Comedian Rodney Dangerfield has made en entire career out of a single piece of business and a single punch line: "I don't get no respect". He will regale you with tales of his childhood, when the other kids used him as a punching bag and called him a host of unflattering names, and then he sums it up, "I don't get no respect". He will tell us how his wife flirts with other men, how his children charge hour-long transatlantic phone calls on his credit card, how even his mother pretends not to recognize him, and he writes it all off in one all- purpose quip, “I don't get no respect."
Now you and I know that in many ways Rodney Dangerfield is a model of the human experience. That's what makes a comic work; if he can take the ordinary failings of humanity and tell them in a way that makes us see ourselves, it's funny, but it also connects with us. It speaks to what we already know to be true. We don't get no respect either. So much of the human predicament is tied up right here: that we so long to be held up in honor, we so long to be thought of as worthwhile, we so urgently require that someone, someone value us ... but so much of the time: no respect. No respect.
A salesman calls in the middle of dinner, and you tell him you're busy, but that makes no difference. He is going to do his thing; no respect.
A driver in a tremendous hurry to get to the next red light cuts you off and scoots in front of you on a busy street, and you 'offer up some theological language and test your car's horn. You are upset, not just because there is some danger involved, but primarily because: no respect. Just no respect.
Our children shout at us, the boss swears at us, our spouses ignore us, the merchants bark at us, and even the pastor seems to be accusing us of something most of the time. No respect; we don't get no respect.
Now you can do with that as Rodney Dangerfield does: you can laugh at it and make jokes about it to hide the pain and mask the anger. Or you can tilt against that great windmill by claiming respect, demanding respect, demonstrating your anger against everyone who seems not to honor you properly. Or you can do something else. You can take a third route, you can attempt a third alternative. You can laugh or you can cry or you can do something else -- you can redeem. You can redeem.
Consider the circumstances when Jesus came. When Jesus came into this world he was born under conditions and in family surroundings that brought him no respect. Here is Mary, not yet married, but bearing a child. If today we have become a bit blasé about that; if today we look the other way some of the time; we still have problems with it. We still know that this is not God's will for a man and a woman; but I don't suppose we still think of the child in the way they did years ago. Today we might feel sorry for the child; today we might wonder how a single mother is going to take care of the boy; but what we feel for the child is some anxiety, some worry.
Twenty centuries ago – in fact, much more recent than that -- people expressed hostility to such children. People attached names of opprobrium to such children. Somehow it was not only that the father and the mother had sinned, but that the child too lacked worth, and so I can only imagine that in his childhood our Jesus must have heard the whispers and felt the stares and known the talk put out by the good folk, the decent and respectable folk. When Jesus came, there was no respect for him where it counted. Now it's all very well, you know, to have adoring shepherds and gift-bringing wise men, but, you know, those folks all went home. Those folks didn't make it up to Nazareth, where you had to walk the streets and live with people every day. No respect, no honor for Jesus when he came.
Consider the stable ... no room in the inn ... and precious little respect, I guess, for a mother and an infant on that night. On the first Sunday in Advent, when I preached from the prologue to John's Gospel and spoke of how it portrays Jesus as one who came to his own home but his own people did not receive him – of how our Jesus began life as a homeless person -- it struck many of you. Many of you said that you had never seen that parallel before. But here it is in its simplest form: when he comes to earth and is born, word made flesh, God's word, God's truth, embodying the most sublime of all the world's wisdom and knowledge, there is no respect for that.
But my point tonight is that he does not claim respect. He does not cry out for respect. Jesus the Christ is neither a Rodney Dangerfield, cracking jokes about getting no respect, nor is he an ordinary Joe Schlep, who can do nothing more than take out his anger on his wife, his kids, and his dog. Jesus the Christ not only does not ask for respect; in fact he freely gives up all honor, he freely sets aside all reputation and he sets about to redeem us, to save us, by claiming nothing for himself.
When Jesus comes, he does not demand respect ... nor title nor honor. In fact, he is almost hidden from sight. He does not assert himself until he is thirty years old. And even then he begins with what appears to be an act of repentance – asking for baptism, struggling in the desert, fighting off the tempter. And when he goes to do ministry, he tells others who discover him, "Tell no one … tell no one." He almost courts disrespect. He seems not to want recognition.
Why? Because He is teaching us what whosoever will lose his life will be the one who will ultimately be able to claim it. He is teaching us that it is only the one who makes himself of no reputation and takes upon himself the form of a servant … only that one can do any thing worthwhile, only that one can live life openly before God. He is teaching us that respect comes only the old-fashioned way: you must earn it. And that you earn it best when you try the least to gain it.
When Jesus comes, there is no respect for him, because he will not seek honor for himself.
When Jesus comes, there is no respect for him, because He wants only to seek and to save those who are lost.
When Jesus comes, there is no respect for him, for his intention is that the Father's will be done, not his own, and that gets no publicity, that draws no headlines.
And most of all, when Jesus comes, there is no respect for him, for what he desires to do beyond all else is to lift us up from the miry clay, to set our feet on higher ground, to make us one with him. He is not interested in grasping equality with God but in pouring himself out, and when he does so, the last indignity is death. The last "No Respect" is arrest, trial, crucifixion, but he does this for us. Freely, for us. No Rodney Dangerfield smirking at a world of putdowns; no ordinary downtrodden type, fighting a losing battle against everyday indignities. But one whose dignity comes out of his self-giving, one who has earned our respect, and, indeed, our love, because of his caring.
When Jesus comes, the first indignity is, that they say he has no father; when Jesus dies, it seemed the Father God had left him.
When Jesus comes, they are not sure what to do with him. Joseph thinks of divorcing his mother, the innkeeper wants him back here out of the way; when Jesus dies, they wait again to see what will happen, whether his God will come to save him.
No respect. No respect … at least not the kind you can get by claiming it. Not the kind you can get by asking for it . From swaddling clothes to grave clothes, his is a life of masking divinity and hiding his identity, until we discover him. Until like the centurion at the cross we can be filled with awe and say, "Truly this was the Son of God." Until like angels and shepherds and men of wisdom, until like those made whole, those forgiven, those healed, until like countless millions of every century and of every nation, we wake up to the truth. We discover him for ourselves, and come to a place like this and see him: Our lord and our God.
When Jesus comes: no respect. But we have learned that behind that façade there is more than this world in all its wealth, all its power, all its prestige, can offer to anyone. And we need him, we want him, we want to embrace him, and we want to learn to live as he lived. If we but come to this table and see how he came from swaddling clothes to grave clothes with no earthly respect, then may it be that we shall also see how to receive what he has given us.
Thou camest 0 Lord, with the living word That should set thy people free; But with mocking scorn, and with crown of thorns, They bore Thee to Calvary. O come to my heart, Lord Jesus, There is room in my heart for Thee.
