Saints and Superheroes

"For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted." - Luke 18: 14

In the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, the Pharisee prays to God, reminding God of all the great things he is doing to stay holy (giving money, fasting), while the tax collector humbly says, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!"  It brought up the question, just what is doing good, anyway?  So we made a list of some of the things that are "good":
-try your hardest
- be nice to people
- do what is right
- praise God
- tell the truth
- follow directions
- help people

But as soon as we thought of these things, some tricky situations came up immediately.  What if you gave money to someone, but did it in a way that made them feel bad.  Would that still be good?

Following directions and the law is good, but what if you think the law is wrong, the way that protesters did during the civil rights movement?

And once again we returned to the situation of the "white lie."  Is it OK to lie because you are trying to not hurt someone's feelings?  But then you might have to tell another lie to cover that one up!  It can get pretty complicated.  One thing we agreed upon is that being good is not just about doing good things.  The spirit of the action has to be right.  Everyone seemed to agree that you can't do something good and expect something in return.

Almost everyone could think of someone in their life who is definitely good.  Two people said they had friends who did almost everything on the list above.  And they were doing it for the right reasons, too.  Not just to be recognized like the Pharisee in the parable.  And finally we talked about saints.  Saints are people who have been recognized by the church for doing a lifetime of good deeds.  Kind of like church superheroes!  Maybe some of these saints, or some of these friends could be role models for us.  When we are in a difficult situation, we might ask ourselves what they would do.

The last thought was this:  Maybe there is someone who looks up to us, and will imitate us in the future.  So we might want to think about how we are acting... it may be setting an example even though we don't realize it.