Scripture text: Luke 14:1, 7-14
There are times when Jesus teaches something that appears to be obvious. So obvious, you have this moment when reading his words where you do a double take, maybe even exclaim out loud “Really, doesn’t everyone know that? It’s common sense.”
Many of you probably had a moment like that upon hearing our Gospel lesson today. “Do not sit down in the place of honor at a banquet.” To quote my inner teenager, “Well, duh!” That is common sense. Often times, we will take this passage as a call to humility. Don’t presume higher station or status than what you deserve. Don’t be arrogant. Don’t fool yourself into believing the world revolves around you.
Most of us have long since learned this lesson. But the truth is, it is a lesson. It is something we had to learn. And not everyone has learned it. Case in point, take pretty much any child between the ages of 10 and 13, give or take about 4 years on each end. (your own children perhaps when they were that age) Ask yourself whom they think the world revolves around.
I mention this because Emily is just now entering into this particular phase of her life and it’s an adventure to say the least. I’ve probably embarrassed her by bringing it up, but I also can tell you my own mother and father have plenty of stories about me when I was in the midst of it. So when they say that “children are your parents’ revenge upon you,” I’m starting to understand what they mean.
Most of us outgrow it eventually. We come to realize our limitations, our mortality, our propensity to make mistakes even when we mean well. I’ve spent much of the last week frustrated with myself over the latter. Trying to adapt to changes in my life and things keep falling through the cracks. Why can’t I just do everything perfect all the time? Oh, yeah, human. So what then am I to do? Drive myself mad trying to avoid every error (and probably failing) or grant myself some grace and forgive?
I’m sure I’m not alone here. I imagine that if I caught most any of you in a moment of honesty you’d express the same frustrations and the same response. Oh, I messed up again. Acknowledge. Move on.
We don’t really have that much trouble keeping humble when it comes to looking at ourselves. More often than not, when we do fall prey to arrogance, it manifests as anger at others who we think presume too much. How dare those people want the same things I have? How dare they dream about having rights and privileges I take for granted? Gay people getting married! Women making the same money as men for the same job! Immigrants wanting freedom! Poor people wanting food! Black people voting! (a little nod to this week’s anniversary there) The audacity of these people!
We hold others to standards we ourselves could never match. The audacious ones are us when we forgive our own shortcomings and yet refuse to cut others the same slack.
So maybe there’s merit in Jesus’ reminding us of our place. Reminding us that humility is not just recognizing our own limitations, but also granting others the same grace we grant ourselves.
But I also think Jesus has a bigger point here. While we can certainly see a lesson in dining etiquette here and by extension, some good advice for life in general, there is also I believe a vision of the kingdom of God in this.
After all, what are we? Humans, flawed and fallen, sinners to the last. And yet despite that, we constantly presume too much. Presuming too much got us into trouble in the first place. “If you eat of the tree, then you will be like God.” The serpent told Eve. He knew how to get us and that’s been our problem ever since.
We’ve spent the whole of human civilization, millennia upon millennia, banging on the doors of heaven demanding to be let in. Genesis says we once tried to build a tower tall enough to invade the heavens. Roman emperors in their madness claimed to be divine. We’ve conquered and slain and destroyed and glorified it all, reveling in our power to kill. We exploited the land (and people) and claimed vast riches for ourselves. And in all this, we deign to tell God how important we are and how we deserve immortality.
When the human race is invited to the banquet, we plop ourselves down where the host would rightly sit and think we deserve it.
But when we’re honest about our own depravity, when we recognize our sin, and we see what we truly are, then we realize that we have no leg to stand on when it comes to the divine. Who are we to demand anything of God? Who are we to presume the highest honors in creation? We are nothing.
We take the lowest place and now the Holy Spirit has something to work with.
When we stop trumpeting our own greatness and admit to ourselves our sin, that is when Christ comes. He comes and he tells us that all that stuff that we regard as so important really doesn’t matter. It’s not about how beautiful or strong or powerful or rich or even how good we are. What really matters is how much God loves us. What really matters is the cross and Christ giving up his very life for our sake there upon.
That’s the moment when the host comes and tell us to come up higher. Not because we deserve it; we don’t. No, it’s because it’s what the master wants. His will, his hopes, his desires are what really count. This is his universe, not ours.
Perhaps that’s the purest form of humility, when we recognize that it’s really not about us at all. It’s about God, what he wills and what he desires. We are nothing, an immeasurably small portion of this vast reality we live in, and yet God wishes us to eternity through Christ. That’s his dream, his hope, and it is his gift to us. Undeserved, unmerited, but ours nonetheless. Amen.
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