Christmas is over, the three Wise Men have returned to their home in the east, and the batteries powering the fairy lights around my living room have run down, damping the festive color to a dim, barely visible glow. I’m feeling a bit run down, myself. I’m tired of staying home all the time, wearing a mask every time I venture out for a walk or to buy groceries. I yearn for the time when I can go to a yoga class in person, greet my friends with a hug before sitting down to a chatty lunch, or see my far-flung family in person again. I’m not a front-line healthcare worker, I don’t work in an essential business interacting with the public, I’m not risking my life to earn a living. And I while I am grateful for my relatively comfortable life, I often feel unworthy of all the good things that surround me when so many people have lost everything in these seemingly endless months of pandemic isolation and political disfunction.
When I read that John the Baptist says he is not worthy to untie the shoelaces of his cousin Jesus,* I wonder what he’s really thinking. After all, he’s not just some ordinary guy trying to do whatever he can to get by. Rather, just like Jesus, John’s own birth was foretold by an angel. Now, when both he and Jesus are grown men, Jesus has not yet begun his public ministry. He comes to John to for a ritual cleansing because his cousin is already a well-known prophet who exhorts people to repent of their sins before the coming reign of God. Crowds of people follow him around, hanging on his every word and begging him to wash away their sins.
So is John humble-bragging? Was he jealous of something that he saw in Jesus? Or was he a little like me, suffering from a bad case of imposter syndrome? While I am no prophet and no one follows me around, I do have some status and position in the world as a retired seminary professor. Even with my academic degrees, publications, and former position, I have often been afraid that my colleagues will figure out how much I don’t know, how little I think about things that other faculty members insist are important, how difficult it is for me to keep up with everything that I think is expected of me. I still often feel like a fraud when someone asks me to teach a class, give a speech, or write an article. In my worst moments, I am convinced that everyone else is smarter, deeper, and infinitely more spiritual than I am.
Too often, I feel unworthy to even tie my own shoelaces, let alone those of Jesus. Jesus, however, came to tell both John and me, and everyone else, a different story about ourselves. I believe that when Jesus came up out of the water and heard God’s voice saying “You are my child, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased,” that blessing was for all of us. Jesus taught that all of us are beloved of God, and pleasing to our divine Parent. No one is unworthy of the love of God.
–Deborah Sokolove, Seekers Church
Questions:
- Do you ever humble-brag? What prompts that for you?
- When do you feel jealous of someone else’s success?
- Are there times when you feel especially unworthy of God’s love?
