''The beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord; the heart has withdrawn from its Maker.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
On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.
When he noticed how the guests 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: 1, 7-14
I am a great lover of nerd culture, but one series that I have actually never really followed is Star Trek. I know a few of you are Trekkies, so I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I never quite got into any of the series. But there is one episode of the original Star Trek that I have always appreciated called “Mirror Mirror.” Airing in 1967, “Mirror Mirror” introduced what the show called a Mirror Universe, where Captain James T. Kirk was evil and Mr. Spock had a goatee. Other Trek shows through the years would return to the Mirror Universe, and icons of pop culture from Superman to Transformers have tinkered with the idea of another world that is the complete opposite of ours: where up is down, left is right, and we say hello when we leave and goodbye when we arrive. It is a universe turned upside-down.
Kirk & Spock in the episode Mirror, Mirror
I often suspect that folks who heard the Good News preached by Jesus of Nazareth must have thought that he was talking about some kind of Mirror Universe; I suspect some still do. Think about it. He turns the usual ways of the world, the standards by which we have learned to order our lives, upside-down. We have been taught competition over cooperation, revenge over reconciliation, leading over following, enhancing our importance over humbly submitting to one another. When we attend a function like a dinner party, we’ve learned to scan the room to find those whom we like, with whom we want to be seen, and from whom, perhaps, we can gain some personal benefit, always keeping our eyes on the prize, on the next step up the ladder, higher and higher. Jesus’ not-so-subtle advice: reverse that strategy.
There’s something about dinner parties, am I right? Clergy get invited to a lot of them, let me tell you, and there’s a rhythm and pattern to these kinds of functions. The host is trying to make it a good experience for everyone, but when the Big Deal folks walk in, there’s extra special attention that’s paid. Not that much has changed from Jesus’ time. There’s a kind of honor that comes from both hosting such a party and being invited to it, and especially in the ancient world these parties were opportunities to define one’s honor in relation to other people. Jesus often sat and ate with Pharisees and other religious leaders, bantering about Scripture and theology, the kind of activities that Pharisees lived for, their “play for mortal stakes” to borrow a line from Robert Frost.
They thrived on these debates, especially with someone who held the level of respect and admiration as Jesus did. But as he scans the room and looks at the table, Jesus makes a suggestion that must’ve thrown folks for a loop: the next time you hold a dinner party, don’t invite your friends, your family, or the Big Deals; but rather invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, the outcast, and the socially and ritually unclean. The very folks you’d never consider, that you’d never want to sit at your table. True honor and blessing, Jesus is saying, does not come from seeking recognition and prominent stature, but by being among, living with, and ministering to these kinds of folks. This isn’t about good manners and party etiquette, this is the Kingdom of Heave; this table that Jesus is calling the host of this party to create is what it looks like, and to hammer his point home he drops a truth bomb from Proverbs, chapter 25, verses 6 and 7, which they would’ve known very well: “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Jesus at the Pharisee's dinner party.
It seems pretty clear that Jesus is giving us a lesson in pride and humility, something that is echoed in the words from the Apocyrphal book of Sirach: “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. The writer of Sirach closes out the reading today with the reminder that pride was not created for human beings, and yet, as someone in our Bible study said, we can’t seem to escape it. Why is that?
Perhaps because pride very often masks itself as humility. Consider a certain political figure who, not that long ago, gave an interview in which he said, “I have far more humility than you might think.” The humble brag. Jesus’ words could then be heard as an instruction for how to manipulate others into getting what we want – be it power, prestige, or possessions. The moment that we have convinced ourselves of our own humility – our own righteousness, if you will – is the moment when pride takes hold. We can usually be sure that this is the case if we find ourselves getting defensive when someone calls us out on it. Jesus stands, now as then, offering something besides a divinely approved way for a person to be sure that they get what they want or that they are on the side of the righteous. Genuinely taking the lower seat is one thing, but doing so hoping to get noticed and moved up is another entirely. Scholar Fred Craddock compares this moment in Luke to a cartoon, a mad dash for the lowest place, with everyone’s ears cocked toward the party’s host, waiting for the call to ascend.
Humility was a counter-cultural concept in Jesus’ day, something that, if actually lived out, could turn the world upside down. As far as Greco-Roman moral discourses were concerned, humility was rarely discussed. Today, however, it is talked about so often that it seems to have lost all meaning; and that humble brag is an everyday part of our lexicon. Real humility is hard to find, only the masquerading pride that is often a lip-service virtue. People talk about humility, but then place the very same labels of ostracization on folks that the ones around that Pharisees’ table placed on the poor and outcast. If we are to develop real humility in our lives, we must abandon any and all of our assumptions of position, our belief that we are morally right and others are wrong, that we are cool and others are mid, that we are humble and others need to be humbled. Those assumptions of position are what lie at the heart of patriarchy, white supremacy, heteronormativ, and other modern, sinful instruments for maintaining socially, politically, racially, and religiously unjust systems. What then is the solution?
Martin Luther King called it the Beloved Community. Jesus called it the Kingdom of Heaven. It is a place where all belong, or none belong. A place where quid pro quos and transactional relationships are not needed. In this community, this kingdom, love is given without anything being asked for in return. Jesus tells the host of the party to invite the very folks who he not only wouldn’t consider sitting at his table, but folks who could never invite him to their own table, folks who couldn’t pay him back. Who is that for you? Who is the person you would never consider inviting to your table, who themselves could not or would not pay you back in kind? That’s who Jesus calls us to meet and invite to the tables in our homes, the tables at our church fellowships, and especially the Holy Table of the altar. Because that’s what Beloved Community, what the Kingdom of Heaven, looks like. It ain’t exactly a perfect reflection of how things actually are, but rather it’s God’s dream for how they should be.
The clear sign of recognizing the inherent dignity in others, of cementing real Christian relationships with them, is breaking bread together. That’s the thing about a table: you can’t not be in relationship with a person when you’re sitting with them over a meal. We don’t need to build bigger walls, we need to build longer tables. Leave our positions of status, our fancy degrees, moral superiorities, and flag decals at the door because they ain’t getting us into the party. It’s only by grace, which has already invited everyone – you, me, them – and we’ve all got a seat, even the ones we might wish didn’t . Some could say it’s a Mirror Universe, an upside-down world that could never be; but don’t tell Jesus that! Because as far as he’s concerned, as far as we’re concerned, the world as it is now is what’s upside-down, it’s the mirror; the vision Jesus provides is what’s rightside-up, what’s really, really real. And that's no humble brag.
