The story has it that during creation, as God was sitting up in heaven turning out all these creatures, some of the angels asked if they could help. It looked like fun, making plants and animals, birds and beasts. And so God, who had just finished fashioning something, said, "All right. Come ahead. This is what I had in mind for a horse. But let’s see what you can do with it.” The committee of angels debated and discussed; a thousand and one good ideas were tossed around. Nobody wanted to say "no" to any of these good ideas, for, after all, these were angelic beings, and exceedingly polite. And so they agreed to use everybody’s idea, no matter how nutty. They brought their finished product to God, who sighed, wept a Iittle, but finally laughed, "It’s the craziest looking creature ever to come out of my heaven, but all right, let there be camels.’’ Take one look at camel, and you will see that it is true: that a camel is nothing more than a horse designed by a committee!
If it is necessary to satisfy everybody, you can expect some peculiar results! If your strategy is nothing more than pleasing people, you can anticipate something strange.
I read once of a house in Tennessee, built by a husband and wife who could not agree on what they wanted. He wanted rustic western, she wanted ultramodern. He wanted something woodsy, country, retro; she wanted something urban, sophisticated, up to the minute.
So they compromised. They built a house with a half for him and a half for her. On his end of the house there were exposed logs, a rugged stone fireplace, antlers over the doors, and a bearskin rug on the floor. His end of the house was furnished with leather easy chairs and decorated with antique cast iron.
Her end of the house, by contrast, was sleek and stainless. Art deco, glass and steel everywhere; concrete, all rounded and smooth. Plastic angular chairs that only fashion models would dare to sit in. Pastel colors and abstract art.
A house to please everybody. Except, of course, in its strangeness it pleased nobody. It was the laughingstock of the community. It was completely ridiculous. It was testimony to what you get if you get stuck in people-pleasing.
Of all the stuck behaviors we have thought about this Lenten season, none seems more harmless than people-pleasing. What harm can it do to try to satisfy everyone? What could possibly be wrong with attempting to make people happy? But I tell you that people-pleasing has serious spiritual consequences. Its payoff is enormous. If we are people-pleasers we will be deaf to the voice of God, we will be blind to the guidance of God, and we will never find the strength to obey God. People-pleasers are always in open season for sin. And that’s serious.
So I give you this morning the pitiful politician Pontius Pilate, the primary people-pleaser. A petty plutocrat, pitted in a popularity power contest. Pontius Pilate, stuck in people-pleasing. The issues are popularity, pessimism, and powerlessness.
And I’ll wager I couldn’t repeat that last p-filled paragraph if you paid me plenty! The issues are popularity, pessimism, and powerlessness.
The scene takes place in Jerusalem, in the headquarters of the Roman governor. Jesus of Nazareth, the wandering preacher, has been hailed before the authority of Pilate. The governor had the opportunity to do justice; in fact, there is evidence he even wanted to do justice. But his need to people-please overtook him.
I
First, learn that people-pleasing produces popularity for a moment, but it also breeds contempt. People-pleasing produces popularity for a moment, but it also breeds contempt. When you are bent on people-pleasing rather than on doing what is right, you cannot count on the purity of those you are trying to please. You cannot be sure of their motives of those you want to satisfy. It’s very likely that they only want what they want, for selfish reasons. But if you buy into people-pleasing, you will never see that you are just being used.
Pontius Pilate had an early morning visit from the Pharisees and the Temple officers, who had brought Jesus in for judgment. The text tells us that they brought Jesus, but they themselves would not enter Pilate’s quarters, because they wanted to avoid ritual defilement. The Jewish law, you see, said that the living quarters of a non-Jew were unclean, and that if you went into one of their houses, but did not afterward go through a cleansing ceremony, you were ritually unclean. You were therefore not able to celebrate the festival; you had stepped on pagan turf.
Well, now, in my book that’s a serious put-down. As I read it, that’s quite an insult. Pilate, we want you to do our dirty work but we aren’t going to do you the courtesy of stepping inside your home. Pilate, we want you to do what we don’t have the courage to do, to kill Jesus; and we want to use you to get the job done. But we will not accord you any dignity, we will not acknowledge you, we don’t care how you feel.
People-pleasing produces popularity for a moment, but that popularity masks contempt.
There’s so much talk these days about self-esteem. Thousands of us suffer from low self-esteem and act out of that insecurity. Like Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman" many would say, "I feel kind of temporary about myself." Insecure and inadequate. The issue about people-pleasing is that we do it because we feel inadequate, we feel low, we feel like next to nothing, and we need the adulation of others to keep us up and going. We need so badly to have somebody like us that we will do almost anything to please them. But we don’t even recognize that they are out to do us harm, out to put us down.
I recall how I got caught up in this in one series of counseling sessions. Years ago, I was working with a young woman who was having some problems in her marriage. She was, naturally, eager for any ideas, any suggestions that might help. Well, I found out that any little scrap of advice I offered was received by her as if it were a gem of purest wisdom. I found that all I had to was utter some simple little idea, and she would fall all over herself complimenting me, telling me how wonderful that was, and, oh, she would just go and do that right away.
Well, can you guess what this brought out of me? Can you suppose how the rest of that evening went? I began to warm up to this thing. I offered idea after idea, counsel after counsel, just so I could hear her say, "How wonderful, how wise! Oh, you are right on target!" Man, I was on a roll that night! I was the finest shrink since Freud; I was the marriage counselor that Adam and Eve should have had. I was waiting for the Oscar for most stellar performance in advice-giving.
Until it hit me. It struck me like a ton of bricks what was going on. She was an inveterate people-pleaser; she wanted to make me feel good. And I was feeding right into it for my own ego needs. I was buying right into it, and the game had become one of seeing how "brilliant" I could be. The business was no longer trying to help her; the business was now boosting my ego. The task was no longer helping her find what she needed; the whole thing had turned into my using her for my satisfaction, and all she could do was to people-please. All she could do, because she felt so low and a failure and a loser ... all she could do was to let me run my mouth and use her. And that, folks, is contempt. That was a put-down.
People-pleasing is like that. Pontius Pilate never even saw it coming. He never even saw how the Jews were using him, because he was so bent on people-pleasing. The first lesson we learn from Pontius Pilate the people-pleaser is that the devious hearts of humanity are going to hurt you if they can. They are going to use you if you cannot stand and do what is right rather than what is simply popular. People-pleasing produces popularity, but that easily turns into contempt.
II
The second danger in people-pleasing is that people-pleasing goes to pessimism. People-pleasing begins in courting popularity, but it goes from there into pessimism. It goes to a sour and cynical attitude, in which you wonder if there is anything worth standing up for anymore. People-pleasing leads you to pessimism.
They played quite a little game with Pontius Pilate, these Pharisees did. They sparred with him over Jesus. Pilate asked, "What is the charge?" They didn’t answer directly; the just said, "If he were not a criminal, we wouldn’t be here. Come on, Pilate, do as we tell you." Pilate tried to wiggle out: "Take him and judge him according to your law." But that didn’t work either, "We are not permitted to put anyone to death." On and on it went, Pilate making offers, the Jews refusing them. They could smell a people-pleaser, you see, and they knew they would finally get what they wanted.
Then there is Pilate sparring with Jesus: "Are you the King of the Jews?" "What have you done?" "So you say you are a king?" By the time it was all over, Pilate would turn to Jesus and cry out, with a sneer on his face and despair in his voice, "What is truth?" "What is truth?"
In that question, to which he expected no answer, Pilate reveals that he doesn’t think there is any truth. He tells us he doesn’t know what to believe or whom to trust. He doesn’t have any idea where to turn for direction or how to put his life together. He is absolutely clueless, because he has become stuck in people-pleasing. And people-pleasing leads to pessimism. People-pleasing leads to not even knowing if there is any truth.
A young man, out on the school yard, was told by one of his friends that doing cocaine wouldn’t hurt. It would give him a high; he would love it. The youngster wasn’t so sure, but said, "All right, just this once." It was a rough experience, and it made him wonder why anybody would do that stuff. But the next day this same friend offered cocaine to him again; this time he tried to refuse, but the friend pushed a little harder. "Oh, come on, man, be cool. We’re all doing this stuff." He took it again, and felt sick. But he got through it.
This pattern went on for several more days. Each day it seemed like the crowd out behind the school fence got a little larger. Each day they promised more and more from the drugs. "Hey, we’re your friends … Would we hurt you? We’re here for you, man. Go ahead." Each day the young man took the drugs, but each day felt worse and worse, the longer this went on. Until finally, one day, he overdosed. He went into convulsions, he perspired, he felt incredible chills, he vomited, he was sicker than sick. And when he looked around for his friends for some help, not one of them was there. Every last one had run off and left him.
What do you think that young man thought? He thought that people were no good. He thought that friendship was worthless. He thought that nobody could be trusted, nobody would care for him, nobody would tell him the truth. He had descended into pessimism. Like Pilate, with a sneer on his face and with despair in his heart, "What is truth?"
People-pleasers get to the place where they don’t think there is any truth any more. People-pleasing leads to the trap of pessimism.
III
Finally, people-pleasers are placed in powerlessness. When you spend your life just pleasing others, you become powerless, and all you can do is too little too late. All you can do is to flail around in the little puddle you’ve made of your life, and you wish you could change it all, but you can’t. You are powerless, doing too little too late.
The real tragedy of Pontius Pilate is spelled out in the last verses of his story. He has a conversation with Jesus about power. Pilate thinks he has power: "Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?" Jesus has an answer ready: "You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above." No power. That’s really where Pilate is, he just doesn’t know it yet. He’s powerless.
And, wow, do they get to him when they cry out, "Pilate, if you release this man, you are no friend of the emperor." Pilate saw his life ending in powerlessness -- his political career going down the tubes, his pension threatened, his reputation ruined. They knew how to get to him, didn’t they? Just mention Caesar’s name and we’ll bring him into line!
So simply, starkly the text says, "Then he handed Jesus over to them to be crucified." Powerless, Pilate throws up his hands in resignation. People-pleasing has come to this. And if the man Jesus has to be sacrificed, so be it. Pilate has to please the people; Pilate has to please the emperor; Pontius Pilate is stuck forever in people-pleasing. And therefore in powerlessness.
And when it came time to put a banner on the cross, as was the custom, to explain the charge against the criminal, Pilate ordered the inscription, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews". When they complained about it, he stiffened his spine and answered, "What I have written, I have written."
All very well to stand for something when the deed is done. But it’s too little too late, when you have given away all your power. All very well to take a stand when the battle is over and you’ve already lost all your integrity, all your wholeness, all your joy, all your potential. The end result of people-pleasing is a powerless, shattered hulk of a man, pretending to win a battle that’s long since been lost. What a tragedy!
Pity the poor procurator, stuck in people-pleasing. He thought he could be popular, only to find out it was contempt. He thought he could make them happy, but fell deep into pessimism. He thought he had authority, but found he was powerless when it mattered. All because of people-pleasing.
Sang the poet James Russell Lowell, "Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide in the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side. Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight, and the choice goes by forever ’Twixt that darkness and that light."
You have a decision to make today. This is your moment to decide. What will it be? Will you decide to please people or to obey God? Will you decide to please people or to follow Christ?
Maybe you have tried to be popular, only to find their contempt? You have tried to be what they want you to be, only to be abandoned to pessimism, and you don’t know wha1 is true any more. Maybe you find yourself living without power, living without victory, living only what others want you to live?
Then choose Christ. Choose Christ, Christ who loves you for yourself, Christ who will never abandon you. Choose to please not other people, but Christ who teaches you all truth, who never fails. Choose Christ who gives you all power.
What will you decide today? To be stuck in people-pleasing or to find power in the living Christ?
