Jump Start # 855

Luke 12:13 “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”

This week, we are taking a look at weddings. There are many interesting concepts the Bible draws from weddings.

• Samson found a Philistine woman that was good looking to him. He told his father to get her for him. His parents pleaded with Samson to marry someone from Israel. He wouldn’t listen.

• We remember Jacob wanting to marry Rachel and being tricked by his father-in-law and actually marrying the older sister. He had to work more for Laban so he could marry Rachel.

Those two examples illustrate that in many families there is a lot of drama. Our passage today has nothing to do with weddings, but it is an example of drama in families. Most families have some. Usually we deal with it and it isn’t noticed very much until something big comes up. A wedding, a funeral, a move to a new house and all the issues and drama surfaces. It can make stressful times even more stressful. It can turn happy occasions into sour events.

Our verse is very revealing. Jesus is teaching. A man in the audience isn’t listening. His question has nothing to do with what Jesus has been saying. Jesus was not talking about families, sharing, money or inheritances. The man is stewing in the audience. This is high on his list of important things. It is bothering him. It gets to a point that he interrupts Jesus, in front of others. In an instant, he brings a family squabble to the forefront and in front of everyone. Most probably didn’t know anything about this. Now they did.

In Jesus’ time, a father willed half of his possessions to his eldest son. The rest of the sons had to divide the other half between them. It seems that the man interrupting Jesus is not the eldest in the family. He would have been in charge if he was and this would not have been a problem. Possibly this man wanted more than his share or perhaps his older brother was being a pain and was not giving him what he should have. Either way, he felt cheated. He felt cheated by his own brother. Family problems.

This is not the only example of this in the Bible. Remember Martha? Martha, Martha. Her sister was sitting at the feet of Jesus, and Martha was busy serving. She was worried and bothered, not so much that she had to cook and serve. She would do that later on in the Gospels. She was bothered that she was serving and her sister was sitting. She was bothered about someone else. That someone else, was her sister. Family squabbles.

It seems that weddings and funerals bring out the best and the worst in people. Drama queens rise to the surface during those events. They fuss about who they have to sit with, where they are staying and how things are being done. Drama folks generally do little to help but they sure have an opinion about how things should have been done. Drama folks are long on talk and short on doing. They complain and can turn a happy occasion into a stressful ordeal.

It seems that every party has a pooper and every church has a jerk! When people get together, you can almost always count on someone being unhappy, someone complaining and someone getting their feelings hurt. It happens in church services. It happens at weddings. It happens at birthday parties. Someone feels slighted because another got more attention than they did. They get upset at the kids ballgame because their child sat on the bench more than another kid did. They get upset at the choir concert because their kid didn’t get the solo. Drama. We can take a good event and ruin it because of all the drama.

Back to our passage, this man who interrupted Jesus was wrong on several occasions.

First, it was not Jesus’ place to settle legal issues. He referred to Jesus as “teacher,” not, “Lord,” or “God.” Teachers, or rabbis, were not the voice of the land. His problems would have to be settled in court, not on the streets.

Second, no one tells Jesus what to do. Notice the language. “Teacher, tell my brother…” Excuse me. You don’t talk that way to Jesus. Martha did the same thing. “Jesus, tell my sister…” He didn’t ask, he demanded. Drama folks are like that. They expect. They demand. They want and they want it now. Drama people do not have much patience.

Third, had Jesus given in to this man and settled things the way he wanted, every little dispute that people had would be taken to Jesus. His mission would have been hijacked. He would be solving land disputes, family problems and everything about a bunch of nothing. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. He didn’t come to deal with drama. He didn’t come to settle inheritances. Jesus refused to get involved in that mess.

Why do some thrive on drama? You see it at work. You see it in the church. You see it in the family. The drama folks really unnerve everyone around them. If you get two drama people in the same room, look out, there will be more fireworks than at the fourth of July.

I think we all have a bit of drama in us. Some have one scoop, others two. We all can feel hurt when things do not go as we feel they should. Preachers can be involved in the drama scene. The Bible doesn’t use the word “drama.” It uses the word, “self.” That is what drama is really about. It is about self. Too much of self. Too much of thinking of only self. Why else would someone get their feathers ruffled at a wedding, taking away from the bride’s day? The only reason can be is that they were thinking only of self and not the bride or anyone else. The same can be true of a birthday party or even a church service. Someone gets a little attention, a shout out, a compliment, and the SELF in all of us begins to think, “what about me?” Why don’t I get some attention? Look what I have done. What makes them so special? We let those thoughts stew just a few minutes, it doesn’t take long, and then we are really upset. We get mad. We are ready to walk out of the wedding before it’s over. We are ready to walk out of a church service and never come back. DRAMA.

The solution to all of this is to quit thinking so much of our self. Jesus said the fist step in following Him was to “deny self” (LK 9:23). Deny. If you apply for a loan and it is denied, that means you were turned down. If you went for a job interview and was denied, that means you didn’t get the job. To deny self, is to push back on self. Don’t let the drama rise to the surface. Think about others. Put others first. Let others have their day. Don’t be a jerk.

We have two cats in our house. One is named Abby. She is 100% cat. I tell people that her first name is “Crabby.” Crabby Abby. Some people are just like that. We are not cats. We choose to be the way we are. You don’t have to be ugly around others.

Much of hurt feelings comes not from poor treatment by others, but from the drama within. We feel slighted. We feel overlooked. We want attention. We want…Tell my brother, is what the man in the passage said. He was thinking of self. He never heard what Jesus said. He was stuck on self. If he really was bothered by the inheritance issue, why was he interrupting Jesus? Why was he not before a judge? Maybe he wanted sympathy more than settlement. Maybe he liked playing the victim card. Maybe he wanted to take some cheap shots at his brother. Maybe he was a master in drama.

Will there be drama at my daughter’s wedding? Probably. I hope it’s not me! It’s hard anymore to get a group of people together and someone not get their feelings bruised. I wonder if God looks at us and thinks, “Oh, grow up and get over it! It’s not about you!”

I have found that the less of myself that I talk the better things seem to be. Be a listener. Be quick to hear and slow to speak is what James said. God knows. God understands. The drama folks are always around, especially where there is a crowd. They will find things to complain about. They will point out the mistakes. Bless their hearts, they just don’t get it. You do your best not to be one of them. And if you’re a drama queen at my daughter’s wedding, I’ll still love you, although I’ll probably be gritting my teeth.

Roger