Today's scripture reading plunges us into the ongoing conflict between Jesus and the leaders of Israel. But beware of assuming too quickly that the problems are all with someone else. For Jesus quickly turns the conversation around to us.

I'm reading Matthew 23, verses 1-12, from the New Revised Standard Version:

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses seat. Therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it. But do not do as they do for they do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens hard to bear and lay them on the shoulders of others but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. They do all their deeds to be seen by others for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the market places and to have people call them Rabbi, but you are not to be called Rabbi for you have one teacher and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth for you have one Father, the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors for you have one instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

Tonight small ghosts will fill the sidewalks. Pint-sized versions of Darth Maul will wander the streets in the usual mix of princesses, super heroes, and Jedi knights will knock on the doors of homes across the U.S. They will arrive in confident expectation of candy enough to pave the streets of a child's version of paradise. Some children will wear fabulous costumes from a creative parent's sewing machine. Others will parade proudly in costumes that are mass-produced and purchased at a discount store. Yet my favorite costumes are the ones that clearly come from grandparents' closets and children's imagination. A little girl wears a hat from forty years ago with a dress that trails the ground behind her gathering fallen leaves as she galumphs precariously in her mother's high heels. A little boy shows off in a suit with the trousers rolled up and shoes so big he's in constant danger of tripping over his own artificially extended toes. It's the fun of Halloween. The streets are full of people of all ages pretending to be someone they are not.

It's a more difficult matter when masquerading as someone we are not becomes the business of a lifetime rather than the fun of an evening. The scribes and Pharisees of today's scripture reading are no more able to be the religious leaders they intend to be than the little children wearing over-sized shoes are ready to take on adult responsibilities. The Pharisees pretend to a virtue they do not possess and a size they are too small of soul to own.

Those adult pretenders are as familiar to me as they seem to have been to Jesus. They live next door. They work in the office down the hall and sometimes I see one looking back at me from the mirror. They are immature souls masquerading in the costumes of religious authority tripping over their pretense to virtue. It would be funny if they were not so intent on holding on to their own power at everyone else's expense. Fortunately, spotting them is not difficult even before their oversized egos topple them.

Fakers do not practice what they teach. These are the folks who talk about healthy eating and vegetarian food but furtively duck in for lunch at the local cholesterol house. They make accusatory speeches about the lack of morals in public life but have a closet full of secrets of their own. Living up to the standards they insist on for everyone else is more than they are able even to consider.

Dissemblers insist on the privileges of authoritarian leadership. They are teachers who find it inconceivable that a student could know something they do not know. It seems to them that they have a natural born right to reserved parking places, private washrooms, and an assured place in the sun. Day by day they strut their stuff and expect applause from everyone within sight. Yet despite all the glory they demand for themselves, there's something pitiable about them. Everything they do is hard, weary work. They must be constantly on guard to cover up the secret they can hardly acknowledge to themselves. The hypocrisy, the demand for respect, the grabbing of privileges are all to hide the reality that they cannot live up to the role they have taken for themselves.

One way or another we know what it means to pretend to what we do not possess. Who has not accepted an undeserved compliment or an unmerited honor. It's the way we are when we are left to our own devices and deceptions. But Jesus doesn't permit us to settle for the way things are. Jesus shows us a better, more excellent way. "But you...," he begins. As always, when Jesus first shows us the way that leads to death and then says, "But you...," we must pay close attention for the way to life is about to be described. "But you...," he says, shall have no titles of honor, no hierarchies of privilege, no competition for status, not even a competition to see who can be more egalitarian. In the community of disciples, there is no room for self-absorbed behavior, no place for win-at-all-costs, me-first attitudes. No tolerance for the intolerance of the immature.

"But you..." will know the greatest ones among you by their willing acceptance of the role of servant. Far from demanding service and accommodation the great among the disciples are the ones who take care of and for others and know that the most satisfying way to receive is to give generously.

Sometimes such a way of being together is visible in the church. Not always, of course, but sometimes. Most of us who hang out around congregations understand that Christians need reminding about the ways of true community as much as anyone else. Still, Jesus has given us this model of what it means to be the community of disciples. Even if the memory of it sometimes becomes dim, it is nevertheless what at our best we intend to be. A community of equals is an ideal that is not always a reality but always a joy where it exists.

Every time I walk into my dentist's office, I experience a community of equals. My dentist is called by her first name as are the assistants, the receptionist, and the hygienists. In that office you will hear no orders, no demands, but instead requests for assistance prefaced by "please" and followed by "thank you." If you were to walk in as a stranger and didn't know who is who, you might be puzzled about which one is in charge. In the community of care that they have created together, there is a recognition that each has a valuable contribution to make, each has dignity, and each is important, the receptionist no less than the dentist. They have their own roles to play and their different competencies but no one deserves or demands more respect and privilege than any of the others. It's a model that many congregations could learn from and maybe close to what Jesus had in mind for us. "But you...," Jesus said.

And then Jesus added what is either a warning or a promise depending on where you stand. "All who exalt themselves will be humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted." It's part of a long chain of wisdom speech that we can trace back to ancient Israel. I remember it first from the words of my grandmother cautioning me that pride goes before a fall. Whatever the source, it is not easy for most of us to hear. Humility comes naturally to few of us. Most of us are worried about our standing in the community where we fear revealing vulnerability for we are too unsure of ourselves to be willing to take a back seat to anyone. We have a hard time believing that simple humility is the path to spiritual exaltation.

There is a story about a Special Olympics race. The teen-aged participants excitedly placed themselves along the starting line. Each was proudly outfitted in running shoes and shorts with a number pinned to their shirt. The coaches encouraged them from the sidelines and then silence fell while the starter called out, "On your marks, get set...." At the sound of the gun, the race to win began. Not many competitors were fast or graceful but all of them were running their best until a young woman tripped and fell. As she did, a competitor saw what had happened and came to a full, sudden stop. Danny knelt down and asked in a loud voice, "Marlene, are you okay?" One by one the other competitors noticed that Danny and Marlene were halted in the middle of the track and one by one they went to where Marlene and Danny were helping each other up. That was remarkable enough, but then the wonder really happened. All of the contestants linked arms and walked together to the finish line. They knew that it did not really matter which one went across the finish line first. They understood that what is most important are the relationships of friendships and the community of caring.

Now I do not doubt that such a story may generate a sentimental smile that can be followed by a discount of the story's value. We may write it off as inapplicable to the ones we name "normal" by which we usually mean people like us. Still, take note that how you respond to the story of the Special Olympics, or for that matter, the teachings of Jesus, depends on what you think life is for. If you think that life is about winning or losing, if you assume that there is only so much to go around and it's up to you to grab what you need and take what you want, then get in line behind the scribes and Pharisees. Get your costume from a rental store and get ready to scramble and claw your way to the top or as close to the top as your will and your energy and your ruthlessness will take you. It's a lifestyle that seems to believe that whoever dies with the most toys win.

It's a limited understanding of life which teacher/philosopher James Carse calls a "finite game." A finite game--or a finite understanding of life--assumes that everything depends on who wins and who loses, that there are always losers and that only the very few and the very best can win. Some people might call it realistic. I call it lonely and utterly lacking in hope.

An infinite game on the other hand is, for Carse, any human interaction in which the purpose is the relationship. It's a win-win understanding of life. Although any tennis match can be played as a finite game, it can also be played for the sake of continuing the relationship between the players. Maybe they'd ban such a way of playing at the Davis Cup matches, but then again maybe the world of pro tennis would be improved if players valued each other as persons rather than reacting to each other as competitors.

To continue the metaphor on loan from Carse, we might even say that God's way of relating to humanity is an infinite game whose sole purpose is bringing us closer to one another and closer to God. Then perhaps we begin to see what it means for Jesus to say, "All who exalt themselves will be humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted." It is, after all, exactly what his life meant. For he who might have demanded that humankind bow down in his presence, in fact, lived among us as a teacher who never demanded submissiveness from his students, as a healer who understood that the well-being of the ill was more important than his own reputation and as a friend who never demanded the first or best place for himself.

In June I was with members of my congregation in a working class suburb of San Jose, Costa Rica. We were helping with the finish work and painting of a newly constructed health clinic. One morning I sat my paint roller down to look out the window at the valley where we were working and the mountainside beyond. I saw several large buildings up on the mountainside and asked one of our hosts if they were hotels. I learned that, in fact, they were private homes. As I stood looking at those lonely houses isolated on the mountainside surrounded by fences and certainly closely guarded, I was suddenly and fully aware of what we had where we were. It was impossible to know what lay behind the facade of the houses on the mountainside. All I could see was the veneer of wealth and power. In contrast, the neighborhood where we were working is struggling at the edge of poverty. There are no wealthy and powerful people there. But day by day we experienced genuine hospitality and gained deeper understanding of what it means to be a community of disciples. We didn't need the trappings of power and prestige to understand that what we were being given by our hosts is infinitely valuable. It's not that there are no problems in the valley where we were working and staying. Poverty and all its companions are visible realities there. Nevertheless, I know that the deep contentment I felt in that time only comes when I get past the unimportant and remember what really matters. We were part of a community of people who value one another and honor God. In that humble valley we were given a gift beyond price.

Please join me in prayer.

God of us all, you alone are great. We ask your help in remembering who we are so that we may be enabled to glimpse your presence. When we forget ourselves in our search for power, forgive us and restore us to our right minds so that we may become more nearly the people you intend us to be. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Amen.