"I'm a Ranker"

Recently, while discussing a particularly bad movie, my daughter relayed a comment from a friend. They had been discussing movies, and the friend promptly rattled off her top 3 (Shawshank Redemption, Jaws,....). Her friend also offered up this comment: "I'm a ranker"--someone who likes to rank things in categories. I thought this was a very odd and interesting turn of phrase. Technically, "ranker" is a word meaning "a commissioned officer who has been promoted from enlisted status". But, to use the word as she did, haven't we become a nation of "rankers"?

Pop media is all about rating and judging and categorizing things. Google "top ten" on the internet and you'll get 68,900,000 entries (Top Ten most facinating urinals was one of the first listed and amazingly, very cool!) . Try to find a newspaper or magazine at the start of the year without a "year's best" listing. The three big shows on TV tonight are American Idol (which I am watching while I type this, I must admit), Dancing With the Stars, and The Biggest Loser (which I guess at least has a quantitative element, and is not just opinion) which in a way train us to rate various qualities in others. Now, I'm not saying that we don't already have this built in to our nature anyway. I was amazed how my children at an very young age could tell you who in their class was the "prettiest" or the "smartest". If I had asked, I'm sure they also could have told me who was the "ugliest" or the "meanest."

I've heard it said that the true consequence of eating the fruit from the tree "of the knowledge of good and evil" is that we are unable to just love someone unconditionally as God does. Instead, we can't help but judge others. If you don't believe me, try to sit in a mall, watch people go by and not attach a descriptive label to them in your head. (credits to my pastor for this concept). What it boils down to is that it's easier to put people in categories than it is to get to know them. Easier to rank them than to understand where they're coming from. Easier to judge them than to help them.

Even the disciples were "rankers"! A select group had been on a mountain where they had just seen Jesus as He really was/is--transfigured and displaying His glory. It was a moment where God visibly and unequivocally showed and told them who was "numero uno". Almost the very next thing they do? Argue over "who among them was greatest"! (Text message "2" for Peter..."3" for James....) Don't you just wonder how deeply Jesus must have sighed before his reply? "He sat down and summoned the Twelve." Notice, he gathers ALL of them together. I'm thinking the ones that had been arguing about it must have felt like they were suddenly "in the bottom 3". He then said to them, "So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all." (Mark 9:35, The Message)

In God's kingdom, ranking is turned on it's head. God doesn't say, "good job, you made the top 10 (or 10 million)", he says, "the first will be last, and the last will be first", in what Eugene Petersen calls "the Great Reversal". Later, James puts this concept into very practical terms:

"For example, suppose someone comes into your meeting dressed in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry, and another comes in who is poor and dressed in dirty clothes. If you give special attention and a good seat to the rich person, but you say to the poor one, “You can stand over there, or else sit on the floor”—well, doesn’t this discrimination show that your judgments are guided by evil motives? Listen to me, dear brothers and sisters. Hasn’t God chosen the poor in this world to be rich in faith? Aren’t they the ones who will inherit the Kingdom he promised to those who love him?" (James 2:2-5)

If the whole point is to not seek to be 'first', then don't you think there's something wrong when all we do is try to place people in first through last, most to least important categories? At the very least, aren't we training our minds to think in patterns opposite of the way we should react? Instead of of thinking, "pretty", "too tall", "overweight", "rich", or "poor", shouldn't we be thinking "lost", "hurting", or "searching for meaning"? In a way, that's still categorizing, but these are labels we can only use if we know someone, and have some degree of empathy and compassion for them. One of the results of maturity should be the ability to accept others as having worth and merit just for being God created (and loved) individuals. My desire should be to grow into "the servant of all"--regardless of how unlovely, how undeserving they may be be in my own eyes.

So the competition is on! What will you do this week to try to end up in last place?