Scripture text: Luke 14:7-14
Who do you think you are?
Not “who are you?” That question is usually easily answered. I am Allen or I am the Pastor of Canadochly or I am the husband of Sarah or so forth. No, the question is “who do you think you are?” That’s a different animal. When it is asked of us, the situation is usually tense. There’s a hostility in the question. “How dare you! Who do you think you are?” The context is usually some manner of social faux pas, when we have presumed too much of our standing and station.
But that stand-offish character may make it a better question than “who are you,” because it really gets to the heart of our sense of identity. Who we truly are is often less important than who we think we are in this great big world; because, like it or not, there is a pecking order among us humans. A caste system, a hierarchy, a pack mentality, with alphas, betas, and everything all the way down to the omegas. And where you fall on that list determines a great deal about your life.
Most of us want to be higher on that list than we probably deserve, since there so many tangible rewards for those higher up. Greater wealth, greater opportunity, some immunity from disaster, and so forth. So we fight for those places, we scramble and struggle, and occasionally we lie and decieve ourselves to the top. All for that reward.
So who DO you think you are?
This question is on Jesus’ mind in our Gospel reading for today. He’s been invited to a banquet at the home of a Pharisee. He enters early and watches the people as they arrive, making note of where they choose to sit at the banquet and WHY. It becomes clear from his observations that people are jockeying for the best seats. They want the ear of their host or at least someone who has the ear of their host. Some are likely stepping above their station, hoping that either no one will call them on it or that by their presumption they might get that bit of elevation in life they seek. They’re playing a game, the game of social status and prestige.
We all do this, often times without even knowing it. Other times it's very deliberate. Human beings are political animals, even in circumstances that don’t on the surface seem political. Who we associate with in social settings says a lot about who we THINK we are. We play this game too.
But there’s a problem with the game. In our efforts to elevate ourselves to whatever social standing we think we deserve, we often leave something (or rather someone) behind. “Who do you think you are” is often about “who you’ve left behind” and “who you think is beneath you.”
Jesus offers two bits of advice. The first has a certain snark to it. Rather than presume the place you deserve, take the lowest position and see what happens. Those who’ve truly earned their prestige (by whatever means it's measured) will find themselves asked to come up higher, while those who’ve presumed too much may find themselves very disappointed.
The second is directed to the Pharisee, to the host. Rather than invite the deserving, invite the undeserving and see what happens. That changes the whole game. Rather than this jockeying game of prestige and politics, you’ll have instead an outpouring of gratitude, thankfulness, and praise.There are other rewards to be had, Jesus implies, when you refuse to play the old games.
So what does all this really mean?
Well, who do you think you are? Author John Steinbeck once commented that American society is made up almost entirely of “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” and I’ve seen plenty of evidence that his analysis is spot on. We all want more than we have, in fact, we feel we deserve it. So the game goes on. Is that who you think you are?
Jesus offers an alternative. You are a child of God, born of the waters of baptism. You are called through those waters not to power or prestige but to service. You are not meant to leave people behind on some ambitious climb to the heights of glory, but to mingle in their midst and do what needs to be done for them.
Jesus himself provides the model for this. Think about this for a second. Here is God incarnate, the divine being embodied in this human being. All that power, all that knowledge, all that glory. If there can be said to be anyone at the top of the pecking order, it’s Jesus or it should be. The alpha of alphas. And yet the place he claims is not the top, but the bottom. He’s born in a barn, not a palace. He embraces the unclean and the outcast, making him in the eyes of society their equal.
He heals the sick. He helps those in need. He’s not all that interested in people’s fawning adoration. Sure, people worship him and fall down before him, but usually only after he’s done some act of great kindness and compassion. He’s made the blind to see or brought a beloved child back from death. When he dies, it’s not the quick clean honorable death that those of prestige who’ve fallen from grace receive (beheading, if you’re curious). No, he dies the slave’s death, dangled from a cross as exhaustion and exposure prolong his suffering as long as possible. He dies as he lived, a servant to all.
Think about that for a moment. No matter where you think you belong on the social hierarchy, the King of Kings places himself below you. The reason he does that is because his love for you is so great that he’ll anything for you, even die a horrible death on a cross. You are the most important thing in the world to him. You are what matters. He loves you beyond description and so he serves you. God, the creator of all things, humbles himself before you, because of how much you matter to him.
And he does that for each and every one of us. Your perspective on life will change when you recognize that not only does God love you that much, but he also loves the person next to you that much too. And if they’re that important to God, how important should they be to you?
Who do you think you are? Some temporarily embarrassed millionaire, doing everything in their power to reclaim what they think they deserve out of life. Or a child of God, seeking to serve those for whom our Savior lived and died? A good question. Amen.
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