First Reading: Proverbs 25:2-10
2It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out. 3As the heavens for height, and the earth for depth, so the heart of kings is unsearchable. 4Take away the dross from the silver, and the smith has material for a vessel; 5take away the wicked from the presence of the king, and his throne will be established in righteousness. 6Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place of the great, 7for it is better to be told, “Come up here,” than to be put lower in the presence of a noble. What your eyes have seen 8do not hastily bring into court, for what will you do in the end, when your neighbor puts you to shame? 9Argue your case with your neighbor himself, and do not reveal another’s secret, 10lest he who hears you bring shame upon you, and your ill repute have no end.
Psalm 131
1O Lord, I am not proud; I have no haughty looks. 2I do not occupy myself with great matters, or with things that are too hard for me. 3But I still my soul and make it quiet, like a child upon its mother’s breast; my soul is quieted within me. 4O Israel, wait upon the Lord, from this time forth forevermore.
Second Reading: Hebrews 13:1-17
1Let brotherly love continue. 2Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. 3Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. 4Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. 5Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 6So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” 7Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. 8Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. 9Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. 10We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. 11For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. 13Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. 14For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. 15Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. 16Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. 17Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
Gospel: Luke 14:1-14
1One Sabbath, when {Jesus} went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. 2And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. 3And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” 4But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. 5And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” 6And they could not reply to these things. 7Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, 8“When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, 9and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. 11For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” 12He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
Humility Today
The one-time coach at Auburn University asked his former Linebacker who was then playing for the Miami Dolphins, if he would help his alma mater do some recruiting. The linebacker said, “Sure, coach. What kind of player are you looking for?” The coach said, “Well, you know there’s that fellow, you knock him down, he just stays down?” The linebacker said, “You don’t want him, do you coach?” “No, not him. Then there’s that fellow, you knock him down and he gets up, you knock him down again and he stays down.” Again, the linebacker said, “You don’t want him either do you coach.”
The coach said, “No, but there’s a fellow, you knock him down, he gets up. Knock him down, he gets up. Knock him down, he gets up. Knock him down, he gets up.” The linebacker said, “That must be the guy you’re looking for, isn’t it?” Surprisingly the coach answered, “No, we don’t want him either.” “If not him, then who are you looking for” asked the linebacker. The coach smiled and said, “I want you to find the guy who’s knocking everybody down.” That’s the guy we want to be seen with!
When it comes to our competitive side, these are the people that we like to emulate. We love to watch their very carefully thought-out victory dances. These are the people we enjoy seeing taunt the player whom they just tackled. We encourage our kids to emulate their antics and even develop their own celebration moves. It’s players like this that drives ticket sales. It’s competitive players like this that make us claim a team as our own. These are the people we want to invite to our dinners and social gatherings because deep down this is the kind of person we want to be associated with.
None of us, it seems, want to be affiliated with the guys who are always being knocked down—you know, the second string, the practice squad, or in the case of society, the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind. We want to be associated with the winners, the movers and shakers of society. We want to be seen as part of the in-crowd, the powerful of society. Deep down we want to be seen as someone other people want to know and be around. At our core we want to be “that guy.” We want to secretly be like those who are arrogant, cocky, or conceited. But these aren’t the people, as we shall soon see, that we’re encouraged to associate with.
The opposite of arrogance and conceit is, of course, humility. But what is humility? How do we define it? We all know false humility when we see it. But what is genuine humility? One definition I found comes from the Civil Air Patrol’s Values for Living course. This lesson teaches that, “Humility can be hard to define but most of us know it when we see it. Humility is living in a way that respects the truth. (The truth about God, the truth about ourselves, and the truth about others.) Humility refines our perspective by allowing us to see ourselves as we are, to gratefully acknowledge the efforts of others, and to commit ourselves to our duties.” This isn’t a bad definition, but I think it’s incomplete. So, turning to the Merriam Webster dictionary, humility means, “freedom from pride or arrogance: the quality or state of being humble.” And if you follow that further, humble refers to someone who is, “not proud, arrogant, or assertive.” This does add to the definition given in the Values for Living course, but we need to go further.
Again, these definitions are good, but what’s important for us is, what does the Bible say about the virtue of humility? Interestingly, the word humility appears a good many times throughout the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments. Where we read about humility, we see that this trait is something God desires for His people. Humility is beneficial for us, for God, and for those around us. However, there is no verbatim definition given in Scripture like we would find in a dictionary. That said, we can, through the word’s usage, glean a good understanding.
For example, in Philippians 2:3 we read, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves.” And in Psalm 25:9, David says, “He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.” In St. Peter’s epistle we read, “Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5). Then in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” There is plenty more for us to study, but I think I’ve given you a good sampling. I encourage you to look up the others.
I encourage you to do this because we also need to understand what humility is not. True humility is not seeing oneself as inferior or seeing oneself with disdain. Being humble doesn’t mean we become a doormat, or a voiceless object to be used and ignored. When we were created, we were made in God’s image, and when God was done, He said what He created was good. God gave us a voice and a sharp mind to be used for His glory and to serve others. It’s important to our understanding that we remember that humility is considered a virtue, a quality to be pursued. Therefore, humility is something positive and a trait we should strive to cultivate in our lives.
As we begin our quest for a humble heart, we do so by recognizing that God is indeed greater than us, that He knows what’s best for us, and in submission we obey. We also recognize that God has given each of us gifts and talents, and we’re to use those gifts and talents for the benefit of God’s kingdom and for others. Humility is knowing our strengths and weaknesses, and in that understanding, we honor God, and we place the needs of others before ourselves. In our gospel reading for today, we can certainly pick out the problem that Jesus was teaching against when he addressed the Religious Leaders.
At this point in His ministry, Jesus wasn’t completely at odds with the religious establishment. And for some unknown reason, a leader of the Pharisees invites Jesus over for dinner. Now we know this wasn’t a purely friendly social occasion, because Luke tells us that they were watching Jesus closely. And this certainly wasn’t the first time Jesus had a run in with the religious experts. The religious community was always looking for ways to diminish Jesus in the eyes of the people. Thankfully Jesus was always looking for an opportunity to teach, and the first lesson Jesus needed to deal with that day was the issue of work, of God’s command to honor the Sabbath, and that of good deeds.
Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? For the Religious leaders, healing was equated with work. You and I can’t get our heads wrapped around the argument here, healing someone is a good thing! Why the Religious community saw this as work is beyond me. But they did. So, they relished the opportunity to entrap Jesus when the man with excessive swelling in his arms and legs comes to Jesus for healing. I love the way Jesus deals with the smug leaders. As I mentioned last week, Jesus enjoyed turning the tables on those who were arrogant enough to think they knew more than God’s Son.
In this encounter, Jesus first asks the question, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” When they refused to answer, He then heals the man and sends him on his way. Then Jesus turns to them and asks, “if your son or one of your animals falls in a well on the Sabbath would you not pull them out?” His point is that we need to see the need and do what is necessary to meet that need and not let our pride or some arbitrary rules get in the way.
Yes, God declared the 7th day as a day of rest, and we should honor God’s mandate. However, we also must be able to see the needs of others and do our best to meet those requests even if it means we need to do something we normally wouldn’t do on the Sabbath. Yes, we are to love and honor God by setting aside a day to gather, worship, learn, and rest. But we also need to love our neighbors and help them, when necessary, even if that happens to be on the Sabbath. Then Jesus takes this one step further and addresses what could be the root of the Religious Leaders’ problem, arrogance.
Jesus must have come early to the dinner and quickly noticed how people were positioning themselves. In an honor society which is still prevalent in the Middle East, where a person sits is an indication of societal position. The closer you are seated, or reclined at table in this case, to the host or guest of honor, the higher your status was in the community. It was a matter of pride for someone to be seated close or next to the head table, they were seen as someone important, someone you want to aspire to be. No one wanted to be seated at the back of the room, next to the door to the kitchen. Those tables were occupied for the underlings, those who were “lucky enough” to be invited. I was fortunate enough to see a result of this kind of pride a few years ago.
When I was stationed the second time in the Middle East, we were housed in some brand-new 5 story apartments. Each building was designed with 5 bedrooms per floor with a nice kitchen and a common area, as well as two bathrooms. One day I asked our housing officer if the Saudi Arabian government had built these very nice apartments for us, or were we simply using them until our time in the Middle East was over. The guy I asked laughed and shared with me that these apartments had actually been built for the Bedouin people in the area. The Bedouins are nomadic people who are herders of sheep, goats, camels, and the like. They live in tents and move with the seasons.
The government knew that since the discovery of oil in the region, and with the money came affluence, modern conveniences, and a more western way of life, that life was changing for the Saudi people. The old nomadic traditions would soon be a thing of the past. To aid in the change of lifestyle, the government built these apartment complexes to help ease the transition. The government’s intension was to provide education and job skills that would be needed in the evolving society. However, there was an unexpected problem.
The Bedouin people have always lived in a feudal setting. A hierarchy within the family groups has always been practiced, and the idea of honor and position within the community was a matter of pride. To suddenly be part of a “classless society” was something they couldn’t adapt to. I’ve shared this background information as a way of explaining why the Bedouin people refused to move into these cost-free apartments. Because there were floors, one above the other, none of the Bedouin people would move into anything but the top floors. For them to live “under” someone was to be seen as “beneath” that person. So, in their pride, they chose to live in a tent in the desert rather than in an air-conditioned, cost-free, apartment on a lower floor. Pride and arrogance can drive us to do things that otherwise doesn’t make sense.
I like the story historians tell about the funeral of Charlemagne. Charlemagne is considered the greatest Christian ruler of the early Middle Ages. After his death a mighty funeral procession left his castle for the cathedral at Aix. When the royal casket arrived, with a lot of pomp and circumstance, it was met by the local bishop, who barred the cathedral door. As was the custom, the Bishop asked, “Who comes?” “Charlemagne, Lord and King of the Holy Roman Empire,” proclaimed the Emperor’s proud herald. “Him I know not,” the Bishop replied. “Who comes?”
The herald, a bit shaken, replied, “Charles the Great, a good and honest man of the earth.” “Him I know not,” the Bishop said again. “Who comes?” The herald, now completely crushed, responded, “Charles, a lowly sinner, who begs the gift of Christ.” To this the Bishop, responded, “Enter! Receive Christ’s gift of life!” Even Charlemagne in all his glory and good works could not assume a position of honor in God’s kingdom.
I’m convinced that the more honor that is due us, the more we should resist it. Does that mean we shouldn’t derive satisfaction from our accomplishments. Not at all. But we shouldn’t seek the accolades that come with success. The book of Proverbs has a terse reminder for us all: Pride comes before a fall (16:18). The question then is, how do we stay humble in a haughty world? First, we should never seek honor for ourselves. Second, we should be storing up for ourselves treasures for the life to come. This is Jesus’ second piece of advice for those attending the dinner party. When we do things for others, our motive should be to serve where the needs are greatest.
What Jesus is telling us is don’t throw dinner parties for your friends, your family, and rich neighbors because they will invite you to their table and you will have your reward; rather, Jesus says, throw dinner parties for the poor and lame. They will not be able to pay you back. You will be paid back at the time of the resurrection. We need to be careful here; Jesus isn’t saying that we should never throw parties for friends. That isn’t His point. What Jesus is saying is that showing kindness to people who can repay us in kind is not charity. I do for you and then you owe me and I’ll collect later, cannot be regarded as pure love by Christian people. Pleasing God means helping those who have absolutely no way of paying us back.
Mother Teresa was once asked, “How do you measure the success of your work?” She thought about the question and gave her interviewer a puzzled look, and said, “I don’t remember that the Lord ever spoke of success. He spoke only of faithfulness in love. This is the only success that really counts.” I think Mother Teresa would point to this story in Luke to justify that response. Jesus is saying in essence, don’t do things that bring you the honor of others, instead, do the things that will please God. Thomas Carlyle, the British historian, put it succinctly, “Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are.” St. James reminds us, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” (4:10).
Why are we asked to take the seats of least honor? Why are we asked to give expecting nothing in return. The Altar, set with the body and blood of Christ, before us today is a reminder of why we’re asked to behave in this way. The Holy Supper is a reminder that Jesus didn’t choose a palace but a stable in which to be born. He didn’t choose the priesthood, but carpentry as His profession. He didn’t choose world leaders to develop His plan, but the ordinary of society. He didn’t choose a throne to govern from, He chose the way of the cross.
In God’s kingdom, there are no places of honor but the throne of God before which all will bow. And at that great banquet to come, all who are found worthy, all who are willing to humble themselves before our honored Host, Jesus Christ our Lord, are invited. May God always help us to remember those who are easy to forget – those who need not only our charity, but our love and concern as well.
Amen