Sermon: Meals and Parties? Humble Pie?

Date Preached: Sunday September 2nd 2007

Bible Reference: Luke Chapter 14, verses 7-14

I love Luke’s gospel don’t you? – for one thing it has more meal-time scenes than all the others. And if his vision of the Christian life, from one point of view (as we’ve been seeing) is a journey, from another point of view it’s a actually a “party”.

The story we have here isn’t always recognized as a parable, because it looks simply like a piece of social advice, of practical wisdom: “you want to avoid embarrassment in front of your social guests – then take this tip.” And it wouldn’t surprise us to find out Jesus was again turning the tables on the social conventions of his day. But Jesus didn’t come to offer good advice – he came to change lives – so we would expect to find it to have at least a double meaning. So once again, what is he really talking about?

Well the rest of the chapter makes it clear that he’s talking about the way in which people of his day were jostling for position in the eyes of God. Many people - to Jesus’ eyes - were eager to push themselves forward, showing how well they were keeping all the regulations of the law, and themselves unsullied from the riff-raff around them. Not unlike what we’d know as respectable churchgoing these days. The problem was that Jesus was turning all that stuff about social acceptability on its head by insisting on associating with the wrong kinds of people. As Bishop Tom Wright says “he is always touching the untouchable and calling the nobodies” to be part of his kingdom party.

So the real meaning here is to be found in the warning against pushing oneself forward in the sight of God. In Jesus’ day it was all too easy for the well-off and the legally trained to imagine that they were superior in God’s sight to the poor and the uneducated.

But dig just a little deeper and at the same time, in the world for which Luke was writing there would obviously be a wider and more shocking meaning. Within Luke’s own lifetime thousand of “non-Jews” had become Christians – had entered, that is, into the dinner party prepared by Yahweh – the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. For many Jews at the time this was tantamount to gate-crashing. They couldn’t understand it and certainly wouldn’t have approved. They were so eager to maintain their own position at the top table of God’s favour that they couldn’t grasp his bigger plan to stand the world’s pecking order on its head. Again quoting the Bishop: “Pride, notoriously is the great cloud which blots out the sun of God’s generosity: if I reckon that I deserve to be favoured by God, not only do I declare that I don’t need his grace, mercy and love, but I imply that those who don’t deserve it shouldn’t have it.”

Jesus spent his whole life breaking through such clouds of prejudice and bringing the fresh, healing sunshine of God’s love to those who would have spent their time in the shadows. The Pharisees could scrutinize him all they liked, but the power of his healing and his teaching was way too strong for them. That small-mindedness that pushes itself forward and leaves others behind is confronted at every turn with the large-hearted love of God in Christ 

So once again there’s the challenge to us today: Christians, reading this anywhere in the world, must work out in their own churches, communities and families what it would mean to celebrate God’s kingdom so that people at the bottom of the pile - at the end of the line, would find it to be good news. It isn’t enough simply to say that we ourselves are those people dragged in from the country lanes, much to our surprise, to enjoy God’s party. That’s probably true – I know I feel like that, but party guests are then expected to become party hosts in their turn.  It was D.T. Niles who said “Evangelism – sharing the good news of the gospel - is one beggar telling another beggar where to get bread.” Christianity’s a real leveller!

Once again, notice the brilliant way Jesus taught. He told a simple little story about people sitting down at a wedding feast, and then he applied the spiritual meaning. “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” This is one of those wonderful paradoxes of Jesus that’s totally contrary to the way the world thinks. The world says “if you want to be a high flyer – to be somebody – you’ve got to push, fight, claw, and work your way to the top of the heap”. (I had a nightmare last night where I was being appraised by my old university boss – yuk!) But Jesus says just the opposite. He says the way up is actually down. In James 4:10 we read “Humble yourself before the Lord and He will lift you up.”

But what does it mean for us to live this out – or to put it another way – to have the more than occasional a Slice of Humble Pie.”

Pride is basically that attitude that says, “I’m at the centre of my universe.”

As Jesus watched these Pharisees – these self-consciously religious people, he noticed how they all jockeyed for position to sit in the best seats at the dinner. It’s still true in the Middle East and the Far East that seating positions are a clearly defined part of their dinner protocol. When I was in China, I noticed that the host always sits in a certain place at the circular table, and the guest of honour sits to the right. The next most important person sits to his left, and so on. Everyone has a “place” and everyone knows his or her place. As Jesus observed the manoeuvring of these men, he detected the poisonous pride in their lives. And pride wasn’t just a problem back then, it remains a problem today. But while it’s easy to see in others it’s so hard to recognize it in ourselves (isn’t it?)

Someone once said “pride is the only disease that makes everyone sick except the one who has it.” (I like that) Those of my ageing folk-rock generation may remember the song by Carly Simon, “You’re So Vain.” Carly Simon never revealed the person the song was talking about when she wrote it, but she did date the Hollywood star Warren Beatty, who dumped her. And apparently he did call her up after the song and thanked her for writing it about him!

We could all do with the occasional slice of humble pie. And the origins of the term “humble pie’ are interesting. In medieval England, it was the nobility who got to eat the best cuts of meat from a deer. The poorer people had to eat a meat pie filled with the less desirable cuts of meat: the heart, liver and intestines. Apparently these parts of a deer were called “umbles.” So a nobleman never stooped low enough to eat umble pie, and if he were ever served it, because this would be humiliating.
And let’s face it, you don’t find a lot of people today asking, “How can I be more humble?” It’d be interesting to go into Borders and ask to be directed to the book section on “how to be a better servant.” They’d probably look at you like you’re from another planet. ‘Plenty on self-improvement and how to succeed, yet the Bible speaks over and over about the value of humility. Like Proverbs 29:23 says, “People’s  pride will bring them low; but being humble in spirit is the thing that retains honour.”

So as we close, 2 quick things about humility

The first thing is that it’s about seeing ourselves as God sees us
Let’s get this right. Humility is not about having a poor self-image – or thinking you’re a worthless wimp. It’s having an honest evaluation of who we are–as the Bible describes us. On one hand I know I’m a sinner who deserves to get my come-uppance – yet I am a child of God. Humility is found in the tension and the balance between these two realities.

Even the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 7 about how wretched he feels about being unable to refrain from sinning. He says the good things he wants to do, he doesn’t do, and the bad things he doesn’t want to do, are the things he ends up doing. What a picture of a failure! - and this from the pen of the great Apostle Paul himself. But then in the very next chapter he writes about how deeply loved we are as children of God – heirs of God with Christ. Was he confused? No, he understood the great news of the gospel – and because he knew he was forgiven and loved, attempted great things for God.

The great Christian writer, A.W. Tozer, wrote this about humility: “A humble person is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his (or her) own inferiority. He’s accepted God’s estimate of his own life. He knows he’s weak and helpless as God declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time he is in the sight of God of more importance than the angels. In himself, nothing, in God, everything.”

And then the second thing about humility is that it’s revealed by how I treat others

Humility isn’t some kind of badge we wear – like the McDonalds’s stars you see on those who serve you at the counter. The only way it means anything is if we treat others as more important than ourselves. It’s the old formula for joy, J.O.Y., - Jesus first, Others second, and Yourself third. It’s that sense of self-importance that makes us want to rush to get the best seats at the table; to get to the front of the line so we can eat before anyone else. Humility has replaced “I” with “Christ.” You can remind yourself of that if your practice is to cross yourself.

(Slow) And it’s Jesus who shows us how: Paul says this in his letter to the Philippians: “Our attitude should be that of Christ Jesus who, being in very nature God, didn’t consider equality with God something to be held onto, but made himself nothing, taking the very form of a servant...” (Philippians 2:3-6) Jesus humbled Himself to step down from the royal throne of heaven to become one of us–a human being.
Two of the greatest preachers in England in the 18th Century were John Wesley and George Whitfield. They disagreed over a point of doctrine concerning salvation: whether God chooses us or we choose God – and their disagreement and debate was a matter of public record, with supporters on both sides lined up insulting each other. Once a newspaper reporter, wanting to stir up the religious debate, asked George Whitfield the following question. “Do you expect to see John Wesley in heaven?” Whitfield replied, “I don’t expect to see Mr. Wesley in heaven.” The reporter gleefully wrote those words down knowing it would fan the flames of the controversy even higher. Then Whitfield continued. “No, I don’t expect to see John Wesley in heaven because He is such a faithful servant of God that he will be so close to the throne of God and I will be so far away, so I don’t expect to see him.” That was an answer that revealed Whitfield’s humility.
 
Sometimes, God serves us up a good slice of humble pie. It may not be our favourite food, but let’s get stuck in anyway: it’s good for us! and reminds us, as we begin a new term that all the attention needs to be focussed on Jesus!