it's difficult to go back to seeing it the old way.

That's something like what Paul is doing here. In Ephesians, Paul takes us up. He pulls the camera all the way back. And in chapter one, he gives us this breathtaking vision.

Before the foundation of the world, you were yearned for. In love, you were adopted. In Christ, you have redemption, forgiveness, an inheritance, the Spirit. And then Paul goes even wider than that. God is gathering up all things in Christ, things in heaven, things on earth, everything. The whole creation being brought together in Jesus.

That's the overview effect.

And the question Ephesians now asks us is, what happens when you come back down? What happens when you come back down? What happens when you have to live Tuesday morning having seen all that? What does maturity look like when you begin living inside the world Paul has shown you in Christ?

Because the circumstances may not have changed when you go to work tomorrow. The people who annoy you haven't necessarily changed either. Your family might not have changed. Your bank account number hasn't changed. Your body hasn't changed. Your job hasn't changed. Seattle certainly hasn't changed.

But you have seen something. You've seen something about God and who he is. You've seen what God is doing, and you've seen who you are in Christ. And Paul says, now live there.

And today Paul begins by taking us somewhere rather uncomfortable. Because one of the first things that has to die if we are going to live in this bigger, wider world is something we are all quite good at: boasting.

Boasting

Boasting.

When you read, like I did this past week, an interview with Tom Cruise, he talks about how from the beginning he knew one thing about himself. And maybe you saw this interview. He said he could work. He believed he could outwork anyone. And to be clear, that is admirable. I like hard work. Most of us like hard work. Or at least we like the fruits of it.

But the shadow side of being the person who works harder than everybody else? You begin looking around at the people who don't. Why aren't you working? Why aren't you trying? Why don't you care as much as I care? I can't imagine being on a set with Tom Cruise. That dude does his own stunts. Why can't everyone be a little more like me?

Boasting.

Or let's go to college football. Your beloved college football coach leaves Ole Miss for LSU, and then he comes back to your stadium wearing LSU colors. If you saw the game last night, and you decide we're going to pack this place an hour early, and you boo. You make signs. You make gestures. And then your team beats him without him. Oh yes, and suddenly winning isn't enough. You need him to know that we won. You lost.

Boasting.

Or how about this one? Jesus tells us a story about workers in a vineyard, workers that the vineyard owner has gone out and recruited. Some show up at 6:00 a.m., some at 9, some at noon, some at 3, and some show up at 5:00, right before quitting time. One hour left in the workday. And at the end of the day the owner pays them, and everybody gets the same amount.

Are you feeling this scenario right now? Especially if you identify as the 6 a.m. worker, the early bird workers who put in a whole day, the last-of-the-light workers who put in an hour before dusk.

The vineyard owner is the one who recruited them. He wanted all who were available to work, and he makes an agreement with each of them. A hundred bucks for the day. The late shift is pumped. The early shift is pissed. Well, that doesn't seem fair. Look how much more I produced for you.

Guess what? Boasting.

Not loud boasting. Necessarily reasonable boasting. Not Muhammad Ali, "I am the greatest," but something much subtler, something much more respectable. Something that can hide inside responsibility, inside diligence, inside achievement, inside religion, inside parenting, inside being the person who always remembers, the person who always shows up. The person who is first to volunteer. The person who did the dishes last night. The person who makes the best spreadsheets, the person who really reads the parenting book. The person who gets there at six in the morning and works all day.

Friends, there's a dark side to some of the diligence in our lives. Martin Luther was in touch with this. He said, describing the sinful heart, that it seeks to use all things, even God, for its own sake. And it's this little voice that says, "I did my part, so now you owe me."

Keepy tracky

Sounds like boasting. In a podcast I recently listened to, the host confessed he has a mood, and he called it keepy tracky. Do you know keepy tracky? I think we all know keepy tracky.

Keepy tracky is when there's this little accountant, and I like to think mine looks like Milton from Office Space, with a red stapler on his desk, sitting in the basement of my soul. I don't know what yours looks like, but it's kind of fun to think about the accountant. He's keeping the books.

I cooked dinner Monday. You cooked dinner Tuesday. I initiated these last three conversations. I called my mom. You didn't. I did pick up twice this month. They haven't done it even once. I got here at 6. She got here at 5. I've been a Christian for 30 years. They just walked in. I've sacrificed. I've given. I've behaved. I've tried. I've been the responsible sister. She's the prodigal.

Keepy tracky, the mood inside the soul when the ledger comes out. Credit, debit. Credit, debit. Keepy tracky.

And it is exhausting, because as long as I am keeping track of everything, I need to keep you playing your assigned role in my accounting system. I need to be able to look at you and know I'm ahead. Or you owe me. Or at least I don't owe you.

And this is where Jesus' story becomes so offensive, because the vineyard owner walks into the accounting department and takes that ledger in all of our souls and sets it on fire.

The workers who started first say, "Wait, we've been here all day. We deserve more." The landowner says, "Friend, didn't we have an agreement? I chose to give this last worker the same as I'm giving you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?" God's divine order in the story. And then Jesus gives us this question beneath the question: "Are you envious because I'm generous?"

That's the parable, and what I love about this is that Jesus doesn't really soften it. He doesn't say, "Ah, don't worry." He's not trying to justify anything. He doesn't tell us that he had really good reasons and he's going to explain them to us. He doesn't try to explain what they deserved or what they didn't. That's not the point. The landowner is simply generous. This vineyard owner is simply generous.

And if the landowner is giving us a picture of God, the uncomfortable realization is this: I'm not sure I like this God. I know I'm supposed to. He's generous. We like generous people. But not like this, because generosity is lovely until somebody receives something I think they don't deserve. And then suddenly I become very interested in justice. It's fascinating how quickly that happens.

But God

And this brings us directly into Ephesians 2. Paul says this:

You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived.

You were dead, he says. Not struggling, not slightly off course and needing just a minor adjustment, not in need of just a little bit of a self-improvement plan, but dead. Following the course of this world, the way of boasting, the way that leads to division, the way that leads to hostility, caught in desires and fears and powers larger than ourselves.

And then perhaps come the two most encouraging words ever written: But God.

But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love for which he has loved us, even when we were dead, made us alive together in Christ.

Notice who the subject is of those verbs. God loved. God made alive. God raised. God seated. God saves.

Paul is describing the necessary process of resurrection, because dead people have terrible resumes. Dead people don't do networking very well. Dead people don't improve themselves. Dead people don't get themselves together. They simply have to get raised. That's Paul's image.

And this is why grace is so much more radical than "God helps people who are trying their best." Paul says no. God comes to dead people. God goes out at 5 o'clock looking for anybody still standing around the marketplace. You. Yes, you. Come on. Come to my vineyard.

Paul is telling us both the life we are saved from and also about the life we are saved for. We're saved from a hell of hostility and a cacophony of boasting. Sartre's play is really powerful. No Exit, if you're familiar with this play. He is describing people living out this competing, endless competition of annoying each other, boasting, making each other miserable. This would be hell. And at times today feels like our common fate.

But God. We are saved from an entire way of being human, an entire accounting system, an entire existence built around proving ourselves, justifying ourselves, comparing ourselves, distinguishing ourselves. Boasting.

And Paul says:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

Why? Here's the phrase. You might say it with me: so that no one may boast. There it is.

God's grace. God's generosity takes us into the land beyond boasting. Hallelujah. Celebrate and savor that for a second.

Imagine together what this is like, to be able to trust God's love and generosity toward you, that even when you feel like someone has lied about you, you don't have to defend yourself. When they boasted about themselves, you don't have to boast back. You break the cycle instead. Instead you use that energy that you would have spent on boasting in new and creative ways.

For good works

This is important, because Paul is super clear. He's not against work. You need energy to work. The very next sentence says:

For we are what he has made us, created in Jesus Christ for good works, which have been prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

So grace, it doesn't eliminate work, but it does transform it. Eugene Peterson makes much of this in his reflection on grace and good works. Grace does not make us passive. Grace doesn't turn the Christian life into sitting around and saying, "Well, gee, God loves me, so I suppose nothing matters." No. Instead, grace gives us our life back as a gift. And then we can work without needing our work to save us. And then we can serve without needing service to establish some kind of credibility. Then we can be diligent without despising people who aren't. We can be generous without keeping receipts. We can forgive without waiting for the books to balance. We can love without needing to win.

The works are still there. But the boasting, friends, is the part that's gone. Or at least it's dying.

N. T. Wright writes a really great book on Ephesians I'd recommend. And he points out that the word Paul uses here for what he has made us carries this sense of something crafted, made, a work of art that God is doing with us. And the word is poema. And you can hear that word in the word poem. We are this workmanship of God's, God's artwork.

And the good works aren't the price we pay to get God to make us beautiful. They are what happens because the Artist, God, is at work.

The life of grace is not "do good things so God will love you." It is "you are loved." Now let's see what God can make of a life that no longer has to prove itself, that no longer has to boast.

That is such a different way to wake up tomorrow morning.

Who do you think God is?

There's a question here under all of this, and maybe the question underneath the whole spiritual life is this: Who do you think God is? Who do you think God is?

A. W. Tozer. I've quoted him in the front of this order of worship here. You can turn to it, or I can just read it to you. He says this:

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

So who do you think God is?

I think we can all have some kind of theology on paper, but we can still live as if God is stingy. You can say grace, but live keepy tracky. You can sing about God's love and still live like there won't be enough. Enough money, enough attention, enough belonging, enough opportunity, enough blessing. So I better protect mine. I better make sure my children get theirs. I'd better make sure my group gets theirs. My neighborhood, my generation, my kind of people, my church, my nation. Mine.

We're sounding like the seagulls in the Pixar films.

Scarcity produces hostility, because if there isn't enough, then your gain may be my loss. So I need a dividing wall. I need to know who's in and who's out, who earned it, who didn't, who worked all day, who wandered in at 5.

And Paul says, you have misunderstood God.

The God revealed in Jesus Christ is rich in mercy. Not adequate in mercy, not occasionally merciful, but rich. And he loved us with—Paul can't simply say love, but he says great love. And then Paul says, in the ages to come, God intends to show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Jesus Christ.

Paul is running out of adjectives here. Rich. Great. Immeasurable. This is abundance language, friends. This is a vineyard owner walking around at 5 o'clock saying, "Anybody else? Anybody else need work? Anybody else need a place? Anybody else need to come home? Anybody else think it's too late? Come on, there's room."

And this is what the parable about Matthew 20 captures so beautifully. The strange thing about the parable isn't simply how much the landowner pays. It's how often he goes looking. Morning, nine, noon, three. Again, again, again. And the owner seems almost more concerned with the workers than the work. Who's still out there? Who hasn't been included? Who thinks nobody wants them? Go get them. Bring them in. There's something almost ridiculous about it.

And then the story does something else. It exposes the people who have been there all day long, because the generosity given to the last worker reveals the heart of the first. They had been content with their wage until somebody else received grace. And suddenly what had been enough turned into not enough.

That's what comparison does. That's what boasting does. That's what scarcity does. It can take a gift and make it feel like an insult.

This is why I don't think Jesus tells the story merely to the five o'clock workers, to encourage them. I think he tells it for the 6 a.m. people too, and maybe especially so. Maybe to us, those who are the quote-unquote responsible ones, the ones who showed up, the ones who did what we said we'd do. The ones who kept going to church, the ones who kept the family going, the business going, the calendar going.

Because grace isn't merely God being generous to those people. Grace is God rescuing me and you from keepy tracky.

The least joyful version of ourselves is the keepy tracky version, because keeping the ledger doesn't merely imprison the person that you're upset with, but it imprisons you. And eventually the internal counting system becomes something that burns us up from the inside, and Jesus comes in and lights it on fire for us.

Maybe you've got a list. Maybe you can pull it up quickly. Things that people need to do in your life. The way your parents failed you. Maybe it's the way your spouse disappointed you this week that you're holding onto. The way your sibling got something you didn't. The way your church hurt you. The way your boss overlooked you.

And I'm not saying those things don't matter. They do matter. They require genuine justice. They require boundaries, and they require grief. But there is a difference between remembering truthfully and building your home inside the ledger.

God wants you free from that. Lose the keepy tracky. Not because it's not real, but because there is another economy, the economy of the grace of Jesus Christ.

Friends, this is good news.

Maybe that's why the question from this parable that stays with me is just so simple. Can you trust God to be good? Good toward you, good toward your family, good toward your future, good when somebody else gets something you wanted, good when life seems unfair, good when you worked all day but someone else walked in at 5.

Our community life, friends, depends on who we are in communion with. If God is scarce, then we are competitors. If God is stingy, then we are working to secure mine. If God is fundamentally disappointed in me, then I need someone below me so I can feel okay. If God's love for me is because I am useful, then I have to keep working.

But if God is the God Jesus shows us, if God is rich in mercy, if God comes looking, if God makes dead things alive again, if God gives himself away, if God is generous, then I can unclench my hands. I can look at your blessing and call it beautiful. I can look at someone else's success and celebrate. I can welcome the five o'clock worker. I can stop proving. I can stop comparing. And Lord Jesus, thank you. I can stop boasting.

Look again

And maybe then we discover something surprising. This God who initially makes us uncomfortable is the God we desperately want, because eventually all of us end up in the 5 o'clock worker spot. Eventually all of us have our resume run out. We can't keep up. We fail. Our body fails. Our plans fail. Children make choices you can't control. Something happens with your diligence that you can't fix.

Eventually you discover, I can't keep the books forever. And on that day, you don't want a God standing at the gate with a spreadsheet. You want a God coming down the road looking for you. You want a God rich in mercy. You want a God who says, "Come on. You too. There's room."

All Souls, this is the world Paul wants us to see. This is the overview effect. Look. Look again. Look again and again at the world from here.

At the center of reality, there is not scarcity. There is gift. At the heart of the universe, there is not a ledger. There is generous grace. At the heart of all things, there is not a disappointed taskmaster. There is the Father of Jesus Christ who, all for love's sake, Jesus Christ became poor that we might become rich, rich in mercy and abundantly alive.

In the Lord's Supper, in a few moments, we have this moment that theologians call the epiclesis. It's this moment that is mysterious, and the best theological minds try and make sense of it. So you have people like Calvin and Thomas Aquinas alike agreeing, something to the effect of, without overly explaining it, that we go up in the Lord's Supper by the Spirit. We go up to be with God and take in this vision of who God is, in the richness of heaven and the richness of his mercy and love. And we were taken up not to stay away or escape this earth, but to come back down transformed, seeing this world differently.

So come back into your marriage. Come back into your work. Come back into your neighborhood. Come back into life together at All Souls. Come back into your conflicts. Come back into the places where the dividing walls rise. But come back having seen something, beholding God's wild generosity.

Let that unsettle you in the best way. Let it offend your accounting system. Let it make you uncomfortable. And then let it thrill you, because this life is not boring. Grace is not beige. The kingdom of God is not a slightly nicer version of the world we've already made. It is vivid. It is alive. It is abundant. A vineyard where the owner is still wandering the streets at five o'clock, looking for somebody else to bring home.

The antidote, friends, to boasting is beholding.

When the keepy tracky starts keeping track, behold. When somebody else's blessing feels like your diminishment, behold. When you are tempted to boast, behold who is your God. Rich in mercy, great in love, immeasurable in grace, gracious beyond, generous beyond what seems reasonable.

And perhaps, friends, as we behold him, we will see with our own eyes the dividing walls in our hearts come down. The hostilities lose their power. The clenched hands opened, the ledgers closed. And we cross over together in the land beyond boasting.

Friends, your God is generous. Your God is love. And he has come to make his home here among us. The Garden City is coming, even now, among us.

Hallelujah. May it be so. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.