Based on Luke 14. 1, 7-14 & Proverbs 25. 6-7. When I was looking at the Gospel reading today I did a quick Google search as I sometimes do to look for news articles about someone or something being humbled. And what I found wasn’t a story, but rather article after article extolling the benefits of humility, in dating, in employment, in starting your own business. What I found was lots of testimony that humility is a good thing, an admirable thing. But here’s the thing, it’s a quality we like to admire in others, but it doesn’t really seem desirable for ourselves does it? If we’re humble, if we’re not shouting our achievements, our successes, whether it’s in family life, wealth, home, job, education etc, if we’re not shouting about these things we worry we’ll be overlooked, forgotten about whilst those who do brag, even exaggerate somewhat get all the attention and make all the progress. We deem humility as admirable, but not desirable. And our culture is set up to drive us in the opposite direction anyway. With social media we have multiple platforms on which to show off our achievements and successes, from food we’ve cooked, to the family we’ve raised, from the home we have to the holidays we go on.
And we find ourselves in this almost subconscious competition with those around us, someone shares what their grandchild got for their GCSE’s this year, we want to tell them how our grandchild has got a scholarship based off their sporting prowess. But as Christian’s, Jesus calls us to go another way, to choose the way of humility. Indeed, humility should be the default position for us as Christians. So how are we to be humble? What does it look like? Humility is often billed as undervaluing of yourself, playing down your achievements, your gifts and talents. We come across that false humility where we might say ‘oh it was nothing’, when the amazing cake we’ve just presented to someone took us 2 full days of agonising work using all our skills. That’s not what the Bible means by humility, that’s not what we’re called to as Christians. Indeed the Bible encourages us to give thanks for our abilities and talents, to see them as gifts from our Father in heaven. The Bible describes us as fearfully and wonderfully made. It doesn’t call us to play ourselves down, rather, it calls us to lift others up. Humility isn’t thinking less of ourselves, instead it’s thinking of ourselves less. In our Gospel reading today Jesus’ first story is a perfect example of this. It’s not that this person who took the best seat wasn’t valued and important, it’s that this other guest was moreso. And, as the feast has already started, rather than moving everyone around, the guest ends up taking the last seat which is the only one left. Instead, if this guest, rather than assuming they’ll be the guest of honour, had thought more highly of those others invited, they would have picked a lower seat and perhaps been brought up higher. They may not have had social media and all those other ways to tout their position and status in society, Greco-Roman culture at this time placed a huge emphasis on your status in society and you’d climb up through the social ladder by your own efforts and struggles, you had to big yourself up a lot to progress. Seats at feasts were just one key aspect of this, it’s why these guests rush for the best seats, they want to be seen to honoured, it many ways it seems natural to want to be honoured, to be recognised as having something desirable about us, but it drives us to put others down rather than raise them up. The call of Jesus is to empty ourselves of this ambition, and instead choose humility. So why do we do it? Well Jesus calls us to be humble for two reasons. Firstly because he himself has done it. Paul writing to the church in Philippi includes what is sometimes thought to be an early creed or hymn of the church. He writes: In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Jesus is the very epitome of his parable, he chose humility. He leaves behind all his status, all the benefits of it. He surrenders it all, steps down from the throne and becomes the servant of his servants. He chooses to die for those who have rebelled against him. The story of Jesus is one of self-emptying sacrifice so that we can be raised up. Never once did Jesus declare ‘don’t you know who I am’, indeed he told those who knew who he was not to tell anyone. And yet having humbled himself he has been raised to the highest place, seated upon the throne and given such honour and glory that all creation shall bow, all creation shall worship. Jesus doesn’t call us to humility because he thinks it’s a good idea for us to do. He does so because he himself chose humility and knows it to be the way of life and peace. Jesus is the living breathing embodiment of this parable. Humility is the default position of Christians because it’s the position which Jesus took. And the second reason he calls us to humility is because what is truly of worth is not achieved by our merits, by our success or climbing the social ladder. Instead it’s received as a gift. Jesus chooses to talk about feasts in our Gospel today because he’s at dinner, food is on everyone’s mind. And yet he chooses a very specific feast, the wedding banquet. And he does so because he is making both a broad point about how we should live our lives, and a subtler point about God. Whenever the imagery of a wedding comes up in Scripture it is pretty much always pointing to eternity, pointing to the end of life as we know it and the beginning of the new heavens and earth when all is made right. Because, we’re told, eternal life begins with a wedding, it opens with the wedding of Jesus and his church, God and his people. And if you read on beyind our Gospel passage today you’ll see one of the guests picks up on this subtler theme and pipes up ‘blessed are those who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God’. So what’s Jesus’ subtler point about our reasons for humility? I’ve been to two weddings recently, both of them for cousins of Katy. And reflecting on them I realised, rather obviously, that often where you sit isn’t determined by you, it’s determined by your host, by the couple. They choose where you sit. Whether you’re on the second table or tucked somewhere at the back, it’s their choice. And that’s significant, because it doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks of you, what matters is your host. You can be incredibly wealthy, have 2 PHD’s, have an MBE and be on the cover of Forbes, but if your host doesn’t care about such things, and if you only know the couple vaguely, you may find yourself at the back of the room. What matters isn’t our status in society, our standing before others, what ultimately matters is our standing before the host of the great wedding banquet which kicks off the new heavens and the new earth. And our standing before him isn’t achieved through our own efforts, our own scramble to the top. It’s a gift. Through the cross God has adopted us as his children. And receiving that, seeking only to please him, free’s us from pride. When we realise the thing which matters most is that we are God’s children, and that this status was given as a gift, it free’s us from competing over what the world wants us to tout; family, and wealth, and status. And what it also does is free us from despair. Because we may also consider ourselves to have nothing of value to offer. In the eyes of the world we may be the least enviable person going; poor, sick, unskilled, uneducated, with no status or repute. We may in every sense have been humbled by the world as it leaves us behind, but God raises the humble, he says that the humble will be exalted. Because your worth isn’t in anything this world values, it’s that you’re the child of your heavenly Father. You can’t earn that, it’s his gift. Whilst the world may admire humility, it doesn’t make it desirable for ourselves. Instead it calls us to puff ourselves up, to show off, to brag, to big ourselves up. And yet Jesus chooses the way of humility, to think of others as more important than himself, and in doing so dies for our sakes. And he calls us to follow him in doing the same, to treasure what we have been given, and yet to think of others more highly, to surrender the high places in favour of the low. For at the wedding banquet of the Lamb, at the wedding feast of Jesus and the Church, our value isn’t in our achievements, our family status, our education or wealth or awards and honours. Our value is that we are invited at all, that we have a seat at the table. That God chooses us, and invites us to his wedding. Amen.
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AuthorAn Anglican Curate in my 20's I was raised in an Anglican Church, went to a Youth Club run by an Evangelical Church, attended a Baptist Church while at Uni and was a member of a New Monastic Community after graduating. As such my faith has been influenced by these experiences and traditions into what I hope is a more rounded viewpoint. Archives
September 2022
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