Luke 14: 1, 7-14
Today’s Gospel lesson tells us something
Today’s Gospel lesson tells us something
about leadership and humility.
Jesus’
advice on where to sit at a banquet
is one of the most misunderstood
sayings in the New Testament
and that misinterpretation has
caused no end of trouble,
especially in the Church.
It sounds like
Jesus is advising us to use false modesty
as a backdoor way to gain prestige.
Don’t put
yourself forward if you don’t want to risk being put down.
How much
better to deliberately sit below your station
so you will be invited up higher;
and thereby win public acclaim not
only for your prestige
but also for your modesty.
The first
thing to know is that this is a Jewish joke
– but we take it seriously.
Maybe a
British joke will make the point better.
I am not a
fan of Prince Charles
but sometimes he gets it right.
He was once
given an award of some sort.
He said how
grateful and honored he was by this award
as well as all the other awards he
had received.
But he
regretted that he had never gotten an award for humility.
Actually, he
said, he had once been given a medal for humility,
but when he put on, they took it
away from him.
Our Gospel
lesson is usually read as a sneaky way
to get a medal for humility.
They
wouldn’t do this in the business world
where serious money is at stake.
They
wouldn’t do it in sports where kids on the bench
jump up and down saying “put me in
coach.”
But in
places like the Church where status is more subtle
and is achieved in far more
duplicitous ways,
we have to slip our pride in the
back door.
People are
readier to have root canals than they are
to put themselves forward to lead in
ministry and mission.
No one wants
to admit to considering himself “worthy” to lead.
We are all
too humble to do the job Christ has given us.
Back when
Agnes Sanford was the great teacher of healing ministries
in the Episcopal Church, after one
of her workshops,
a man told her he felt called to a
ministry of healing,
but
he knew he was not worthy.
Agnes
replied, “Then get worthy.”
But what about
our Gospel lesson?
Is Jesus
actually advising us to adopt a posture of false humility,
slinking into our unworthiness, wringing
our hands like Uriah Heep?
Is Our Lord
prescribing manipulative self-abasement
as a devious way to climb the social
ladder?
I don’t
think so.
Yes, he says
“whoever humbles himself will be exalted;
and whoever exalts himself will be
humbled.”
But it doesn’t
really matter
whether we humble ourselves or exalt
ourselves.
In Luke’s
Gospel the lowly are always getting exalted;
and the exalted are always being
brought low.
But then the
formerly exalted become the lowly,
who are due to get exalted again.
Meanwhile
the formerly lowly have gotten exalted
so they are the ones heading for a
fall.
The picture
of life we get from Luke’s Gospel is a see-saw.
In the words
of the Frank Sinatra classic,
“That’s life. That’s what all the
people say.
You’re riding high in April, shot
down in May.
But I know I’m gonna change that
tune
When I’m back on top in June.
I said, ‘That’s life.’”
It’s true
isn’t it? That is what happens.
But Jesus
does not agree with Frank Sinatra on one point.
All that
riding high and getting shot down are not life.
They are not
what life’s actually about.
Life is
about how we treat each other on the way up
and how we treat each other on the
way down.
The gospel
happens as truth and justice, as healing and mercy,
as relationships sparking between
such unlikely friends
as Jews and Samaritans
– of such things, the Kingdom of God
is constituted.
Those who
climb any ladder, whether it is the ladder
of government, military, business, or church
achieve a perilous
perch.
The higher
we get, the farther we have to fall.
But refusing
to step up a rung to do the job
is an act of either spiritual
cowardice or moral sloth.
We have to
be ready to rise and ready to fall for sake of the gospel.
Status is
not the thing to focus on.
Rank is
irrelevant. Authority is irrelevant. Prestige is irrelevant.
What matters
is the mission – a mission that happens
not just in the church but also in
the home, in the community,
in the workplace.
Our lesson
from Hebrews describes the mission
as hospitality to strangers, mercy
to prisoners and the suffering.
The mission
is sharing God’s love with a broken world
in tangible ways.
What matters
is the mission and the mission needs leaders.
But this kind
of mission calls for a different kind of leader.
Jesus said,
“The one who would be first among you
must be the
one who serves.”
Throughout
Luke’s Gospel, Jesus teaches
a different kind of leadership
—servant leadership.
It isn’t
about being a boss, a ruler saying “Do this. Don’t do that.”
Rulers are
the ones who take the head of the table
in an attempt to gain rank.
But it isn’t
about being a doer either.
It isn’t about
the lone ranger servant who acts alone.
Doers are
the sneaky ones who try to gain rank
by sitting at the foot of the table.
Of course it
is easier to do something ourselves
than to get someone else to do it.
And there
are advantages to doing it ourselves.
When we do
ministry on our own,
people come to depend on us
and there is a kind of power in
that.
What’s more,
if I do it myself, it gets done my way.
But if I
recruit someone else to do it,
they are apt to do it their way
– which may be right or
wrong –
but it isn’t
my way.
Pride wants
its own way.
But the
gospel leader, the Christian leader, the servant leader
is not a ruler or a solo doer.
The servant
leader get his hands dirty serving the mission
then invites,
encourages, and inspires
others to take the
mission on.
Do you see
the sacrifice, the humility it takes to be a servant leader?
It takes
empowering someone else so that they don’t depend on us
– which is a loss to our status
right there --
and it takes trusting them to do the
job their way.
Can you
imagine what it was like for Jesus at the Ascension
to hand over the gospel mission to a
bunch of goof balls
like the apostles?
After the
apostles planted churches all over the civilized world
they had to pass the job on to the
first generation of bishops
– none of whom had even met the historical
Jesus.
Jesus rose
above pride when he handed the mission over
to the Apostles.
The apostles
rose above pride when they handed the mission
over to the bishops.
The bishops rose
above pride when they ordained the priests
and entrusted congregations to their
leadership.
And so it
goes.
We rise
above pride when dare to not just do the job,
but to invite, encourage, and
inspire
someone else to share it
with us
– even take it over from us.
That’s how
we build up the kingdom of God from the ashes of our pride.
