Sermon text: Luke 14:1,7-14
Sermon
Do you know who George Stephanopoulos is? He served in the White House under President Clinton. In a book he wrote about the experience Mr. Stephanopoulos describes how members of the President’s staff would scramble and scratch and fight to get the “best” office. You might think that the best office would be the largest or the one with the best view of the Rose Garden. Not so. The best offices are the ones closest to the Oval Office. Even if the room isn’t any bigger than a closet, staffers don’t mind. Because the closer you are to the Oval Office the more chance you have of interacting with the President and influencing him. You can understand why people are so eager to have the “best” office in the White House.
You can understand this because you have experienced the same sort of thing in your own life. We all have. From the time we are very little children we want the best for ourselves. Unfortunately, we even want the best for ourselves at the expense of others. We want to be the favored child in our family. We want to be the favored student in the classroom. We want to be the favored employee at the workplace. It all stems from an inflated view of ourselves and an unloving view of others. This morning Jesus is going to address this attitude very directly. This morning “Jesus Puts Us In Our Place.” He does this, first, by pointing out our pride.
Pointing Out Our Pride
Jesus was having dinner at the home of a prominent Pharisee. The Pharisees were religious elites who were in grave spiritual danger. Their problem was pride. Jesus watched as guests hurried to sit at the most important places at the dinner table. Jesus used a parable to warn them about their pride: “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this man your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place” (vv. 8,9). Jesus did not tell this story to help those men avoid an uncomfortable social situation. He was warning them about an extremely dangerous spiritual situation. They were filled with pride.
Pride is as dangerous a spiritual foe as we will ever face. Pride destroys our relationship with God and with other people. Take the meal Jesus was observing as an example. Each time one of those men sat down at a prominent place at the table, what was he saying about the OTHER men at the meal? He was saying that they were inferior. That is pride.
Pride makes me compare myself with others in such a way that I come out on top. C. S. Lewis wrote this about pride, “Now what you want to get clear is that Pride is ESSENTIALLY competitive – is competitive by its very nature…Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest” (Mere Christianity)
Nothing is more dangerous than this attitude. Here is why: Once I believe I am better than others it means I must be at least a little more deserving of God’s favor. And now I have really done it. Now I have placed myself on the thinnest possible spiritual ice. I am only one step away from thinking I DESERVE God’s favor. And if I deserve God’s favor then I don’t need anyone to earn God’s favor for me. I don’t need Jesus.
How proud are you? Ask yourself honestly, if all the people here today were sitting to sup with our Savior, where would you put yourself? Surely you are a better Christian than SOME of the people here today – perhaps even better than MOST of the people here. Surely you attend church more frequently, listen more attentively, give more generously. You have been a member longer than many of these others. That must count for something. Or you are new enough not to be “stuck in the mud” like so many of those around you. Surely God must be grateful to finally have someone like you in His church so that things can get done and get done right.
Do you see how devious pride is? It can sneak in at any point. It will find its way into any heart. Perhaps some of you, when I asked where you would sit at Jesus’ banquet table, thought, “I would sit all the way at the end. I deserve God’s favor less than anyone here.” Good! That is a good start. But be careful! You are not out of the woods. Pride is crouching right behind you. You are just one thought away from thinking, “Look at how humble I am! I’m certainly humbler than these other people. They probably think they should sit right next to Jesus!” Just like that <snap> pride has invaded your heart. You have become proud of how humble you are. Do you see why pride is so dangerous? It’s like ants in your house. Somehow, they find a way in. No matter how much you spray, no matter where you caulk, there they are again!
This is why we need Jesus to put us in our place. We need His law to crush our arrogant hearts every day. It’s not a one-time thing. If we overcome pride in one area of our life it will inevitably pop up in another. Have you ever seen the game Whack-a-Mole? These moles pop up out of their holes one at a time and when they do you whack them. That’s what we need God’s law to do to our pride every day. It raises its ugly head in this area of my life and God’s Word whacks it down. It pops up over there and God’s Word whacks it down. This will go on for the rest of our time here on this earth. We will never be fully rid of our sinful pride until we reach heaven.
But this does not mean we should not work at it. It is why we MUST work at it. Just because you will never be fully rid of weeds in your garden doesn’t mean you stop pulling them. If you stop pulling weeds they will completely take over. That is what will happen if I am not hearing God’s Word regularly. The weeds of pride will just keep growing with nothing to stop them.
We need Jesus and his Word to put us in our place by pointing out our pride. Only by recognizing our pride will pride be overcome. C. S. Lewis put it this way, “If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realize that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed” (Mere Christianity). “Jesus Puts Us In Our Place” by pointing out our pride. And that is the first step.
Placing Us At His Side
But it is not the only step. If this were the end of our sermon you might walk away thinking that our Christian existence must be nothing more than a miserable, self-loathing, joyless journey we suffer through until we reach heaven. But listen again to Jesus’ words, “…he who humbles himself will be exalted” (v. 11). When “Jesus Puts Us In Our Place” He does more than point out our pride. He places us at His side. Crushed by the knowledge of our sin, we come before Him on bended knee begging His forgiveness. And what does He do? He says, “Look up! Stand up! You were baptized into my family. You have been washed clean of your sin. You are a child of the King. You are My brother. You are My sister. Come, take your rightful place at My side.” St. Paul reminds us of this in Ephesians 2:6, “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms.” You have the place of honor at our Lord’s table, not because you deserve it but because He has earned it.
So, we leave today with heads held high, not because we are looking down on others but because we are looking up at our Lord Jesus. We leave here proud, not of ourselves but of our King. As Martin Luther wrote, “Therefore let us say to God: Oh, how gladly are we empty, so that you may be full in us! Gladly am I weak, so that your strength may dwell in me! Gladly am I a sinner, so that you may be justified in me! Gladly am I foolish, so that you may be my Wisdom! Gladly am I unrighteous, so that you may be my Righteousness” (What Luther Says #2097)! May this be our attitude so that we say with gratitude, “Thank you Jesus, for putting me in my place!” Amen.