Luke 14- Know your place
I have make a bit of a confession to make. The other day I
was driving and I noticed that my lane was ending because of construction, so I
turned on my signal light to get into the other lane. I noticed that a corvette
was coming up quickly in the lane I was trying to get into. I left my signal
light blinking thinking they would slow down and let me into their lane. Well,
they didn’t let me in. I had to slow down and get in behind them just as I was
coming up the barricade.
I started to think about the pride of the person driving the
Corvette. I imagined how they felt that people should get out of their way and
how the normal rules of courtesy don’t apply to them because they drive a fancy
car. … Then I noticed something else inside myself. I felt proud to drive my 20
year old Honda, and I felt proud to not be that inconsiderate Corvette driver.
I sometimes feel the same way about this Hummer that parks in
the “busses only”, “no idling”, “no stopping” section right outside the front
doors of my son’s school. Especially when all the close parking spots are full
and the only legal parking is a block away and we walk through a blizzard to get
Zander to school. I have had some unholy thoughts about that Hummer driver who
feels they can park wherever they want. Ironically, I have also felt proud to
not have their pride. Pride is tricky. Pride can latch onto anything that can
help us rank ourselves ahead of someone else.
In the dinner party
Jesus was attending it was customary that people would have a rank and would be
seated according to their importance. So when they came to the party they
wanted to be as close to the important positions as possible. We don’t really
do this in our culture, except maybe at wedding receptions.
On one level Jesus’ advice is just good etiquette when
attending such a party. If you sit in an important seat but then someone more
important than you shows up you will be embarrassed by your own presumption and
will have to move to whatever lower seat is left, which might very well be the
lowest seat in the house- which is probably next to the bathroom. … Sit in a
less important seat, however, and you will be honoured when the host asks you
to move up to a more important seat. Jesus
is repeating ancient wisdom here. In Proverbs 25:6-7 we read “Do not exalt
yourself in the king’s presence, and do not claim a place among his great
men; it is better for him to say to you, ‘Come up here,’ than for him to
humiliate you before his nobles.”
Jesus has similar advice for the host of the party. Who we
invite to our party can speak to our own pride and desire for position. Are we
trying to impress someone by inviting them to our party? Are we trying to earn favors
from others by inviting people who will then “owe us one”? Who we invite to our
gatherings can be just as much an expression of our pride as our hospitality.
Jesus instructs the host to invite those who won’t give you prestige and honour,
and who can’t pay you back by inviting you to their party. In Jesus’ day most
people lived in villages where their families had lived for generations. Like
many small towns everyone knew everyone. So when Jesus told them to invite the
poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind there were faces and names that
came to mind.
Jesus is teaching more than etiquette here. Jesus is speaking to that part of us that
ranks us above others. That part of us that feels more important than others. Jesus
is speaking to our pride. Pride is tricky. It cannot be tamed merely by a rule,
though, rules are a good place to start. Make it a rule to go in the longest line
at the grocery store. As you practice patience your pride will start to learn
that it can’t always get its way. Rules can be good. Take the least important
seat and learn to not jockey for position. But, the rule can only take us so
far because what will happen is that we will become proud that we took the
least important seat. We will be proud that we stood in the longest line in the
grocery store. We will, ironically, become proud of our humility. This doesn’t
mean we shouldn’t set those rules for ourselves. We should. These disciplines open us to be
more able to receive God’s grace and transformation. But, we also have to
realize the limitations of these kinds of rules. We can become proud of following
the rule that is supposed to teach us humility. So these kinds of rules are
helpful to a point, but what we truly need is transformation of our heart which
will change how we view ourselves and others. This transformation is what Jesus
is ultimately aiming at. Jesus doesn’t want people that grudgingly invite the
poor to their parties and in frustration take the least important seat. That is
a good starting point, but that isn’t the goal. What Jesus truly wants is
people who see no difference between people in terms of their worth and so there
is no real need to have people seated based on some illusion of importance.
What Jesus wants is people who see no difference in the value of people rich or
poor, blind or sighted, crippled or athletic, educated or uneducated.
In our world we have been convinced at a very deep level that
some people matter more than others- even if we aren’t conscious of that
tendency within ourselves. One way to fight that tendency is to do exactly what
Jesus says, which is face our fears and take the least important seat, and
invite the poor, blind, and crippled to our parties. Living in that discomfort
will help us to see the deeper truth about our relationships with other people.
We will come to learn that we have a deeper unity that transcends our
differences.
I want to give three points of foundational unity between human
beings. First, we are all made of mud. The first human being, Adam, was made of
the Adamah, the dirt. We are made of
atoms that all have their origin in the earth we walk on. We are mud- every one
of us. At the end of our earthly lives we are ashes and dust. … But we are also
made in the image of God- every one of us. That image is ultimately what gives
us worth. There are voices in our world that want to say we are worth something
based on what we produce …, and so the poor, the blind, and the crippled are a
burden and less valuable. … In the eyes of God, however, it is ultimately the
image we bear that gives us value. Regardless of what someone produces, they
are made of mud, and made in the image of God. And that is their value.
Second, we have a deep unity emotionally. We all want to be
happy and we all want to avoid pain. Everything we do is ultimately about one
of these two primary motivations- towards happiness, or away from pain. We go
about chasing happiness and running from pain in a variety of ways, but this
basic drive is something that unifies us at a very fundamental level. This fundamental drive is behind drug use and
going to university to get a degree and really just about any other action we
do. We can do some silly things trying to get at happiness or avoid pain, and
those actions can backfire on us, but ultimately we can boil our motivations
down to these.
Third, we have a deep unity in our purpose as human beings.
The historic teaching of the church is that human beings are created to love
and serve God. We might do that as doctors, or lawyers, or parents, or as
friends, or as teachers, or students, or scientists, or janitors, or a myriad
of others ways of being in this world. Ultimately, we are living our purpose
when we understand whatever we do as a way of loving and serving God. Human beings
might not all agree about this, but the church believes that we have unity in
our call to love and swerve God. The call is the same on every human life, even
if they don’t respond to that call.
These are some fundamental ways that we are unified as human
beings. God does not rank us based on what kind of job we have, or what kind of
car we drive, or how much education we have, or what we produce. God sees us
not based on beauty, or ability, or nationality. These are powerful ways that
humans tend to divide ourselves by, but that is not God’s way. We are all
invited to the Lord’s Table through the same baptism. There is one baptism for
the rich and the poor, crippled and healthy. It is the same baptism. And when
we come to the Lord’s Table we are not sorted by rank and importance. We all
come with empty hands regardless of who we are and what we do. And Jesus fills
those hands with himself.
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