True greatness

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In order to live a moral life, a good life, an ubuntu life, we must commit to a life of love that means seeing all the things. See your neighbor suffering and do something about it.…

          Jacqui Lewis

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It begs the question

 

What does it mean to be great?

What does greatness look like?

 

Does it mean to be bigger?

Stronger

Richer

Smarter

Comelier

Or more talented?

 

Is it about the ability to win,

To dominate,

To control,

To impose your will on others.

 

To accumulate power and wealth

 

When people cry, “Make America Great Again!”

What do they mean?

 

It seems clear that for many greatness looks like

looks like those who have

the wealth, the fame

even the notoriety

 

It looks like have the adoration of the crowds

It looks like being above the law

(or being able to manipulate it for your own purposes)

 

It looks like

Donald J Trump

Elon Musk

Jeff Bezos

 

It looks like the superstar

The beautiful ones

The rich ones

 

Even the “Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology says

Greatness is about being bigger, larger, and more powerful

(which may explain a lot about the current “evangelicals”)

 

But in the realm of the Sacred

Greatness looks like Jesus

 

Jesus

Pink and squalling in a manger

Teaching and healing

Kneeling in the dust, washing feet

 

Jesus

On a cross

 

It looks like the worst nightmare of MAGA America

And even most of the rest of us

 

Paul had it right when he wrong

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who, though he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God

as something to be grasped, but emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave, assuming human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a human, he humbled himself

and became obedient to the point of death —     even death on a cross”

 

Greatness looks like love

Being there for others

 

Greatness “is patient; and kind;

It is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way;

it is not irritable;

it keeps no record of wrongs;

it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth.

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

 

Greatness having a love that never fails

It looks like Jesus