1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word today is taken from Luke 14:1-14. Today in our Gospel reading Jesus says, “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Pride, self-exaltation over God Himself, the original sin, has broken everything. But the brokenness has been restored by Christ’s humiliation. The message today is entitled, “A Lesson in Humility,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Maybe this has happened to you while you were traveling on an international flight. You were boarding the aircraft, and your line loaded at the front of the plane, at the back of first class. Beautiful flight attendants had trays with champagne and chocolate. You looked at one with a smile on your face, but your ticket reminded you, “Not for you. Keep moving.” You turned to the right and entered the business-class section. The seats were wide. There was plenty of legroom. Each station had its own TV monitor. In the back, in the corner, there was a snack bar. People were having their glasses filled with wine and grabbing some crackers and cheese. You hesitated. As if knowing your thoughts, another flight attendant looked at your ticket, and her expression politely but clearly said, “Keep moving.” You passed through a curtain and suddenly it was a whole different airplane! Gone were the drinks, the snacks, the wide seats, and the legroom. You entered what felt like the cattle car of the airline industry. It was noisy, the seats looked way past prime, and you had to make yourself skinny between fellow passengers as you muscled your carry-on into the cramped overhead compartment. Yes, you were riding coach. At that moment, you knew your station, and you didn’t like it.
3. While our culture doesn’t spend a great deal of time on the topic of stations in life, we still evaluate ourselves in light of the people around us and determine where we fit in at work, home, school, and even church. We are consumed with the drive to advance our station in life. As our thoughts focus on ways to promote, take care of, and protect ourselves, we discover that we’ve fallen into the pit of self-exaltation. Our theme verse for today is Lk 14:11. Jesus said, “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
4. Self-exaltation shouldn’t be surprising to us. It was part of the original sin. The serpent said to Eve, “You will become like God” (Gen 3:5). As good as Adam and Eve had it in that perfect garden, they wanted more. They took the fruit and ate it, and all hell broke loose. No longer did they walk with God. They ran from God. They hid in shame. Once they knew how to speak only words of truth to God. Now they spoke lies and deception. Eve’s temptation, her sin, inspired by a desire to exalt self, broke everything. It broke their relationship with God. It broke their relationship with the world around them. It broke their relationship with each other.
5. The pain of that broken relationship can be felt as Adam, who just a few verses earlier said those tender words of love, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” now says, “It’s that woman you gave me! She did this!” (Gen. 2:23; Gen. 3:12) We’ve been using other people to leverage ourselves to a better station in life ever since. Luke 14 contains three teaching moments that describe the depth of the brokenness caused by self-exaltation. Christ came to restore our relationship with God and our relationship with one another. Through this encounter with the Pharisees and the two parables, Jesus not only demonstrates the impact of self-exaltation on our lives, but he also demonstrates our desperate need for healing.
6. Luke 14 begins by saying, one Sabbath, Jesus is invited to eat at the house of a prominent Pharisee. The text says, “They were watching him carefully.” The “they” were Jesus’ enemies, later called out as Pharisees and teachers of the law. The text says that Jesus was walking, and they were watching, waiting for the trap to close around Jesus. What was the trap? Luke 14:2 says, “Behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy.” A man suffering with dropsy. Dropsy refers to someone who has an excess of fluid that builds up in one part of the body. It’s possible that this person had just shown up, but I’d bet that he was part of a trap. You see, it’s the Sabbath. It’s illegal to work on the Sabbath. So, Jesus is walking into the room, the Pharisees are staring, and the crowds are anticipating. It all stops when Jesus looks at the man in need. “And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, ‘Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?’ But they remained silent,” Luke 14:3–4a says.
7. The Pharisees thought they could see everything so clearly, but in truth, they were blind. They didn’t see a man in need. They saw a trap for Jesus. First, will he heal on the Sabbath? Second, will he heal someone who is obviously suffering because of his sin and guilt? Self-exaltation had blinded them. Their zeal to be better became their downfall. Jesus saw a man for what he was: a child of God in need, suffering in the misery and the shame of his disease. Luke 14:4-6 says, “Then Jesus took him and healed him and sent him away. And he said to them, ‘Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?’ And they could not reply to these things.” In compassion for this broken man, Jesus spoke the words of life and healing. To be healed must have been amazing for that man, but to be seen as a possession of God would be divine. Our drive to exalt self-blinds us to the needs of others. It breaks our sense of community as we cease to notice and care for others.
8. The second event in our text comes in the form of a parable. In this parable, you are the main character: “Now [Jesus] told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, ‘When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, “Give your place to this person,” and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. . . . For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled’ ” (Luke 14:7–9, 11a).
9. When we exalt ourselves, we lose the ability to see ourselves for who we are. The lack of perspective sets us up to be humiliated. You know what I’m talking about. You’ve seen this kind of person in action, maybe at school or at work. They are quick to take credit for things they didn’t do. The thing is that everyone sees through the self-promoting efforts, but the person thinks he gets away with it. Until one day when something happens and the sum total of the efforts at self-promotion collapses because someone who sees him for what he is speaks a painful word of truth. The person in this parable took a seat of honor because he didn’t realize his own imperfections. Sadly, by taking the best seat, he missed an opportunity to be honored with the better seat. Isn’t it true, that when we try to make ourselves look better than we are in the eyes of others, we end up looking worse? Self-exaltation results in brokenness—brokenness in our identity.
10. Jesus uses another parable to describe the third brokenness of self-exaltation. Again, we are the center character. The parable is simple, and its message is profound. Jesus challenges us here in Luke 14:12: “When you give a feast, don’t invite your friends for dinner, knowing they will repay you. Invite someone that cannot repay you.” Notice this is a celebration that Jesus is talking about. Maybe it’s a job promotion. Maybe it’s a wedding. Maybe it’s the birth of a child or a grandchild. You want to celebrate, and you want people to join in your celebration. But whom do you invite? You might choose to invite your boss. There’s no better way to get brownie points. You might invite your family and friends. They may not help you advance in your status, but it will demonstrate to them just how successful you already are. The fact that they’ll feel obligated to repay you is an added bonus. You gain prestige but risk few resources.
11. While we can recognize the need to notice people and the dangers of self-exaltation, we struggle with this parable. I find it disturbing in myself that my view of hospitality is so broken that the very thing Jesus says not to do seems normal, and the thing he tells me to do seems crazy. Self-exaltation is nothing less than idolatry. It’s an idolatry that has broken our relationship with our God, with our community, with our identity, and with true hospitality.
12. “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,” but “he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:11). Humility begins with the realization that we are wrong in our thinking and rebellious in our practice. The separation of self-exaltation is defeated by Christ. Jesus humbled himself. He didn’t come to be a passenger in first class, business class, or even coach. He came to be a servant of all the passengers, that through his perfect sacrifice on the cross, the brokenness of the sin of the First Adam might be done away. With his blood, Jesus has healed the brokenness that separated us from God and from one another. In addition, he has given us freedom from the very thing that drives us to self-exaltation: fear. Listen to 1 Pet 5:6–7: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” Notice that it is our anxiety that fights against humility. We strive to exalt ourselves because we are afraid of others looking down on us. We are afraid of being weak. We are afraid of missing out. In place of fear that leads to brokenness and separation, God gives us faith and his perfect love. 1 Jn 4:18: “Perfect love casts out all fear.” Never again need we fear being overlooked and unloved, for by his death and resurrection Christ has honored us with every good thing.
13. My prayer is that, as you leave today in God’s perfect love and promised provision for life, you will embrace the newfound community we have in Christ. You will embrace your newfound community as you notice people, their needs and hopes. You will embrace your newfound community as you walk in the new identity you have in Christ. You will embrace your newfound community as you strive to practice a radical hospitality that reflects the Father’s unconditional love. This is the new we. We can lift up those in need, because Christ has said to us who were buried in coach on the airplane, “Friend, move up higher.” Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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