Must Be Nice

Commentary on the Sabbath School Lesson for 3.5.11

I remember saying that phrase when I was a teenager and young adult.  Maybe you did too.  Somebody would tell me about something great that had happened in his (or her) life, and I’d say, “Must be nice,” with as much barely controlled jealously as I could manage.  It wasn’t until years later that I really thought about that phrase.  I’m not really sure when I realized that “must be nice” is just part of a longer thought:  “It must be nice…for you, that this good thing happened to you, but I wouldn’t know, because it hasn’t happened to me.” 

Jealousy is a terrible, terrible emotion.  It causes people to do crazy things.  It can ruin the lives of everybody it touches, both the person who is jealous and the person who is the subject of the jealousy.

If you ever saw the movie, Amadeus, you’ll remember how powerfully it illustrates the destructive power of jealousy.

 “… Salieri was the court musician in Vienna. He worked hard at his craft, writing melodies that were nice and choral pieces that were fine and instrumental works that were good. He knew that God had blessed him.
As a young man he had prayed fervently to God, ‘Let me make music that will glorify you, Father. Help me lift the hearts of people to heaven. Let me serve you through my music.’
“Then came the boy wonder, the child prodigy, young Mozart. He dazzled the crowds, playing music as if it was second nature to him. … songs that soared till they seemed to bring heaven right down to earth.
“Here's the catch: Mozart was such an obvious sinner. He was immature, vulgar, and obscene. He made off with the ladies every chance he could get. Salieri grew green with envy. How could life be so unfair. He was the servant of God. Why should Mozart be blessed with such talents? Salieri lived a pious and obedient life. Why should Mozart traffic in all these worldly pleasures and still get ahead? …
“The story continues until Mozart dies a mysterious death. Salieri's eyes gleam. And in the dramatic climax, Salieri sits in an insane asylum, where he curses God for denying him the kind of talent that blessed young Mozart. ….”[1]

At one point in the film, Salieri makes a chilling vow to destroy Mozart:

“…From now on we are enemies, you and I. Because you choose for your instrument a boastful, lustful, smutty, infantile boy and give me for my reward only the ability to recognize the incarnation; because you are unjust, unfair, unkind, I will block you. I swear it. I will hinder and harm your creature on earth. As far as I am able, I will ruin your incarnation.”[2]

Now, probably (hopefully) most of us have not experienced that depth of jealousy, but is it really any different when our noses get out of joint when someone close to us gets a promotion at work and we don’t?  We might even feel jealousy/envy toward people we don’t even know, like celebrities and movie stars…even just regular people who happen to have more money than we do.

This is true confession time.  I spent a very short time, one summer, doing data entry for the IRS.  We would take stacks of income tax returns from all over the country and type the information into the computer.  I saw hundreds of people’s taxable income (nobody I ever heard of), and realized an awful lot of people make a whole lot of money.  And as I typed, I felt myself getting very bitter, at people I had never heard of.  I also got more and more upset with God.  I’d pick up each return and find myself thinking, “must be nice.”

Thankfully, the Holy Spirit jabbed me and showed me a way to soften that hard knot that was growing in my heart.  Every time I caught myself thinking, “must be nice,” I would pray for the family represented by that tax return.  It wasn’t easy, but the Holy Spirit sat right next to me with minute by minute help.

Harboring jealous feelings is like saying to God, “You messed up.  You should have given that to me.”  Henry Nouwen describes how all that bitterness keeps us from praying.  

“You still feel jealous of the fellow who is better paid than you are, you still want revenge on someone who doesn't respect you, you are still disappointed that you've received no letter, still angry because she didn't smile when you walked by. You live through it, you live along with it as though it didn't really bother you ... until the moment that you want to pray. Then everything returns: the bitterness, the hate, the jealousy, the disappointment and the desire for revenge. But these feelings are not just there; you clutch them in your hands as if they were treasures you didn't want to part with. You sit rummaging in all that old sourness as if you couldn't do without it, as if in giving it up, you would lose your very self.”[3]

What’s the answer?  How do we let go of all the things that are destroying us?  James shares his solution:

“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such ‘wisdom’ does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.”  James 3:13-18

I grew up in San Antonio, so the Spurs have a special place in my heart.  David Robinson explains how he

“learned to share the limelight with … his teammate Tim Duncan. … In Sports Illustrated, Robinson reflects on what that was like for him.
“I can't overstate how important my faith has been to me as an athlete and as a person. It's helped me deal with so many things, including matters of ego and pride. For instance, I can't deny that it felt weird to see Tim standing on the podium with the Finals MVP trophy. I was thinking, Man, never have I come to the end of a tournament and not been the one holding up that trophy. It was hard.
“But I thought about the Bible story of David and Goliath. David helped King Saul win a battle, but the king wasn't happy because he had killed thousands of men while David had killed tens of thousands. So King Saul couldn't enjoy the victory because he was thinking about David's getting more credit than he was.
“I'm blessed that God has given me the ability to just enjoy the victory. So Tim killed the tens of thousands. That's great. I'm happy for him.”[4]

Hmmm … must be nice …

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[1] Wayne Brouwer, "Taming the Beast," Preaching Today, Tape No. 118.

[2] Amadeus (Orion, 1984), rated PG, written by Peter Shaffer, directed by Milos Forman

[3] Henri J.M. Nouwen, Leadership, Vol. 3, no. 1.

[4] "Mission Accomplished," Sports Illustrated (7-5-99), pp.36-40

Is the Glass Half-Full or Half-Empty?

Have you ever met someone who keeps living and re-living all the terrible things that happened in his or her past? People like these seem almost handicapped by their past. Then you know people who have survived horrific events, and yet, have been able to let go of the hurt and move on.  What do you think makes the difference?

Joseph is a good example of that second group.  When you read his life story, you find he has a lot that he could hang on to and be pretty bitter about.  His early life was pretty easy, really, except that his brothers all hated him.  Admittedly he didn’t mend any fences by telling them about his dreams of them all worshipping him, but I always thought of him as a basically sweet natured person. But one of the studies I listened to this week portrayed him as more of a spoiled brat who kind of taunted his brothers with these dreams.   And of course, dad didn’t help at all when he gave Joseph his new coat.  I kind of like my sweet little boy better than the spoiled brat, but I’m not sure that in the long run it really makes any difference which Joseph we start with.  What matters is the Joseph we end up with.

 Joseph certainly had the opportunity to build up some pretty good anger and bitterness toward his brothers, Potiphar and his wife, … even God.  But he didn’t.  Why not?

His brothers, themselves, seem to be bitter, angry men and they really had not experienced anything so difficult as Joseph did.  What did they have to be bitter about?  I don’t know if I could prove this anywhere, but it doesn’t seem like Joseph’s brothers had any real relationship with God.  Not like you’d expect from children of Jacob, anyway.  Did Jacob not spend the time with them that he did with Joseph?  Whatever happened in their childhoods, the outcome was very, very different.

Imagining that all other things were equal, what made the difference between Joseph and his brothers?  Was it simply that Joseph’s temperament was different and so he approached life differently? (The old is the glass half empty or half full argument) Could genetics have had something to do with the outcome?  Was the introduction of Rachel’s DNA enough to make Joseph and Benjamin that different from the others?  Was it that God had already decided how things needed to end up to save the Hebrews and so He just made sure that it all worked out that way?  I have to say that sometimes it looks that way, because my human mind can’t imagine any other way for things to have worked out.  One thing the Bible tells us, more than once, is that God was with Joseph.  OK, so does that mean that He wasn’t with the brothers?  Did Joseph have any choice about whether God was with him or not?

And that’s where I think the difference comes!  When things got tough for Joseph’s brothers, what was their response?  Pretty often it looks like their motto was, “Don’t get mad, get even.”  And God doesn’t come into that.  What was Joseph’s response to being sold into slavery?

In Patriarchs and Prophets, Ellen White says that his first response was despair.  But the second thing he did was to think about the lessons his father had taught him. 

“Joseph believed that the God of his fathers would be his God. He then and there gave himself fully to the Lord, and he prayed that the Keeper of Israel would be with him in the land of his exile.

His soul thrilled with the high resolve to prove himself true to God--under all circumstances to act as became a subject of the King of heaven. He would serve the Lord with undivided heart; he would meet the trials of his lot with fortitude and perform every duty with fidelity. One day's experience had been the turning point in Joseph's life. Its terrible calamity had transformed him from a petted child to a man, thoughtful, courageous, and self-possessed.” p.214

WOW!  There it is!  Joseph gave himself to the Lord and asked Him to be with him.  Ellen White says that “one day’s experience” had turned Joseph around…but it was that one moment’s decision that laid the foundation for the change.  Because, think about it, there was a distinct possibility that Joseph would look at what had just happened to him and decide that God wasn’t doing His job and he wasn’t going to trust God ever again.  If that had happened, we wouldn’t read about Joseph probably.  We’d read about whoever it was that did turn to God.

So, what happens when things don’t go the way WE expect?  Do we decide that believing in and trusting God isn’t worth the effort and start building grudges to hang onto?  Or do we give ourselves “fully to the Lord” and ask Him to keep us during the hard times.  Do we start blaming other people for the bad things that happen to us?  Or do we remember that old saying, “You can’t hate a person you’re praying for.”? 

We all “Dare to be a Daniel”, but do we strive to be like Joseph?