Trinity 17 October 4, 2020 The Sunday of Humility
Trinity 17
Luke 14:1-11
October 4, 2020
“Come Up Here”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
It’s your turn to clean up after supper so you’re at the sink rinsing and washing dishes. And your Mom comes in and says, “Wow! You are really good at doing the dishes!” Now you have mixed feelings about this statement from your Mom. On the one hand, you always like to be praised. But on the other hand, who wants to be good at doing the dishes?! Yikes, that might mean you have to do more dishes. So maybe you should NOT be quite so good at the dishes. The trick every husband has tried before—you stink at doing the dishes and hope you never have to do them.
There are some things we don’t know if we really want to be good at. “Would you take out the trash? You’re really good at that.” “Would you change your little brother’s diaper? You’re really good at that.” Would you go and talk to so-and-so? You’re really good at listening to people’s problems.” Or “He’s really angry. Would you go talk to him? You’re really good at that.” Yikes. And you know what Christians are supposed to be good at? All of those. Yes. In one word, Christians are supposed to be good at humility. And at first glance that’s one of those things you’re not sure you really want to be good at. Because it’s hard. And it’s humiliating. It’s hard to be like Jesus.
It’s easy to be like the rest of the world—to be selfish. To put ourselves before others. To care, first and foremost, about our own pleasure and comfort. That’s easy. It’s easy to think everyone else should do the dishes, and take out the trash, and change the diapers, and listen to others. It’s easy to be proud. To think we’re more important than others. To think our time is more valuable than other people’s time. To think we know better than everyone else. To think we’re smarter. To think everyone else should be catering to us rather than us catering to them. To think everyone else should be humble.
But you, O Christian, have been called to be different than the world. You Christian are urged, in the reading today from Ephesians 4, to walk in a manner worthy of Jesus and worthy of the calling to which you have been called—to walk with all HUMILITY. This is a high calling. It’s the calling of Jesus Christ. To be good at humility.
Everywhere Jesus went He came across people not as important as Him, people not as smart as Him, people not as kind as Him, people who were evil sinners, people who were out to take advantage of Him. And yet still, everywhere Jesus went He came across people whom He decided to love and people whom He decided to serve. Everywhere He went He took the lowest seat at the table so that He could put others before Him.
Just look at the Gospel reading today. Jesus is at a dinner party with the Pharisees. You might logically ask yourself, “Why in the world would Jesus go and eat dinner with people who were out to get Him?” That’s a good question. And the answer is because Jesus is different than all of us sinners. He loves even the very people who are watching Him carefully, bringing Him sick people on the Sabbath day hoping that Jesus will heal them and they can get Him in trouble for healing on the Sabbath. How does Jesus love these people? Because He puts them before Himself.
Many other times Jesus is found eating at the tables of tax collectors and sinners. Why does Jesus go eat with these people? Doesn’t He have any pride? No, He doesn’t. He’s good at humility.
And you and I, all of us, are people that Jesus shouldn’t love. Jesus is better than us and He should look down on us. He’s smart and we’re dumb. He’s strong and we’re weak. He tells the truth and we lie. He is kind and good and we’re mean and evil. He’s pure and clean and we’re dirty. You’re not good enough for Jesus. You don’t deserve to sit at the same table with Him. And you certainly don’t deserve for Him to love you.
But if you humble yourself before Jesus, if you take the lowest seat of humility, if you confess your sins to Him, if you recognize that you are nothing and He is everything—then you will hear from Jesus three of the best words in the world—“Come up here.” That’s from Proverbs 25 today. The King says, “Come up here.” Or in the Gospel reading from Luke 14, Jesus says the host will say to you, “Move up higher.” Take your pick which three words you like better—“Come up here” or “Move up higher”. Either way, the point is that whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
When you humble yourself before Jesus, He asks you to come up here with Him. To move up higher to a life of real purpose and significance. He invites you to be good at all the things you’re not sure you want to be good at—the things that Jesus is good at—serving, listening, forgiving, giving, working. He invites you to humility.
Let me drive the point home if you will. What are Christians to be good at? Are we to be good at sports, great at music, good at making money, good at making a name for ourselves, good at moving up in the world, good at being better than others? No! You may very well be good at some of those things but that’s only because God may choose to bless you. But what you, Christians, are to be good at above all is humility. “I urge you, Paul says, to walk in a manner worthy of your calling—to walk with humility and gentleness, with patience.” You are to be good like Jesus. Which is to say, people should look at you and say, “Wow! You are really good at caring for other people.” Bingo! You are really good at using God’s gifts to bless others.
Today I want to give you three chairs of humility. Jesus says we should take the lowest seat at the dinner table. The lowest chair. Well, these are three lowest chairs of humility. Three chairs that you, as a Christian, learn to sit in through the help of the Holy Spirit.
The first chair of humility that you should sit in is the chair of confession. You should learn to confess the truth—that you are no better than any other person. Really consider that. You should sit down in that chair of humility and be able to say, “Truly there is no one who is worse than me. I, like Paul says, am the chief of sinners, the worst of sinners.”
We find it very easy to pick out all the ways other people are worse than us. We say things like, “I know I’m not perfect but at least….at least I don’t do that.” But we need to plop our butts down in this last chair at the table and humbly say, “I’m the worst.” And then Jesus will lift us up and say, “Yes, you’re right. Come up here with me because I forgive you and I’ll now show you what other two chairs of humility to sit in.”
The second chair of humility is the chair of patient endurance. This is the chair you must sit in when other people do wrong things to you. There are actually times when we are right and others are wrong. But that doesn’t mean you go out and shove it in their face that you’re right. No. That means you sit in this second chair of humility and you say, “Yes, I’m right in this case and they are being unfair and hurtful and wrong. But I will deal with it. I will be patient and entrust it to the Lord. I will pray for them and humbly accept what the Lord brings.” You may certainly make the loving case that you are right. But when they won’t accept it then you must patiently suffer.
Let me see, who is it that patiently suffered when He was right and others were wrong? Oh yes, of course, that was Jesus. And He has invited you to come and sit in His chair of humility. To be patient when others are wrong and you’re right.
And, finally, that brings us to the third chair of humility, the chair of submission. This is the chair where all the work gets done. This is the chair where we sit in to work for others, to submit ourselves to others. This is the chair where we submit to our parents and obey them, where we submit to our children to teach them, clean up after them, discipline them, do their dirty laundry. This is the chair where we submit to our husband to respect Him and encourage Him. This is the chair where we submit to our wife to love her and protect her and praise her and devote ourselves to her. This is the chair where we submit to our leaders and pray for them. Where we submit to our co-workers and support them. Where we submit to our friends and listen to them. This is the chair where we work.
All of these chairs are high callings—because they’re all the chairs of Jesus. And we know where Jesus is seated—at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Whoever here on this earth humbles himself like Jesus will in the life to come be exalted to all the glory of Jesus.
So what do you want to be good at? I urge you to be good at sitting in the lowest seat. I urge you to be good at sitting in the chairs of confession and patience and submission. I urge you to be good at humility, gentleness, patience, and peace. I urge you to be good at doing the dishes, taking out the trash, listening to people’s problems, and generally being like Jesus. Because Jesus has been good to you and seen you in your humility and said, “Friend, come up here.” In Jesus’ name. Amen.