Waiting for God to honor you

Sermon for Trinity 17

1 Samuel 2:1-10  +  Ephesians 4:1-6  +  Luke 14:1-11

A few weeks ago, we heard again Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. And, if you recall, we talked about two kinds of humility at that time: a humility before God, and a humility before men.

It’s that second kind of humility that is stressed in our Gospel for today. You may think you deserve a better place than someone else, better treatment, more appreciation, more honor. But it isn’t your place to determine that, and it certainly isn’t your place to insist on your own importance. It’s your place, according to Jesus, to choose the lowest place, and to sit there contentedly, waiting for God to honor you.

Jesus had a tough crowd for teaching such things in the Gospel: Pharisees and lawyers, including the leading men, the rulers of the Pharisees, who were notoriously not humble, before God or men, as we see in the Gospel.

They had invited Jesus to a Sabbath meal, and He had accepted. But they were “watching Him carefully,” it says, watching to see where they could trap Him in some violation of the Law of Moses. They sat up there on their lofty perch, passing judgment on the Son of God.

And as they sat up there, looking down on Him and everyone else, Jesus, who is God over all, was busy looking around for the neediest person there, the lowest person there. And He found one. There was a man with dropsy, a painful swelling in a person’s body, often in the legs, which expand outward as they fill with excess fluid. There he was at this Sabbath meal, in pain, unnoticed by the Pharisees who were busy choosing the best places for themselves at the dinner.

We hear that Jesus wanted to help the man, to heal him. So Jesus looks up to the Pharisees for guidance—though, obviously, He needed none. Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? If they say yes, they give Him permission to heal and can’t criticize Him anymore. If they say no, right there in front of one of their own who was suffering, they appear cruel. So they say nothing—a cruel silence.

Jesus doesn’t wait for their permission. He heals the man. Picture the man’s swollen limbs immediately shrinking back down to their normal size, the pain disappearing in an instant and the relief washing over the man’s face.

Again, Jesus looks up to them with another question, Which man of you wouldn’t stoop down and rescue his own animal, if it fell in a ditch on the Sabbath? They all would! And none of them would have claimed that the Sabbath Law prevented it. Did they really think the Law of Moses kept them from helping a man on the Sabbath? Why would they show more mercy to their animals than to their fellow man? And so Jesus turns the mirror of the Law back at them, so that they might see their ugliness and their pride and humble themselves in repentance. But again, they were silent.

Pride does that to a person. It makes it impossible to agree with the person you look down on, even if you know he’s right. It makes it hard for politicians to work together, hard for spouses to get along, hard for children and parents, hard for church members, if your main concern is not to let the other person win, because you might lose face.

But there’s more to learn from our Gospel. Jesus turns and looks at the guests at this Sabbath meal, all vying for the places of honor in their seating arrangement, each one deciding for himself how important he is, how he ranks among the other guests, and strangely, each one determining that he really belongs higher up than most of the rest. Each one honored himself.

It was childish behavior, but it comes naturally to all of us. We like to think we rank higher than most. We like to look down on others. And we can probably each come up with lots of reasons why we really do rank more highly than others. So if someone gets more recognition than we think they deserve, or if we get less recognition than we think we deserve, we get angry. We fight back. We push and shove our way to the place where we think we belong.

How foolish! Don’t you know who the Host is? Isn’t that what you should be concerned about, how the Host wishes to honor you? The Host is God Himself, and if He were to keep a record of iniquities, no one could stand. The moment you rank yourself above other people, the Master of the banquet will along and say, “Friend, you don’t belong in this place of honor. Someone else does. Give up your place. And since the other seats are already taken, you’ll have to go down to the bottom.”

Better than that, Jesus says, would be for you to just start out at the bottom. Assume the place of least dignity, of least honor. Sit there and wait for God to honor you.

For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”

The Almighty Lord God says He dwells with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, not with the proud. He’s the one who gives honor. He’s the one who lifts up. But He only honors from one place—from the lowest place. So choose the lowest place. So what if everyone around you gets more recognition than you do, if they have a better reputation, if they’re treated better? So what? Why do you have to insist on getting what you think you deserve? Why not be satisfied with less, satisfied with sitting in the lowest place? That is, after all, exactly what your Lord and Master Jesus Christ did, and as He says, no servant is above his master.

St. Paul reminds us of this in Philippians 2. Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Jesus pursued the lowest place for love of you, in order to serve you and to save you. And then He waited patiently for God to exalt Him again to the highest place, and He did.

You call Him Lord. You say you are His disciple. Well, then, disciple, learn from Him! And follow Him! Follow Him down, every day, to the lowest place, the place with the least honor, the place of service. That’s what love does. Love looks up, not down, because love sits in the lowest place, at the bottom of the heap. There’s only one way to look from there: up. Up at the little child who needs assistance. Up at the poor man who’s wearing dirty clothes. Up at the churchgoer who may talk differently or dress strangely. Up at the old woman crumpled up in her chair, needing help to eat.

St. Paul insists that Christ has set down a pattern for us, an example that we who bear His name are to follow. You heard it again in today’s Epistle from Ephesians 4. I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Why? What’s down there in the lowest place? Paul tells us. It’s the Church, the body of Christ. Of course it is! Where else could Christ be but in the lowest place? And where else could His body be, could His Church be, but right there with Him. There is one body. One hope of your calling. One Lord. One faith. One baptism. One God and Father of all.

And you have Jesus’ word that you won’t remain in the lowest place, any more than Jesus Himself remained there. He didn’t exalt Himself to sit at God’s right hand. The Father exalted Him in due time. And He’ll do the same for you who are in Christ. You won’t always appear weak and despised. You won’t always appear lowly and unappreciated. Eventually, the one who invited you into His Church will come and honor you.

So let the Host decide where to put you. Let the Host be the one to honor you. As for you, He has brought you all alike to this Sabbath meal today, where He grants forgiveness to all alike, where He gives the body and blood of His Son to all alike. Seek the lowest place in all your dealings with one another and in the world. And wait for God to honor you. In the words of St. Peter, All of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. Amen.