Trinity 17
Lk
14:1-11
10/12/14
I played the majority of my baseball
during the 1980’s, with my last year occurring at Concordia College in Ann
Arbor, MI in 1992. During that time I
had one real baseball hero: Ryne Sandberg. Sandberg played second place for the
Chicago Cubs, and even a Cardinals fan has to agree that he was a great player.
Sandberg won the Silver Slugger
award seven times as the best offensive player at his position. When he retired he had set the record for
homeruns by a second baseman, and when he hit forty homeruns in 1990 he became
just the third second baseman in history to hit forty homers in a season. Sandberg could hit, and he hit when it
mattered – his post-season batting average was .385.
Sandberg was a very good a
hitter. However, he was an even better
fielder as he won nine consecutive Gold Gloves and had a career .989 fielding
percentage – a record for second basemen.
“Ryno” as he was known won was named the 1984 National League MVP – an
award that was probably clinched by what is known in Chicago simply as “the
Sandberg Game.”
In 1984 the Cubs were competing for
their first division title since 1945. The St. Louis Cardinals game to town in
the heat of the division race. It was the
NBC Game of the Week on TV. With the Cubs down 9 to 8 in the bottom of the ninth
Sandberg stepped to the plate to face closer Bruce Sutter. Sutter had been once been a Cub, and was a
dominant closer, getting 45 saves that year.
However on this day Sandberg hit a
homerun to tie the game and send it into extra innings. In the tenth the Cardinals scored two
runs. Sandberg again came to the plate
in that inning to face Sutter with a man on base. In a moment filled with drama, Sandberg again
homered off of Sutter and Bob Costas who was calling the game exclaimed, “Do
you believe it?!” The Cubs went on to
win the game and the divison.
Ryne Sandberg was a great player – he
was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2005. But the thing I really
admired about Sandberg was that he was such a humble player. Sandberg never called attention to
himself. On the field he went out and
played the game the right way. He let his hitting and fielding do the
talking. Of the field he was quiet
person who never said anything to take the spotlight.
Humility is in short supply today among
our sports and entertainment celebrities.
Instead, in them we see writ large the character of our times. We live in the age of the “selfie” and
Twitter and Instagram – an era when people are calling attention to themselves
all the time. Life is a competition to
see who can get the most attention - even if someone is famous because they are
infamous.
In our Gospel lesson this morning,
our Lord teaches us that this is not the way things are to work for those who
believe in Jesus Christ. Instead Jesus’
way of doing things turns everything upside down – it is the exact opposite of
the world. Jesus tells us that “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” This is the way that Jesus has
acted for us. And now we are called to
live in this way too.
In our text, Jesus is eating on the
Sabbath in the home of a ruler of the Pharisees. The Pharisee probably had Jesus there for two
reasons. First, Jesus was a religious
celebrity. But more importantly, this
was an opportunity for the Pharisees to catch Jesus in something, and we are
told that they were watching him carefully.
However, Jesus was watching them
too. He noticed that everyone was
jockeying for the best spots at the meal – the place of honor. Status and honor were huge in the first
century Palestinian world. They were
communicated in a variety of ways, including very clear social expectations
about the seating arrangement at meals.
Jesus used the opportunity to tell a
“parable.” Now we are used to a parable
sounding like the parable of the prodigal son or the good Samaritan. We expect
a story. However the word “parable” has a much broader meaning, and its use
here signals the fact that what our Lord has to say goes beyond the topic it
addresses. Jesus may be talking about
table etiquette, but in fact he is teaching about something far more profound.
Jesus says, “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. The
Lord says that a person shouldn’t be presumptuous and take a place of honor at
the table, because someone with more status may have been invited. If that
happens, the person will face the humiliation of publicly being sent down to a
less honorable spot.
Instead, Jesus teaches, “But when
you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes
he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the
presence of all who sit at table with you.” Jesus says to take a place at the
table beneath one’s station, because then the person will receive the honor of
being invited in the presence of everyone to move up higher to a more honorable
position.
Now all of this is sound advice. But
in his explanation at the end of our text we begin to realize that Jesus is
actually speaking about so much more.
Jesus says, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who
humbles himself will be exalted.”
This phrase signals the true meaning
of the parable. Later in this Gospel,
Jesus tells the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisees boasts in prayer about how
great he is – so much better than the tax collector over there. On the other hand the tax collector would not
even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God, be merciful
to me, a sinner!” And then Jesus says, “I tell you, this man went down to his
house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be
humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Our Lord says that those who humble
themselves receive forgiveness. Those
who confess their sin and repent; those who turn alone to Christ in faith have
their sins taken away.
Of course, that’s the challenge for
you. You live in a world that has little
place for humility. It has even less for
the idea that there are thoughts, words and actions that are wrong – that are
sinful. The world is all about your “rights” – your right to do what you want;
your right to be what you want. The only real limitation you face … is you.
And yet, this way of life brings grief
and pain. For you see when you choose to
do things “your way,” you often reject God’s way. And because God is the One
who set up the way things work, you can’t escape the consequences of your
actions. Your way hurts family and
friends as it fracture relationships.
Your way alienates you from God, and because you were created for
fellowship with God it can only leave you with a gnawing emptiness. As St. Augustine wrote, “The heart remains
restless, until it finds its rest in God.”
Because we act in this way, the Son
of God humbled himself. Sent by the
Father in the incarnation, he lived in this world and did not use his power to
help himself. Instead, he helped
others. He willingly walked the way of
suffering that led to the cross and there he died for sins that he had not
committed. He received God’s wrath and punishment against your sin and in doing
so he has won you forgiveness. Then on the third day he rose from the dead as
he defeated death, and in his ascension he was exalted to the right hand of
God. The One who served in humility now rules in might.
Because he is the crucified, risen
and exalted Lord, Jesus now gives forgiveness to all who humble
themselves. Peter and the apostles
proclaimed after the ascension of Jesus that, “God exalted him at his right
hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of
sins.” Our Lord calls sinners to
repentance. As he said during his
ministry, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are
sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Jesus calls sinner to repentance. He calls
them to humility, so that he can exalt them with forgiveness.
However, the truth of this morning’s
parabolic statement goes beyond repentance and forgiveness, because that
forgiveness is the foundation for a new way of life. Jesus humbled himself for us and served. At
the Last Supper, as Jesus was about to serve us in suffering and death, his
disciples began to argue about who was the greatest. Jesus said to them, “The kings of the
Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are
called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you
become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the
greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who
reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.”
Our Lord humbled himself for us, so
that now we can humble ourselves for others.
We have been served, so that now we can serve others in our family, in
our school, in our workplace and in our congregation.
This humble service is not something
we can do on our own. Instead, the One
who humbled himself for us enables us to live in this way through the work of
his Spirit. On the day of Pentecost the
ascended Lord gave the gift of the Holy Spirit. Peter declared, “Being
therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father
the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are
seeing and hearing.”
Christ has given us his Spirit
through whom we have been born again in Holy Baptism. The resurrection power of the Spirit who raised
Christ is now at work in us so that we can render humble service to others.
In doing so, we follow the way that
Jesus has set before us. And like Jesus
this way of humility doesn’t remain in humility because God is a God who works
a great reversal. As Mary said in the
Magnificat, “he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted
those of humble estate.” Those who walk the humble way of service in Christ
receive the exaltation of the resurrection and life with the Lord on the Last
Day. As Jesus says in our text this morning, “For everyone who exalts himself
will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
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