Cool the Ego, Gentle the Heart

My Lord and my God. 

This last week I read an article
about a tribe called the San tribe in southern Africa.
They are believed to be the oldest continuous culture
of human beings in the history of humanity,
some 40,000 to 50,000 years old as a tribe.
What is fascinating about this tribe
is that it has no kings, no armies, no crowns,
not even an official leadership in any way.

Their leadership is fluid.
Whoever has the necessary knowledge or skill
for a particular task, steps forward, does it,
and then when the task is released,
they recede back into the group as a whole.
Fascinating to read about this.

But the most fascinating part of it
was this part that they call
“killing the meat” or “insulting the meat.”
It is a part of their culture.
And it goes like this.

They are a hunter-gatherer community.
So when a young hunter goes out and gets a massive kill
that will last the whole tribe over a week or two,
the temptation is that he now thinks
that he is better than everybody else,
as he has killed the biggest animal ever.
He thinks everyone else is inferior to him.

This practice called “insulting the meat,” they say,
“That little scrawny thing?
Did that guy just die in front of you?
Did you just fall over on it?”
They start making fun of the kill.
Even though this is a massive animal,
they are making fun of it.
He joins in and belittles the catch.

So, what happens is that
he will admit to having tripped and fallen,
nearly getting eaten by the animal itself,
and admit his own mistakes
on the way to this big kill.

One of the elders describes it like this.
When a young warrior comes back
from a big kill like that,
the temptation is that he thinks
he is better than everybody else
and we are inferior.

His ego swells and his heart swells with it.
The unchecked ego destroys the community.
And so we insult the meat collectively
to cool his heart and make him gentle again.
When that happens,
he returns to the group as just one of us.

Cool the heart and make him gentle again;
cool the ego and gentle the heart.
What we could do with some cooling of the ego
in our nation and across our world today.
It is hard, because there is something real going on.

We are at war with Iran
and the peace talks have just broken down.
Ukraine and Russia have been at war for years.
Egos are running hot.
We need to cool the ego
and make the heart gentle again.

Collectively, we need to speak up
and to belittle the meat, to kill the meat.
We should not be celebrating
the killing of human beings.
We should be playing it down,
saying that is not what we want.

This is what an ancient culture,
40,000 to 50,000 years old, has been doing.
Before the Bronze Age, they have it right.
And the challenge is, it is not just out there.
It is not just in the leaders of the world.
We here in Silicon Valley,
we drink and swim in this water.
We live at a rocket pace, rocket fuel pace.

We invent and we create
and we build and we break things
and build fast and iterate.
We keep going; the pace is frenetic.
And the danger is our ego swells.
We think we are the best
and we need to cool our ego.
We need to gentle our heart
because there is an impact.

Because when we have an ego that hot,
wherever we are,
we do not hear that gentle word from Christ.
He comes to his disciples and says,
Peace be with you. Shalom.
And when we are that hot, we cannot hear it.
But that is what we are called to do, hear.

Now, bear in mind what we see in today’s gospel.
We have to model our lives after Jesus Christ.
That is why we call ourselves Christians.
And what does Jesus do?
Jesus comes back.

Remember, Jesus was killed
and he allowed himself to be hung upon a cross, humiliating.
He had all the power. He really did.
He could have done anything, and he did not.
He chose to allow himself to be hung upon a cross,
humiliated, naked for everyone to see
and be humiliated with him.

They all ran.
All twelve of them ran away, denied him.
And now the eleven are here,
and the risen Christ comes among them.
What does he do?
He does not scold them.
He does not berate them for having abandoned him.
He does something completely counterintuitive to us.
He offers them peace.

“Peace be with you.
Now, look, it is really me.
Put your hand, put your finger there. It is me.”
He shows them his wound itself.
Now, it is not just a gaping wound.
It is a transformed wound.
So they would know that it was him.
And he then offers them peace again.

Of course, Thomas is not there.
And he is the one who represents all of us.
Thomas is us in this.
His ego is fully on.
What does he do?
He says, “I will not believe until I see,
until I put my finger into his hands.
Until I see and do that, I will not believe.”
All ego, hot.

Again, what does Jesus do?
He does not scold him.
He comes back a week later.
And he appears once more.
Then he says to Thomas,
“Look, it is me. Put your finger here.  
Put your hand here. It really is me.”

And then he has the most powerful
five words of Scripture.
The ego is cooled and he has a gentle heart again.
“My Lord and my God.”
He is back in the community.
He is now back at peace.
See how it works?

My friends, that is what we are called to do
in our lives.
Right now, in our community,
we must not celebrate any death on any side.
This is not good for us.
We need to call that out for all.

But it is not only at world leaders
that we need to look in our own hearts,
in our own communities.
We need to cool our ego
and to gentle our heart. Why?
Because that is the only way that we can come to peace.
The only way.

What does that look like in our own lives?
It looks like this:
Are we willing to not have the last word?
Are we willing to let somebody else have it?
Cool our ego and not have to win an argument.
Maybe that is in your own home
with your own spouse or your own children
or your parents.
Or maybe it is somebody at work.

Or maybe it is somebody
outside the regular community,
where we want to be right.
And we insist on telling them
that they are wrong and our ego inflates.
We need to cool our ego.
We need to not insist on being right
and to listen to what Jesus says.
He gives us peace and says,
“Forgive as I have forgiven you.”
He wants us gentle.

You can hear it in the words,
the gentleness, the peace.
My friends, this is hard work,
but this is what we are called to.

From there, we do as Pope Leo has asked us.
We need to pray.
He called every church community in the world
to pray for peace for our world today.
Not just an ending of war,
but peace in our hearts,
in our communities, and yes, in our nations.

It starts with us, but we also must cool the ego
of our nation’s leaders.
We need peace on all sides.
We need a peace, the shalom, a deeper peace.

I want you to listen to this song.
We know well the words
of St. Francis of Assisi.
Listen to these words and internalize them.
Make them our own.
And then together we can say,

“My Lord and my God.”

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love Where there is injury, let me bring pardon,
and wherever there is doubt, bring faith.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is despairing,
let me bring your hope.
Where there is darkness,
may I bring light.
And wherever sorrow is, always joy.

Oh, divine master, grant that I may seek,
not to be consoled, but to console.
Oh, not to be understood, but to understand,
not to be loved, but to love.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

For it is in giving we receive,
and in forgiving,
we are forgiven to new life.
Oh, wherever there is need,
let your love be.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Pope Leo asked us to pray for peace,
and so I wrote this prayer
that I ask you to close your eyes
as we pray for peace.

Come now, gentle Christ,​ 
into the locked rooms of our world.
Stand among the frightened,
the weary, the warring,
and breathe your ancient word.

Shalom. Peace be with you.

Cool the hearts that burn with power.
Soften the fists clenched around flags and fury.
Lay your wounded hands
upon the wounds of the nations.
And whisper wholeness
into every fractured place.

For we have forgotten
what the oldest people knew,
that the unchecked ego
devours his own household,
and only the gentle of heart
shall inherit the earth.

So teach us, Lord,
to lay down the need to be right,
to stop, to look up,
to let our pride collapse
into those five surrendered words:

My Lord and my God.

May peace then begin in us today.
May it ripple from this table
to our homes,our cities,
to Iran, to Iraq,
and to every land where mothers wait
for sons and daughters who may not return.

O risen Lord, you who still carry the wounds,
meet us here in this bread and wine,
and cool our hearts.
Make us gentle,
and send us forth
as instruments of your peace.

Amen.