REFLECTION 7TH JULY 2024  

TALL POPPY SYNDROME SYNDROME. 

By Rev Dr Fei Taule’ale’ausumai 

How many of you are familiar or have been affected by the “tall poppy syndrome?”   

Tall poppy syndrome refers to successful people being criticised. This occurs when their peers believe they are too successful, or are bragging about their success. Intense scrutiny and criticism of such a person is termed as “cutting down the tall poppy”. 

I remember when I returned from the UK after I had experienced and was immersed in the global church. It felt as if my Pacific island colleagues within the PCANZ didn’t really want to know me or even cared about asking me what my experience was like. It was almost as if they were “jealous”. I could be wrong but it did feel like the tall poppy syndrome and my experience did feel like the cutting down of the tall poppy. I sat in the pew of my home church without so much as an invitation to preach, ministers came from everywhere to preach and I was never invited.  When I was called to become the McClaurin Chaplain at the Universityof Auckland, I invited my home church to my induction and it was boycotted, even my family within the church did not know about it as they would have definitely attended.  It was very disheartening.  Tall poppy syndrome.  This can be known as “crab mentality”.  Do some of you know what I’m talking about?  

Crab mentality, also known as crab theory, crabs in a bucket mentality, or the crab-bucket effect, is a way of thinking usually described by the phrase “if I can’t have it, neither can you”. 

The metaphor is derived from anecdotal claims about the behavior of crabs contained in a open bucket: if a crab starts to climb out, it will be pulled back in by the others, ensuring the group’s collective demise.  

The equivalent philosophy in human behavior is that members of a group will attempt to reduce the self-confidence of any member who achieves success beyond others, out of envy, jealousy, resentment, spite, conspiracy, or competitive feelings, in order to halt their progress.  On a positive note some can say that certain cultures need to put a lid on the bucket because crabs have a way of standing on each others shoulders and helping them get ahead.  But alas, the negative note is unfortunately much more popular.   

Was Jesus treated like a tall poppy when he returned to his hometown?  Up until  that point he had led quite a profound ministry yet no one saw him as a special person, they just saw the regular snotty nosed kid who used to run around the village, he was just one of the crowd a child of the village.   

Mark is telling us about Jesus return to his hometown and his lack of a welcome and something about Jesus which was also part of his instruction to others: there is a higher priority than family power and obligation. Family power, meant to empower one to independent adulthood, frequently terminates the process, and can then become a source of oppression. There are many people who can identify with the experience of being reduced to ‘junior’, someone’s child and therefore no one in particular, whether by family systems or extended family or local communities and whether in outward reality or in the inward reality of the mind and memory.  There is often a real culture shock and our hometown can seem so very small in comparison to where we have been.   

One of the reactions to Jesus speaking in the synagogue was “where did this man get all his words, is not this the son of Mary and Joseph and the brother of James etc. Jesus responded “prophets are not without honour in their home town”   Your home town is where people remember you as ordinary, one of the kids in the neighbourhood, barefoot kid in the playground. Nothing special or honourable about you. And when you come back to visit, no one sees you as any different.  When ever I visited Samoa even after I was ordained which as you will remember is a rare phenomena as women are not ordained in Samoa.  The old ladies in the village would look at my physical appearance and they don’t care if they offend you or not, as far as they are concerned it is normal banter.  They would shout “oka, oka e ua e lapo’a,  which is slang for Omg look how huge you have become.  No one is interested in how many degrees one has achieved or what job i have.  One’s physical appearance is the first observation.  But I also remember comments from the Sunday  school and youth who have now grown up saying.  “You are still the same, you are still hardcase and down to earth”  I liked that comment, I did not want anyone to think I was better than anyone else, that I was still humble and didn’t Lord it over others. 

As we continue to read from chapter 6 as in earlier examples Jesus had sent messengers ahead of him into a Samaritan town, which rejected him and now Jesus is pictured here sending out people again into every town and place he was going to visit. It is not really about preparing people for the visit of Jesus, but rather about the mission of the disciples being sent out two by two.  

The early Christians saw themselves participating in this great climax of hope. Paul appears to have developed his strategy of visiting the cities of the world (of his time) and bringing an offering from the Gentiles to Jerusalem against this expectation. His apostleship was playing a role in the divine plan of bringing in the Gentiles  

It is very likely that Jesus instructed his disciples to copy his own pattern of activity. That entailed travel. He would come to a town or settlement and would need to find a place to sleep and be looked after. The pattern he sets out for the disciples insists that they travel as poor people, but, unlike the wandering Cynic teachers of his day, not even to carry a begging bag. 

  I might have told you this before but during one of my graduation processions as University Chaplain I was walking with a Catholic brother and we were looking at the hooded academic gowns and he said that the original reason brothers started wearing hoods was so that the rich people could throw their coins in to the hood and the poor people could also help themselves to the contents as the brothers walked by. It is interesting though to note that as the years progressed the hoods got deeper and deeper so that money could be thrown in but little could be taken out. Hmm I wonder what that says about the church and its mission to the poor? 

Apparently at the time these sorts of missions began the larger Palestinian houses that the disciples would pass were such that you could freely enter the front half of the house from outside – it was public space. These disciples would then face the owners with the choice of being part of the Jesus movement by offering hospitality and enjoying its benefits through healing and teaching or of turning away these uninvited would be guests. 

The ancient world had strong customs about hospitality. The mission used these. The result was quite confronting: you either welcomed these people or you turned them away. It was accepted that enemies should not be offered hospitality, but were these enemies or friends? They claimed to be messengers of peace and wholeness, including healing. They claimed to be announcing the reign of God and by their actions bringing its reality into life in the here and now. To receive them was to receive the one who sent them and to receive him was to receive God, to be open to the Jesus way. To reject someone who is not an enemy, to refuse to offer hospitality, was shameful. It brought disgrace and promised misfortune. That is the expectation here, too. Reject these messengers and you reject Jesus; reject Jesus and you reject God; reject God and you invite judgement. Shaking dust off the feet is probably symbolic of such judgement.  

I wonder how many of us can turn away people on our doorstep asking for hospitality?  

Part of our journey of faith and part of our mission to mirror the face of Jesus in our communities is that we are to look for those around us who are destitute, homeless, helpless and be the presence of Christ to them.   

The disciples knew what their strategy was, the alternative of dropping in on friends on the way to say, ‘Hello’, was not an option. It would have thwarted the plan. The approach was quite confrontational because it put the people in a position of choice, to assist or to reject.  

It is a long way from this strategy of mission to our modern day. The architecture of houses in most societies does not lend themselves to this plan. But I wonder if the invitation to join the movement of God’s mission does not sometimes work like this. It is not about selling a brand name (‘Christian’), but sharing a vision of change in such a way that means real participation in making it real in the here and now. I suspect that there are many times that a fellowship of solidarity in commitment and work for change has been created when people who love because of the influence of Jesus join others who love. People who really care recognise others who really care. 

Households committed to caring in the name of Jesus eventually became church communities. The travellers became ‘apostles’ (envoys), link people. Link people and locals were a loose movement for change, people for the poor, people convinced they were participating in God’s initiative to bring hope. It was all about being bearers of this hope.  

And that is who are also called to be, people of hope in a struggling and suffering world.  We are to welcome the stranger and be the face of Jesus in our community.  Amen.  

Audio of selected readings and reflections

Audio of the complete service