Sermon for Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost – Luke 14:1, 7-14

So how about that first reading from Proverbs? If only all our readings could be that simple, right? “Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place of the great; for it is better to be told, “Come up here,” than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.” But you know, context makes all the difference. There’s that gracious king or queen that looks at you and says in this kind and benevolent voice, “come up here.” Good news, right? But then there’s that Game of Thrones kind of ruler that looks at you and yells “COME UP HERE!” Good news? Context makes all the difference.

Especially when it comes to humility. But what does it mean to be humble? Being modest. Downplaying ourselves. Giving others credit first. Are we good at being humble? (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?) Tricky thing. Maybe the instant you start thinking about your own humility, you set yourself up for failure. I confess I do it way more than I want to admit. But enough about me, what do YOU think of me? So the old joke goes. But right there, is humility about what we think, or what others think? Is our humility believable? Context makes all the difference. Sometimes you can tell when someone’s just fishing for compliments or sympathy. Is that humility or manipulation? Sometimes humility turns into self-deprecation, when we genuinely don’t like ourselves very much. We downplay ourselves because it’s so easy to lose touch with our God-given dignity.

Or maybe it’s like that bumper sticker I see on 465 every once in a while. “I’m not perfect, just forgiven.” Is that humility or a free license to cut me off down the road? But that’s the problem with bumper stickers – no context. I don’t know you, I don’t know anything about your life, so I don’t really know what your bumper sticker actually means. In the end it’s all murky. All this stuff swimming around in our heads and hearts makes it hard to really know what we’re after. Long story short, maybe humility is way more complicated than we realize. We can talk endlessly about the theory of what Christian humility is supposed to be, but seems like our reality is never that simple. Context makes all the difference.

So now let’s bring all that to this dinner party at the Pharisee’s house. Now, it’s not just any Pharisee, it’s one of the leaders. Which means this isn’t like a casual potluck. It’s a calculated affair. It’s political. It’s like a work dinner with the senior partners. I’ve never been to anything like that, but I suspect there’s a lot of hustling for favor and attention. A bunch of junior partners that really want to make senior partner, with enough chutzpah to sit up by the head of the table. No one’s humble here. So if that’s the scene, then why the heck would they invite Jesus? They’re not dumb. They know his story and message. Or maybe it’s really a test to see who can debate him the best. We don’t know for sure.

At any rate, you know Jesus is going to have something to say about all this. So he tells them “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Now, this can’t be news to them. They know the cutthroat games they’re playing with each other. But Jesus knows this isn’t how true churches or communities survive. It’s definitely not how the kingdom of God operates, where everyone has a place at the dinner table. But he knows how these folks think, so he uses language they understand. If you really want to be rewarded, just humble yourself by taking the lowest seat, and that’ll speak volumes. Couple problems though. Number one, you don’t have to be Christian to know that’s a better way to live. Number two, after everything we know about humility, how is this not just fishing for a reward? Besides, who would ever choose to sit in the worst seat, for a reward that might not even happen. The host MAY say “move up higher”, or may not. Who knows?

Then Jesus turns to his host and says – When you give a banquet, don’t invite friends or neighbors or anyone who could possibly pay you back. Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, the folks who have nothing to give us, at least not in the ways we presume. Again, it’s the kind of thing we know Jesus would say. But here’s something odd. Jesus says “you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” Why odd? That reward language again. Be generous to others SO THAT God will repay you in the end. Except “repay” doesn’t mean reward or gift. It means tit for tat. It means you only get what you give. Which is kind of a threat when you think about it. So what’s the good news in this passage?

Well, here’s the thing. There is no good news in this passage. Believe me, I looked as hard as I could for it. If we say this passage applies to us, which deep down we know it does, then we put ourselves in the position of the Pharisee host, who does everything for gain. Nothing for humility, because we’re always trying to earn our heavenly reward. Except we never know if we’ve earned enough. And we know we haven’t, because we know everyone who we HAVEN’T invited to our dinner table, for so many reasons. But even when we do, they don’t want to come, because they know when we’re just trying to co-opt them into our little salvation project. Just like when we don’t want to open the door when we think there’s some kind of religous folk knocking, because we recognize the same motive at play as our own. Now we know how it feels to be a checkmark on someone’s laundry list. In the end, Jesus wants to see humility, but is there really such a thing as humility in the world after all?

Well, here’s our good news. There IS humility in the world. Because of Jesus, the one who sees us for who we really are. The one who does for us what we could never do for ourselves or anyone else. Jesus became our humility in the humiliation of the cross, willingly taking upon his own body the weight of all our human hatred and brokenness and exclusion. And it crushed him into the ground just like it crushes us. But this was not the last word for him or us. He arose. After three days he arose, in the glory of resurrection, so that he might raise us to new life with him by faith. The faith he gives us by filling us with his same Holy Spirit just to bind us into his body whether we like it or not.

By faith we hear Jesus’ same words in a new way. He talks about a banquet and inviting the ones who could never repay, the ones who need a banquet most of all, and we immediately remember the humble and Holy Supper that he gives to us over and over again in worship. It’s better than any reward. It’s forgiveness, it’s freely given, and it lets us admit our need without being consumed by it. Jesus uses that to change how we see and serve our neighbors. By faith we know that we earn nothing, but God gives everything to us in abundance even without our asking. So it becomes a joy to give everything away for our neighbors’ sake, because what have we got to lose? It becomes a blessing to witness Jesus moving through us into others’ lives and transforming them in ways we can’t iamgine. Our humility becomes believable because we don’t have to be hide our pasts anymore, and we wouldn’t want to, because it reveals the power of God to the world. Just look at what God has done to us. Context really does make all the difference.

So if all this is true, then hear this good news that really is good news. “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled.” And we have been humbled. Thanks be to God.