PLAYING FAVORITES [M, 6-30-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—PLAYING FAVORITES [M, 6-30-25]

 

Ten years ago today, two of my closest friends died.

 

Ann White scheduled Bill’s funeral for September, and Terri wanted Mike’s funeral right away, so I was able to preach at both of them. 

We had moved from Iron Mountain, Michigan to Bloomington, Indiana only a month before, so it wasn’t a good time to fly to Arizona, but there was no way I would miss Mike’s funeral. I was his favorite friend.

 

At Mike’s funeral, there was a time for people to get up and say whatever they wanted to about him. I never put that into a funeral when I was in charge; too easy for things to get out of hand, especially to get long and boring. But I wasn’t in charge of Mike’s funeral, just the preacher.

The first man who spoke introduced himself by saying he was Mike’s favorite brother-in-law. There was an appreciative ripple of laughter. Then a woman spoke and introduced herself as Mike’s favorite sister-in-law. More laughter. By the time all of Mike’s favorites had spoken, we were having an uproarious good time. The message was clear: everyone was Mike’s favorite, because that’s how he made you feel.

It's tricky, claiming to be someone’s favorite, especially if they haven’t said anything about it. Mike never told anyone that they were his favorite; it’s just the way we felt.

I wrote recently of how I told my doctor’s new nurse that I was Dr. V’s favorite patient, by accident, when I was trying to say that she called me perfect because of the way I presented symptoms to her.

It was very embarrassing when Olivia told me that she had asked Dr. V if I were, indeed, the doctor’s favorite. I mean, that’s so arrogant, so hubristic, to claim to be the favorite.

It’s okay, of course, to claim the favorite spot, if there is no competition. Brigid can rightly claim to be my favorite granddaughter, Joe my favorite grandson. [Just to be sure, I often tell them that.]

It took me a long and somewhat fretful time, though, to understand why Grandma Mac no longer referred to me as her favorite grandson. That happened when I was ten and my cousin, Paul, was born.

We all want to be favorites, don’t we?

Remember how James and John asked to be the favorites when Jesus became king? They wanted to sit on either side of him at the banquet table. [Mark 10:35-45]

 

Sometimes we want a favorite status for someone else. In Matthew 20:20-28, it is the mother of James and John who asks Jesus to give her sons preference, the favored status of sitting beside him at the kingly banquet.

Jesus, of course, said that he came not to have the status of favorite, to be served. He didn’t claim to be God’s favorite, even though he was The Christ. “Even the Son of Man comes not to be served but to serve.” [Mark 10:45]

We all want to be favorites, and we are. Jesus didn’t claim to be God’s favorite, because he knew that you are God’s favorite.

John Robert McFarland