Which Pew for You?
Luke 14:1, 7-14
Do you have your favorite pew? Most of us do. For my wife and family, most of my ministry is has been second row, right hand side. I could usually count on her being there with the kids in tow, until the kids got old enough to want to sit with the youth or on their own. For most people in churches today the plan is to get there early because the best seats fill up quickly…you know? The ones on the back row! Best seat in the house right? We jockey for that seat for numerous reasons. First, we can make a quick exit when worship is over. No standing in long lines to greet the pastor, and we can beat the Baptists to the restaurant. Secondly, there’s no one behind me to see my head nodding when I begin to fall asleep. Best seat in the house I tell you. The back row.
It’s not only at church that we seek the best seat in the house. We pay extra to get seats on the 50-yard line. We pay extra to get seats in the “Artist’s Circle” at the concert. We pay extra to be near the orchestra at the opera or the symphony. There’s something within us that drives us to want the best seat in the house. I wonder what that is? Jesus had something to say about wanting the best seat in the house in Luke 14. I want to take a few minutes this morning and look at what Jesus said…see if we can figure something out about our own lives.
Let me set up the scene for you. It’s the Sabbath. One of the leaders of the Pharisees (who would have occupied one of the “best seats” at the local synagogue) invited Jesus over for lunch after the synagogue meeting. It’s not unusual that someone would do so. It was hospitable and fashionable to invite the visiting rabbi over for dinner after church. That’s been going on for centuries. It’s only been in recent years that inviting the preacher over for Sunday dinner has fallen out of favor. Can’t figure out why that is. One of my favorite things to do is eat. I can count on both hands the number of times in 20 plus years I’ve been invited over for Sunday dinner.
It’s not like it was in the old days. I’ve heard Bro. J. Roddy tell the story of his dad, Rev. A. G. Taylor. Old Bro. Taylor was pastor at Hodge UMC when his wife was with child. The day came for the delivery of the baby, and it fell on Sunday. Rev. Taylor sent his wife to the hospital and he went to church to preach. After worship was over, Rev. Taylor had previously been given an invitation to Sunday dinner at a parishoner’s home. Rev. Taylor, with his wife in labor at the hospital, went to Sunday dinner. By the time he got to the hospital, the baby was born. That baby sits with us here this morning. It was an honor to be invited to Sunday dinner, or in the days of Jesus, to Saturday dinner. It was hospitable to invite, and it was hospitable to accept. Hospitality was big in those days!
This scene with Jesus was a set up all the way, though. Luke doesn’t specifically tell us, but he gives us a clue in verse 1: “The people were watching him closely…” Yeah, they were watching him closely, and there just happened to be a man there who needed healing. Not very likely this “leader of the Pharisees” would be concerned with a sick man. The sick man was probably just a tool to use to accomplish their purpose. This was a set up effort to trap Jesus into saying or doing something that he could be charged with.
Jesus knew the routine, too. This wasn’t the first Pharisee’s house he’d been invited to. There was Simon, the Pharisee, with whom Jesus was dining when the prostitute came in and anointed Jesus’s feet with expensive perfume and washed them with her tears. Simon thought to chastise Jesus, but Jesus figure that out long before Simon spoke. Here, too, Jesus, probably laughing to himself as he watched these invited guests scrambling for the best seat, decided to use it as a teaching moment, and as was his custom, chose to use a couple of parable to accomplish the task.
Jesus always taught in parables. There were some parables that were a bit confusing, and Jesus sometimes had to explain because even his disciples couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. Parables like the seed and the sower and the wheat and the weeds in Matthew 13. But, here, the meaning is pretty plain. There would be no explanation needed for these Pharisees. It was, quite simply, pride will get you nowhere.
Pride was a motivating factor for most Pharisees. They prided themselves on keeping the law of Moses. They prided themselves on being better than everyone else. We get a sense of the pride of some Pharisees in Luke 18. There, Jesus tells the story of two men who went to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee prayed, “I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else. For I don’t cheat, I don’t sin, and I don’t commit adultery. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.” Oh, there was a lot of pride in that prayer. Pharisees thought they had the market cornered on God. If the Jews were God’s chosen people, then Pharisees were the chosen of the chosen.
Jesus didn’t stop with a parable about pride. He jumped off into a parable about generosity, too. Well, it was about hospitality that turned into a lesson about generosity. Remember I said this was a set up. Hospitality was a critical cultural expectation in the first century. One of the worst things a person could be was inhospitable. The norm of hospitality was a tool for this Pharisee on this day. Jesus took the host’s hospitality and turned it upside down. He also took the host’s use of the sick man and turned it upside down, too. Jesus was saying, “Be careful, your pride will ultimately be your embarrassment, and be careful about the way you use people. You may think you’re feathering your nest, but you’re really not. God is watching. It’s not what you get in this life that matters. It’s what you get in the next.
I don’t think much has changed in 2000 years. That’s probably because human nature hasn’t changed in 2000 years. This “first place” mentality is still prevalent today. I’m a NASCAR fan, and perhaps the most prominent and successful driver of my generation was Dale Earnhardt. You either loved him or hated him. There was no in-between. He was driven to win, and it was win at all costs. His motto was “Second place is the first loser.” Reminiscent of what Vince Lombardi said a generation before: “Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.” I think we see that mentality most vividly lived out today in the P.E.D scandal that’s rocking Major League Baseball right now. Players are willing to destroy the integrity of the game to get the edge. Do whatever it takes to win. Win and the reward comes. A-Rod might soon discover that the reward will never come, but that like Pete Rose, there will forever be an asterisk by his name in the record books. My beloved Rangers had one of their crucial players caught in the same scandal, and he now sits at home while his teammates make a final push for the World Series. The mentality of the world says “nice guys finish last.” Really?
I don’t see too many of us out there competing for the last seat, the least-desired seat. Even we preachers want the best churches. I have to admit I’ve never seen too many preachers who felt called to a lower paying church. I’ve known a few who got sent, and not of their own accord, but no one is lining up to go to churches in the inner city. No one is lining up to serve churches in the rural areas. I don’t know what it might be in your industry, but if we seek the wrong places for the wrong reasons, if we let pride drive us, if we let pride motivate us, we might discover that we lose that which is most precious and most meaningful to us.
Jesus could tell these guests not to seek the higher place because that’s exactly what he was willing to do. He came to be a servant. He came to humble himself. He came to take the last seat. The one that no one else wanted. The one that no one else would ever have chosen. He wasn’t asking the Pharisees to do anything he wasn’t willing to do himself. I’m reminded of Paul’s words to the Philippian Christians:
3 Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. 4 Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.
5 You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.
6 Though he was God,
he did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to.
7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
8 he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
9 Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor
and gave him the name above all other names,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
There is a story told from the American Revolution. A group of new recruits was busy repairing a break in a rampart. The work was really too heavy for the size of group working on it. Their commander was shouting instructions, but was making no attempt to help them. An officer in civilian clothes rode past and he asked why the leader of the group wasn’t helping the others. He replied with great dignity, "Sir, I am a Corporal!" The stranger apologized, dismounted, and proceeded to help the exhausted soldiers himself. When the job was finished, he turned to the corporal and said "Mr. Corporal, next time you have a job like this, and not enough men to do it, go to your commander-in-chief, and I will come and help you again." The officer in plain clothes was George Washington.
The way of Christ is counterintuitive. That’s the whole point of these parables. Intentionally take the last seat. The last seat in the house is the best seat in the house. Maybe it’s the pew for you!
