Text: Luke 14:1, 7-14
Yet again we
find Jesus at the home of a Pharisee eating a Sabbath meal. And while the Gospel says that “they were
watching him closely” it becomes pretty clear that Jesus was watching them
closely as well.
You may
notice there are some verses missing from the Gospel lesson this morning. In that gap Jesus performs a healing, and not
unlike last week’s Gospel, Jesus challenges the lawyers and the Pharisees about
the way they keep Sabbath, and how they treat the less fortunate. While the lectionary chooses to leave this
section out, it is not completely unrelated to the rest of the passage. Jesus sees their disapproval of his healing,
then notices them scrambling for seats, and he sees rather clearly that while
they may be the religious leaders of the community, they are far more
interested in gaining earthly honors than they are in showing mercy, or
honoring God. The same can be said for
the host who only invites people who can repay him, his ideas about who is
acceptable to eat with is determined by his pride.
As the
guests vie for the best seats in the house, Jesus tells them a parable loosely based
on Proverbs 25:6-7. On the surface this
parable seems to be about avoiding public embarrassment in a social gathering
by acting in a humble manner so that they may be honored in front of their
peers. By itself this seems to promote
the very hypocrisy of false humility that Jesus is known for criticizing.
But that is
not what he is doing. He is not trying to teach this group a how to gain
honor without risking the humiliation of rejection. He is not trying to teach them “pride that
apes humility,”[1] the
parable he tells exposes their ridiculous behavior for the self indulgent
display of pride that it truly is. Jesus
is well aware of their strategies for social living. He is well aware of how they twist scripture
into prideful games of status. We see it
over and over again in the Gospels, the way they make spectacles of themselves
in prayer and fasting so that everyone can see how pious they are, they tithe
out of their abundance but they use the Sabbath and cleanliness laws as excuses
not to show kindness and mercy to others, all their focus is on looking as if
they are pious and God fearing, while inside they are consumed with pride and
selfishness.
So Jesus
tells them, “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble
themselves will be exalted.”
There is a
distinction made here between ‘being humbled’ and ‘humbling yourself.’ The connotation made by the parable is that
one leads to humiliation while the other leads to humility.
We all
probably know humiliation pretty well, even the slightest act of humiliation
can feel devastating, and we are quick to learn to avoid it at all costs. We often employ our pride to keep humiliation
at bay, but what we fail to realize is the only true antidote to humiliation,
is humility.
So what does
humility really look like?
The most
obvious place to look for an example is at Jesus. God became incarnate in the world, lowering
himself more than we could ever lower ourselves. Becoming human, God, shows us what it truly
means to be humble. In Christ God
reached down towards us and became what we are in order to save us, in order to
be a blessing to the entire world. In
Christ’s life we see true humility in action.
There is no guile in his words or deeds, he does not seek status or
personal gain, instead he focuses his attention outward, toward those in need.
Towards us.
Of course we
can never match Christ in his perfection, but we can at least see in him the honest
sense of self, and genuine altruism, that make up a humble nature. Jesus is free of petty disputes and
unimportant concerns that are fueled by pride and a desire for status or
personal recognition.
We don’t
know where Jesus was sitting at the banquet table, and honestly I don’t think Jesus
cared. He would not feel the sting of
shame at being asked to move down, or the exultation at being asked to move
higher up. He was not concerned with such
trifles. He was not embarrassed by the
company he kept or by the scorn and derision of his detractors. There is no pride in him to get wounded.
But I think
we are often more like the Pharisees than we are like Jesus. We want to be noticed and respected. We want to spend time with ‘acceptable’
people, even if we choose not to admit it we ARE prideful. But even more than that, we far, far too
often we mistake self-hatred for humility.
If humility is thinking less of yourself then there are many of us who
feel as if we couldn’t get more humble.
But, self-hatred
is a poor imitation of true humility and, while it may not seem like it, it is
actually just another form of pride.
Self aggrandizement and self-loathing are really just two sides of the
same coin. Just like self exultation,
self loathing is focused on the self in an unrealistic way, we cannot truly be
humble if we don’t possess a true sense of ourselves.
Thomas
Merton, who says quite a lot about humility, writes, “A humble person can do
great things with an uncommon perfection because he is no longer concerned
about incidentals, like his own interests and his own reputation, and therefore
he no longer needs to waste his efforts in defending them.” Humility frees us
from constantly having to grasp outside of ourselves for validation. When we let ourselves believe that we are
loved by God, then we no longer have to pretend to be something we are not. We can be who God made us to be. When we are no longer constantly distracted
by the anxiety of keeping up appearances, then we are truly free to live with
joy and conviction.
This is what
humility allows for us.
You probably
have heard the saying that “pride is the root of all evil.” Well, I tend to believe that is true. And the opposite seems equally true. Humility is the root of all righteousness. It
is humility that allows us to be truly present for another, to have compassion
and mercy. It is humility that allows us
to truly love each other without reserve, and to be a blessing to each other, just
as Christ is a blessing to the world.
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