Every married couple has to figure it out.
At the end of a long day when you're both exhausted, it's better to "divide and conquer." Who will cook and who will wash the dishes?
Once in a while, it's helpful to trade places. Do you normally cook? Tonight, clean up instead. If you typically wash the dishes, try your hand at cooking. Besides increasing versatility, role reversals let us walk in another's shoes. Nothing fosters empathy more effectively.
Jesus modeled the Great Role Reversal. Paul captured this well:
Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:14-31) exemplifies role reversal. A man of wealth lived in luxury, oblivious to the plight of Lazarus, a sickly and hungry beggar.
[Note the subtle role reversal. Normally, everyone knows the name of a rich person, and poor people remain nameless. In Jesus' story, the poor man has a name, and the rich man is nameless. Things work differently in God's Kingdom!]
Jesus said that Lazarus "longed to eat the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table" (verse 21, CEB). He lay at the pitiless rich man's gate, where at least the dogs came and licked the poor man's sores.
The rich man never saw the role reversal coming.
After death, Lazarus was comforted, carrried to Abraham's side by angels (v. 22). There he was comforted, while the rich man - who had also died - was tormented in the flames. During their life on earth, Lazarus had longed for crumbs from the rich man's table. Now, the tables are turned, and the rich man longs for a drop of water from Lazarus (verse 24). Abraham denies the request, reminding the rich man:
Child, remember that during your lifetime you received good things whereas Lazarus received terrible things. Now Lazarus is being comforted and you are in great pain (verse 25, CEB).
Likwise, at the close of a different parable about the coming Kingdom, Jesus concluded: "So those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be last" (Matthew 20:16, NLT).
But I wonder:
At the end of a long day when you're both exhausted, it's better to "divide and conquer." Who will cook and who will wash the dishes?
Once in a while, it's helpful to trade places. Do you normally cook? Tonight, clean up instead. If you typically wash the dishes, try your hand at cooking. Besides increasing versatility, role reversals let us walk in another's shoes. Nothing fosters empathy more effectively.
Jesus modeled the Great Role Reversal. Paul captured this well:
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9, NIV).
Christ, the Eternal Word, identified with us by becoming one of us. God put on skin. His name was Jesus of Nazareth.Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:14-31) exemplifies role reversal. A man of wealth lived in luxury, oblivious to the plight of Lazarus, a sickly and hungry beggar.
[Note the subtle role reversal. Normally, everyone knows the name of a rich person, and poor people remain nameless. In Jesus' story, the poor man has a name, and the rich man is nameless. Things work differently in God's Kingdom!]
Jesus said that Lazarus "longed to eat the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table" (verse 21, CEB). He lay at the pitiless rich man's gate, where at least the dogs came and licked the poor man's sores.
The rich man never saw the role reversal coming.
After death, Lazarus was comforted, carrried to Abraham's side by angels (v. 22). There he was comforted, while the rich man - who had also died - was tormented in the flames. During their life on earth, Lazarus had longed for crumbs from the rich man's table. Now, the tables are turned, and the rich man longs for a drop of water from Lazarus (verse 24). Abraham denies the request, reminding the rich man:
Child, remember that during your lifetime you received good things whereas Lazarus received terrible things. Now Lazarus is being comforted and you are in great pain (verse 25, CEB).
Likwise, at the close of a different parable about the coming Kingdom, Jesus concluded: "So those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be last" (Matthew 20:16, NLT).
But I wonder:
Why do we need to wait until the end of time to live the Great Role Reversal?
How much closer to reflecting the Kingdom of God would our world be if those who bear Christ's name (Christians) were willing to switch things up now?
Two street children in Antananarivo, Madagascar, circa 2010
Gavin Rogers, a pastor from San Antonio, Texas, joined a caravan of Honduran immigrants that has been making its way north through Mexico. For five days, he chronicled the kindness and humanity he witnessed along the exhausting path. Rogers concluded: "The only Christian response to immigration is 'love your neighbor as yourself.' " He learned by coming close to people that every need has a name.Stories like that of Lazarus or pastor Rogers and the Honduran immigrants challenge me. Unlike the rich man, I am not wealthy, yet am I not also attached to my "creature comforts"? How might God be calling me to step into the shoes of another, to journey alongside them, to see things from their point-of-view?
Jesus was the master of the Great Role Reversal. May we together learn to follow in his ways.
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Image credit: pngtree.com
Saturday, November 17, 2018
Categories: Advent & Christmas, reflections
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