Daily Worship

Mean!

Rhona Cathcart September 06, 2024 4 2
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Galatians 2: 13 (NIVUK)

13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

One of the ever popular tropes of American high school movies is the ‘mean girls’ clique. Sometimes they are portrayed as out and out bullies, other times the pressure is more subtle. Regardless of how they operate, the real weapon is fundamentally the same — the threat of social exclusion.

It’s a powerful threat, even if you aren’t a teenager. We are a social species and most of us are more comfortable when we have at least a rough idea of what the ‘rules’ are so we know how to fit in. We might decide we don’t want to fit in with a given group or situation, but it’s not easy to go against the flow, especially publicly.  Finding our ‘tribe’ (people with similar values and attitudes) can help.

It’s fair to say that Paul was not impressed with Peter’s vacillating back and forth on the ‘not eating with Gentiles’ question. But I have some sympathy for Peter. Unlike Paul he was based in Jerusalem, and had to negotiate the politics at the centre of the new movement. I’m not sure who the ‘mean girls’ of the circumcision group were, but they were clearly influential.

At the same time I understand Paul’s anger, and quite possibly hurt and betrayal, that those he might consider part of his tribe, like Barnabas, should fall back into the kind of exclusionary behaviour Jesus explicitly rejected.

Peer pressure can be powerful and unless we want the ‘mean girls’ (regardless of gender) to rule our lives as well as our fictional high schools, we need those willing to stand outside the cliques and call them out.

 

Prayer:

 

God of strength and power

We know that at the heart of most of our mockery and bullying, our compromises and hypocrisy — is fear

Fear of being vulnerable, of being hurt, of being alone, of being ‘found out’

Remind us that you know us already, that no matter what other tribes or identities we claim, you have claimed us.

Give us the courage to be who we are — fully known, fully loved, fully yours.

Amen.