Title: You Know It Don’t Come Easy
Text: Luke 14:7-14 (14:1-6)
Thesis: Unlike arrogance, Godly humility plays well in the mind of God and the public eye… (but) The basis of godly humility is rooted in the realization that none of us brings anything to God’s table.
Introduction:
I remember when the Beatles came to the United States. Previously I had always worn a flat-top hair cut. But in the early 1960’s I began to sleep with my mother’s nylon hose tied in a knot and pulled down over my head to make my hair lay down. And though I was never as shaggy as were the Beatles… I had pretty good hair until I began wearing it short a few years ago.
The Beatles disbanded or broke up in 1970 and they all went their own ways… since John Lennon and George Harrison have died. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are still out and about. In 1971 Ringo Starr produced his signature song: It Don’t Come Easy. “If you wanna play the blues you gotta pay your dues, you know it don’t come easy.” It was a song about forgetting about the past and embracing the future. It was a song about trust, love, coming together and working things out. And the signature line woven throughout the song is, “You Know It Don’t Come Easy.” I suspect that pride or, as it were, artistic differences were at the heart of the break-up of the Beatles.
Humility apparently does not come easy… the bible has plenty to say about it:
• Solomon wrote of pride in the Book of Proverbs with memorable adages like, “God mocks the proud but gives grace to the humble” and “Pride goes before a fall” and “a man’s pride brings him low.” Proverbs 3:34; 16:18 and 29:23
• Paul wrote, “For by the grace given me I say to everyone of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.” Romans 12:3
• James wrote, “Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.” James 4:10
• Peter wrote, “Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” I Peter 5:5
Interestingly, on the night Jesus shared the Last Supper with his disciples they began to argue amongst themselves about who was going to get to be Secretary of State when Jesus established his Kingdom.
Jesus interrupted their little heated discussion and said, “In this world the kings and great men lord it over their people… but among you it will be different. Those who are the greatest among you should be of lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant. Who is more important, the one who sits at the table or the one who serves? The one who sits at the table of course. But not here! For I am the one among you who serves.” Luke 22:23-27
“You Know It Don’t Come Easy” is pretty bad grammatically but it’s true of just about anything worth pursuing. If Christ-like humility was easy, everyone would be humble. It was the lack of apparent humility that prompted Jesus to do an impromptu teaching on the subject at a dinner party.
Jesus initially directed his comments at his fellow guests.
I. Humility has to do with how you see yourself in comparison to others. (In the teaching directed at the dinner guest Jesus speaks to the issue of self-importance and specifically addressed the tension between humility and self-importance. Luke 14:7-11)
“For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Luke 14:11
In 14:1-6 Jesus had been invited to dinner at the home of a religious leader… people were watching him closely. It happened to be the Sabbath and once again there was a there person who was sick. He was suffering from some sort of edema, i.e., he was retaining fluid in his arms and legs. (I saw an episode o Downtown Abbey where, back in the day, it was referred to as “dropsy.”) This was not Jesus’ first “Healing on the Sabbath” Rodeo… In Luke 13:10-17 Jesus had shamed the leader of the synagogue for caring more for his thirsty donkey than for a woman who had suffered a debilitating illness some 18 years.
Once again Jesus acted out of compassion for a suffering person and healed the man. He then turned to those who were giving him the evil eye and said to them, “Which of you doesn’t work on the Sabbath? If your son or your donkey falls into a pit don’t you rush out to pull him out?”
Again Jesus confronted the staunchly religious Pharisees with their own hypocrisy in holding closely to the Sabbath law by prohibiting Jesus from healing a suffering person while granting themselves considerable leeway in rescuing a donkey on the Sabbath. So there is the obvious tension between the compassion of Jesus and the hypocrisy of the religious leaders.
The tension between authentic Christian character and practice and disingenuous (hypocritical) Christian character and practice is as alive and well today as ever. I imagine there are few among us who do not cast a critical eye upon others while remaining blind to his or her own failures of character. The eyes that see so clearly the evil in others are blind to the evil in themselves.
Luke 14:1-6 sets the scene with the staunchly Pharisaical guests at a dinner “watching Jesus closely.” Our text begins in Luke 14:7, “Then Jesus noticed…”
In other words while his critics were giving him the eye… he was giving them the eye right back. And what Jesus saw prompted him to give them a teaching on humility. The first, as noted earlier is directed at the dinner guests.
I generally do not relate well to these kinds of situations. I really do not like sitting at the head table because you have to behave when you sit at the head table. People can see you… you have to bring out your best manners. You can’t be pushing peas onto your fork with your thumb and wiping your mouth on the back of your sleeve. You can’t blow your nose on the cloth napkin and you have to carry on polite conversations. But mostly when I am seated at the head table I come home with massive bruising on my thigh from Bonnie pinching me to keep me in line.
But that does not mean that I am immune from feelings of self-importance and take note when I feel snubbed. Sometimes I think pastors are a necessary evil at festive gatherings. We probably would not be invited were it not necessary to have an Officiate for things like weddings and prayers at receptions.
I remember one reception at which everyone that was anyone was seated at the head table. If you had any part at all in the wedding, you had a seat at the head table. So, like an idiot, I asked the hostess where I was to sit and she said, “Oh, just find a seat somewhere and when it’s time to pray, come up to the mic and say your prayer.”
First of all, you do not say a prayer, you pray a prayer. Second, I am the Officiate… there would not have been a wedding were it not for me. Third, everyone including Aunt Martha’s prize poodle is seated and the head table and you’re sending me skulking back to the dimmest corner of the ballroom? Actually, I was relieved, but you get the idea.
This week I read that in high society the rules for seating at a lavish dinner party do not take seating married couples together into consideration… in sophisticated circles seating married couples together is not customary. Whichever spouse is most prominent or most interesting is seated more prominently.
I read an old high society joke in which the husband said, “I had to marry her. It was the only way I could avoid having to sit next to her at dinner.”
Seating order was apparently a big deal at the dinner party Jesus was attending. Commentators say that Jesus was likely the guest of honor and as such, would be seated at the head of the table. The guests then were all jockeying for seats in close proximity to the head of the table. Everyone wanted to sit next to Jesus. Scoring a seat next to Jesus would make you a more honored guest than the poor guy at the far end of the table.
In the face of self-aggrandizement and pride that wishes to be seen and honored, Jesus teaches us to do the opposite.
If humility was easy Jesus would not have to remind us to turn the other cheek. We would not feel the need to justify ourselves or get in the last word. If humility was easy we would not go around wearing our hurt feelings on our sleeves. If humility was easy we would not entertain thoughts of self-importance and entitlement.
Executive consultant Richard Hagberg tells the story of the head of a large company who was waiting in line at the DMV to get his driver’s license renewed. The line was long and he became increasingly agitated. He sized everyone up and it seemed to him that most of the people in the line were in no particular hurry and likely had nothing important to do. He grumbled to his wife, “Don’t they know who I am?” She replied, “Yeah, you’re a plumber’s son who got lucky.” (Fortune Magazine, 6/26/96, from the editors of Leadership)
Better to take a humble seat and be moved to a more honored seat than to take an honored seat and be moved to a humble seat. The path to greatness is not through demand and bravado, but through humility and service.
Jesus then turned his attention to the host of the dinner party.
II. Humility has to do with how you see yourself in relationship to others. (In the teaching directed at the host of the dinner Jesus speaks to the issue of self-serving importance and addressed the tension between humility and self-serving importance. Luke 14:12-14)
“Instead invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and blind. Then at the resurrection of the righteous God will reward you for inviting those who could not repay you.” Luke 14:13-14
Just as Jesus noticed how the guests at the dinner party were jockeying for places of prominence in the seating arrangements, Jesus noticed that the host had carefully invited people of prominence to his dinner party. Humility in the mind of Christ was not only a matter of how we see ourselves but also about how we see and treat others. In the mind of Christ humility has a very distinct sociological dimension.
The host had obviously invited his friends, family members and rich neighbors to his dinner party.
In our culture and I assume most cultures… certainly it was true of Jesus’ culture, when you have a dinner party you create a guest list and that guest list likely includes:
• People you are obligated to invite;
• People you enjoy;
• People you need to invite or have a reason to invite;
• People you simply want to impress.
Guest lists are specific. Guests are never randomly selected. People are invited because there is a reason to invite them. And Jesus called the host out… you have invited these folks because it ultimately serves your purposes or your own self-interest. These are people who are going to be grateful for having been included and will likely reciprocate. These are people who are potential clients and will likely send some business your way. These are people of influence whom you may wish to call upon for a favor someday.
Essentially, Jesus told the host he should ask the question, “Who would I not invite to my dinner party?” And then Jesus said, “Those are the people whom you should invite!”
What would be on your “Z” List of guests… who would be the last people on the planet you would wish to entertain at your dinner party? President Obama? Former President Bush? Nancy Pelosi? John Boehner? How about San Diego Mayor Bob Filner? How about some NRA people? How about some PETA people? How about Miley Cyrus? Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad?
But Jesus did not suggest to the host that he invite people of prominence. In fact, these kinds of people were the ones attending the dinner party with Jesus.
In the story, Dinner for Schmucks, a group of successful businessmen sponsor a Dinner for Winners in which each executive invites some odd or eccentric guest who has an odd or eccentric talent to showcase at the dinner. The dinner is actually not a Dinner for Winners… it is a Dinner for Losers in which the winner is actually the biggest loser.
It is a cruel dinner party in which the guests come under the pretense that they are being honored when in fact, they are being mocked.
Neither did Jesus suggest to the host that he invite odd and eccentric people for the sake of amusing your guests.
Actually, Jesus said, “You should invite people to your dinner party from whom you have nothing to gain and who cannot in any way reciprocate your hospitality.”
Jesus may have been not so subtly suggesting that it would have been nice if the host had actually invited some of Jesus’ friends to the dinner. Maybe a few prostitutes? Some homeless folks? Some panhandlers? Some special needs people? Some sick people? Some widows? His very words are: “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.”
As we move into the conclusion… in the mind of Jesus, humility is a three-tined fork:
1. Humility has to do with how you see yourself in comparison to others.
2. Humility has to do with how you see yourself in relationship to others.
3. Humility has to do with how you see yourself in relationship to God.
Conclusion:
I’m getting kind of burned out on talent shows like American Idol, The Voice and America’s Got Talent. America’s Got Talent is all the rave right now, “back better than ever.” Weekly shows are being taped live at Radio City Music Hall in New York between now and September 18. If you can’t shag tickets to see the live performance competition happening on stage, just wait, you’ll get to see it every night on NBC for the foreseeable future and likely, beyond.
Meanwhile the judges are quick to remind contestants, “This is Radio City Music Hall! You have to step it up if you are going to play Radio City Music Hall! You have to earn the right to be here!”
We are not in a contest to see who is the best at anything. We are not in a contest in which we compare ourselves to others or others to ourselves. Being humble is really about knowing and being who we are before God and others.
Humility may not come easy but perhaps the best way to understand this teaching on humility is to see God as God is and ourselves as as we actually are. In the mind of God the guest list includes anyone and everyone who does not deserve a place at the table. It is purely an invitation by grace. God sees us as we are and invites us anyway!
Closing Prayer
Lord, we are eternally grateful to you… you are a God who forgives all our sins and fills our lives with good things. You neither punish us for all our sin nor deal harshly with us as we deserve. You are a like a Father to his children showing us tender compassion all the while understanding that we are only dust – dust people.
Forgive us for our spiritual smugness… for how we over time begin to look around and believe we are pretty good people – in fact better than most. We unwittingly are a lot more like the self-righteous Pharisee who prayed, “Lord, I thank you that I am not like other people” than the broken sinner who prayed quietly in the corner, “Lord, have mercy on me for I am a sinner.”
I pray this morning that we may leave this place humbled by the realization that all our pride and and self-righteousness is pretty much filthy rags… and humbled by the realization that you invite us to your table anyway! We thank you.
Our Father who is in Heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for yours in the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
