Waiting For God To Honor You
Luke 14:1-11
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. Luke 14:10-11 10 But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher.’ Then you will have glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you. 11 For whoever exalts himself will be [c]humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… A few weeks ago, we heard about Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. In that reading we noted that there are two kinds of humility: a humility before God, and a humility before men.
It is that second kind of humility that is stressed in our Gospel for today. Our sinful nature moves us to think that we deserve a better place than someone else – better treatment, more appreciation, more honor, and the like. But it isn’t our place to determine those things, and it certainly isn’t our place to insist on our own importance. It’s our place, according no Jesus, to choose the lowest place, and to sit there contentedly and wait for God to honor us.
Jesus had a tough crowd for teaching such things in the Gospel: Pharisees and lawyers, including the leading men, the rulers of the Pharisees, who were notoriously anything BUT humble, neither before God nor before men. They had invited Jesus to a Sabbath meal, and He had accepted. But they were “watching Him carefully,” watching to see where they could trap Him in some violation of the Law of Moses. They sat there on their lofty perch, looking down their self-righteous noses, passing judgment on the Son of God.
And as they were looking down on Jesus and everyone else, Jesus, who is God over all, was busy looking around for the neediest person there, the lowliest person there. And He found one – a man with dropsy, a painful swelling in a person’s body, often in the legs, which expand as they fill with excess fluid. There he was at this Sabbath meal, in pain, unnoticed by the Pharisees who were busy choosing the best places for themselves at the dinner.
We hear that Jesus wanted to help and heal him. So Jesus questions the Pharisees, seemingly for guidance, although He needed none. “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” If they say yes, they give Him permission to heal and therefore cannot criticize Him anymore. If they say no, right there in front of one of their own who was suffering, they would appear cruel. So, they say nothing… and it is a cruel silence.
But Jesus doesn’t wait for their permission. He goes right ahead and heals the man. Picture the man’s swollen limbs immediately shrinking back down to their normal size. Picture the pain disappearing in an instant and the relief washing over the man’s face.
Following that, Jesus plies them with another question: “Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?” They all would, of course. And none of them would have claimed that the Sabbath Law prevented it. Did they really think the Law of Moses kept them from helping a man on the Sabbath? Why would they show more mercy to their animals than to their fellow man? By asking these questions Jesus turns the mirror of the Law back on the Pharisees in order that they might see their ugliness and their pride and humble themselves in repentance. But again, they were silent.
Pride does that to a person: it makes it impossible to agree with the person you look down on, even if you know that person is right. It makes it hard for politicians to work together, hard for spouses to get along, hard for children and parents, hard for church members, if your main concern is not to let the other person win, because you might lose face.
But there’s more to learn from our Gospel. Jesus turns and looks at the guests at this Sabbath meal, all of whom are vying for the places of honor in their seating arrangement, each one deciding for himself how important he is and how he ranks among the other guests. And strangely, each one of them was determining that he really belongs higher up than most of the rest. Each one honored himself.
It also works over all those factors which work in inhibiting the erection of male gentile. overnight generic cialis http://appalachianmagazine.com/navy/ This is said to be a Generic drug but it basically includes all the possible qualities of a order viagra on line branded drug. If your child enjoys a hot beverage sildenafil free shipping on a cold morning, then by all means, let them have hot tea. This decline will result in the different signs and symptoms that buy cialis cialis are very far from the stomach area. It was childish behavior, of course, but it comes naturally to all of us. We like to think we rank higher than most. We like to look down on others. And we can probably each come up with lots of reasons why we really do rank more highly than others. So if someone gets more recognition than we think they deserve, or if we get less recognition than we think we deserve, our hackles raise; we get angry; we fight back; we push and shove our way to the place where we think we belong.
This is foolishness! Don’t we know who the Host is? Isn’t that what we should be concerned about, how the Host wishes to honor us? The Host is God Himself, and if He were to keep a record of iniquities, no one could stand. The very moment we rank ourselves above other people, the Master of the banquet will say, “Friend, you don’t belong in this place of honor. Someone else does. Give up your place. And since the other seats are already taken, you’ll have to go down to the bottom.”
It would be better for us, Jesus says, to just start out at the bottom. It would be better for us to assume the place of least dignity, of least honor. It would be better for us to sit there and wait for God to do the honoring.
For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” (Is 57:15)
Yahweh God Almighty says He dwells with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, not with the proud. He is the one who gives honor. He is the one who lifts up. But He only honors from one place – from the lowest place. So choose the lowest place. So what if everyone around you gets more recognition than you do? So what if they have a better reputation, if they’re treated better? So what? Why must we insist on getting what we think we deserve? Why not be satisfied with less, satisfied with sitting in the lowest place? That is, after all, exactly what our Lord and Master Jesus Christ did; and as He says, no servant is above his master. (Mt 10:24)
St. Paul reminds us of this in Philippians 2. Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
Dear fellow redeemed, Jesus pursued the lowest place of love for you, in order to serve you and to save you. And then He waited patiently for God to exalt Him again to the highest place… and He most certainly did!
You call Him Lord. You say you are His disciple. Well, then, dear disciple, learn from Him. Follow Him down every day to the lowest place, the place with the least honor, the place of service. That’s what love does. Love looks up, not down, because love sits in the lowest place, at the bottom of the heap. There is only one way to look from there: up! Up at the little child who needs assistance; up at the poor man who is wearing dirty clothes; up at the churchgoer who may talk differently or dress strangely; up at the old woman crumpled up in her chair and needing help to eat.
St. Paul insists that Christ has set down a pattern for us, an example that we who bear His name are to follow. You heard it again in today’s Epistle from Ephesians 4. I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Why? What’s down there in the lowest place? Paul tells us: It’s the Church, the body of Christ. Of course it is! Where else could Christ be but in the lowest place? Paul says it best about Christ in Eph 2:8: And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. That is Christ’s humility, for which we give thanks to God – that He took upon Himself our human nature, suffered the punishment of ALL our sins on His cross, and then took all those sins with Him to the grave from which He rose again to defeat even death itself for us! His death gives us life! His resurrection is our resurrection! And His heaven is ours when He calls us home.
And you, dear friends in Christ, have Jesus’ word that you won’t remain in the lowest place, any more than Jesus Himself remained there. He didn’t exalt Himself to sit at God’s right hand. The Father exalted Him in due time. And He will do the same for you who are in Christ. You won’t always appear weak and despised. You won’t always appear lowly and unappreciated. Eventually, the one who invited you into His Church will come and honor you.
So let the Host decide where to put you. Let the Host be the one to honor you. As for you, He has brought you all alike to this Sabbath meal today, where He grants forgiveness to all alike, where He gives the body and blood of His Son to all alike. Here His love and forgiveness are given freely to all in faith. Here He honors you with His very self, for your forgiveness, strength, and joy.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
