'The beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord; the heart has withdrawn from its Maker. For the beginning of pride is sin, and the one who clings to it pours out abominations. Therefore the Lord brings upon them unheard-of calamities, and destroys them completely. The Lord overthrows the thrones of rulers, and enthrones the lowly in their place. The Lord plucks up the roots of the nations, and plants the humble in their place. The Lord lays waste the lands of the nations, and destroys them to the foundations of the earth. He removes some of them and destroys them, and erases the memory of them from the earth. Pride was not created for human beings, or violent anger for those born of women.'
--Sirach 10: 12-18
'Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. '
--Hebrews 13: 1-3
'When Jesus noticed how the guests [at a dinner party] chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, `Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at 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 the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."
He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."
--Luke 14: 7-14
In March of 1946, President Harry Truman was on a train to Fulton, Missouri with former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. According to Churchill historian Richard M. Langworth in his compilation Churchill By Himself, an exchange between the two leaders came up about the current Prime Minister Clement Attlee. Truman said, “Clement Attlee came to see me the other day; he struck me as a very humble man.” To which Churchill replied, “He has much to be humble about.” I’ll admit, I didn’t really know what this quote meant when I first saw it, but as I did a little more research and learned about the opinion that Mr. Churchill held of Mr. Attlee, the full meaning of the saying became clear: he has much to be humble about because he has nothing to be proud about because he hasn’t actually accomplished anything. Winston Churchill with the Zing of the Day!
I wonder what Mr. Churchill would think, then, of our readings for this week– probably not much, since by his own admission, he was agnostic in his adulthood, despite being baptized and confirmed in the Church of England. His quip at the expense of his successor, though, does speak to a struggle that Christians face on seemingly a daily basis, which is the tug between pride and humility, and each of our readings today can help us address that tug in ourselves.
The very first sentence we read this week from the Apocryphal Book of Sirach is “The beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord; the heart has withdrawn from its Maker.” Personal pride is what leads to not only an individual’s downfall but also the downfall of entire societies. When we remember that Sirach and other books of the Apocrypha were written not in Hebrew but in Greek at a time when the Jewish people had no physical Kingdom of Israel anymore and had been dispersed throughout lands that were not their own, we can see how the message being conveyed is that personal pride and a lack of humility are what led to outside forces taking over and scattering the Jewish people. Whole nations rise and fall because of pride, which, the writer says in that last verse “was not created for human beings.”
We’ve read a lot from the Letter to the Hebrews lately, and this week marks the last day that we will do so this year. The unknown writer of this letter – or sermon, as some scholars have referred to it – calls the hearer to “let mutual love continue.” Mutual, meaning it is not focused on a single individual, but rather is communal and shared. “Be free from the love of money” and “be content with what you have,” the preacher continues. This is a call to exercise humility and avoid that sin of pride.
And Jesus, picking up right where he left off last week, admonishes his audience at a dinner party who are concerned with having the best seats of honor. As we have heard time and again, Jesus’ audience was often too proud to admit that they were more concerned with the letter of their law than the spirit and often didn’t realize they were following their society’s standards rather than God’s. Those standards turn the society upside-down, as Jesus paints the picture of a party where folks don’t seek the important positions but instead seek out the humbler ones. For as Jesus puts it, “those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
So, ok, the message is clear: be humble, don’t be proud. But it’s not always that easy. We use that word ‘proud’ all the time. I’m proud to be a priest and to be rector of my parish here in Asheboro, where. I’ve heard folks say everything from "I’m proud of my child for graduating from college!" to "I’m proud to be a Carolina Panthers fan!" (actually, I heard that a lot in 2015, not so much since). Perhaps in those cases pride isn’t being used the same way that the writers of Sirach, Hebrews, and the Gospel of Luke are thinking.
And on the flip side, there are lots of folks that we see every day who sort of flaunt their humility by making sure that everyone knows that they really don’t care about all their accomplishments, even though they sure all of their friends know about those accomplishments and the fact that they don't care about them. We can all name folks we know like that. So, then, in those cases, humility isn’t entirely a good thing. Once again, binary, black-and-white, good-and-bad thinking doesn’t exactly help us address that daily tug between pride and humility. It's not as simple as one is good and the other is bad.
So what does real humility look like? And what might a healthy kind of pride look like? The answer, I suspect, also lies in our texts for this week and a third theme that is at play: hospitality.
In my parish everyone is familiar with hospitality; after all, we are good southern folk who like a good southern dinner party. I’ve been to several in their houses, and they are fantastic. In both Hebrews and Luke we get a glimpse of what authentic hospitality looks like. The author-preacher of Hebrews tells the audience to not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so some have entertained angels without knowing it. This isn't just a pretty piece of prose, but it is a reference to the story in Genesis, when Abraham and Sarah feed the three heavenly strangers. In other words, welcome anyone and everyone to your table, for by doing so you are welcoming God.
Meanwhile, Jesus, who remember is speaking at a dinner party, tells his host that the next time he has a party, not to invite his friends but to invite the poor, the crippled, the outcast, basically anyone who is ritually unclean – the folks no one would ever willingly invite to a party. Why does he do this? Because while hospitality was an essential part of what it meant to be a person of faith in Jesus' time, he recognized that hospitality as a common practice had become something of a self-serving practice, a quid-pro-quo, if you will – I will invite the important people to my party, so that they will invite me to theirs. The kind of invitation Jesus tells his host to offer the next time he had a party is a form of hospitality that is without reciprocity, without being transactional, without the need for recognition or getting something in return. Biblical scholar Fred Craddock, in his commentary on Luke’s Gospel, put it this way: “Hospitality, then, is not having each other over on Friday evenings, but welcoming those who are in no position to host us in return.”
That brings us back to here and now. What is the sign of true humility? It sounds like Jesus is telling us that true humility is simply doing something without expecting any sort of recognition, reward, or reciprocity. That’s what the Holy Table, the church altar, represents. It's a place where people come and are fed, no questions asked, no expectations, no payback or favor expected after the fact. The Church, at its best, is such a place, where the only concern is caring for the people of God both inside and outside the walls, expecting nothing from them in return.
Last week, when I was reading these texts and thinking about what a genuine kind of hospitality looks like, I couldn't help but be reminded of the Newcomers Dinners, which were hosted by an elderly stateswoman in our parish in the Before Time. Those gatherings, which I pray will continue one day soon, looked quite a bit like the Holy Table, and like the table where we find Jesus in the Gospel text this week. There, I got to see strangers become friends, where people were fed by food, yes, but more so by the relationships that were forged through the presence of God.
Our Mission Outreach Committee has also been trying to get things back off of the ground in the wake of COVID, and they are exploring ways to not just give financially to partners in our community but be on the ground with them to do the very Gospel-centered work that they and we are called to. I see in them also a group of faithful Christians seeking to live out their baptismal promises to serve others without expecting them to pay it back.
At the end of the day that’s what matters. Not our accomplishments or accolades, not whether or not a quip gets attributed to us and quoted some eight decades later, but how much we set our own need for approval to the side for the sake of the Kingdom of God, which is not something far off, but is right here, right now, for us to cultivate.
We don’t have to think of it in terms of “I have to humble, so that I do good, so that God will be pleased.” That’s a false humility that leads to pride, the bad kind of pride, anyway that tells us that all that matters is what we have and what others think of us. But healthy pride is joy, which swells in our hearts and comes when we recognize we part of something bigger than ourselves, a gratitude for what we have become and what we will become. It is, in fact, an outgrowth of true humility, which we nurture through our personal and communal practices of hospitality. If we think of it less as a tug and more as an integration, then what we’ve received this week is definitely Good News!