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Revd. Canon Robin King & Revd. Katharine King

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29th August 2010

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More Important? Unimportant? EQUAL!

Note – there are some film clips which are integral to this sermon. To view them place your cursor over the link and left click while pressing Ctrl.

Reading:

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Jesus at a Pharisee's House

¹One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched.

⁷When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: ⁸"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. ⁹If 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. ¹⁰But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, 'Friend, move up to a better place.' Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. ¹¹For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

¹²Then Jesus said to his host, "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. ¹³But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, ¹⁴and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0DUsGSMwZY

That clip gives us a flavour of our theme this morning, a theme which starts from a couple of verse in Proverbs:

Do not exalt yourself in the king's presence, and do not claim a place among great men; it is better for him to say to you, "Come up here," than for him to humiliate you before a nobleman. (Proverbs 25:6-7a)

Bit of a warning there for anyone who thinks they’ve nabbed the best places in the pews.

But it’s mainly a guide for us this morning as we think about how we can sometimes act as if we are more important than other people.

Let me show you a film clip about a young boy called Flint .

Flint is actually very clever, but as you are about to see, he’s not very clever with people.

Clip from Cloudy with a chance of meatballs.

http://www.wingclips.com/movie-clips/cloudy-with-a-chance-of-meatballs/a-little-different

There are a couple of examples of people not treating others as equals there.

The class loudmouth was hardly being thoughtful toward Flint .

But Flint , like most of us now and then, had got it wrong too, thinking himself to be cleverer than others.

We can all imagine that we are somehow more special than others.

But we usually get caught out if we behave that way.

And then, when we wish we hadn’t, it’s like Flint said: we can’t run away from our own feet.

What we can do, though, is say sorry to God for those times when we do get it wrong.

And that’s what we’re going to do now.

Let’s spend a moment in quiet as each of us thinks of the things of this week that we need to say sorry for.

Time of confession and absolution……………..

We’ve just told God about the things we’ve done wrong this week and we’ve received his forgiveness.

That meant that we had to stop being proud about ourselves, and I think that makes God proud of us.

This next clip shows something that can happen when we make the mistake of putting our own interests ahead of other peoples.

Watch out for the girl who starts to walk behind the teacher.

Clip from The Ron Clark Story,

http://www.wingclips.com/movie-clips/the-ron-clark-story/cutting-in-line

Shameika pushing to the front of the queue, acting as if she was more important than the others in her class.

Not a good thing.

Even worse because she lied about it.

But when she did admit it and went to the back of the queue, was her teacher angry with her?

No, he said ….he was proud of her.

Just like God when we admit our faults to him.

We’re going to listen to something from the bible that tells us a bit more about not acting as if we are more important than others.

It tells us what happened one Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a well known leader of one of the religious groups.

When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honour at the table, he told them this parable: "When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honour, 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.

But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, 'Friend, move up to a better place.'

Then you will be honoured in the presence of all your fellow guests.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

Then Jesus said to his host, "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbours; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid.

But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

Let’s have another look at part of that story.

Picture it.

We’ve got people getting themselves as close as they can to their host.

He’s the well dressed man at the far end.

It looks like he’s a successful man, the sort of person people like to be seen around.

It’s a bit like when people get their picture taken next to someone well known.

It makes them feel more important.

Closest to us we’ve got a man who is holding back, his clothing is modest, he’s quite happy to let others pretend to be important.

Now we see someone who had got close to their host,

but the host has walked round behind him and is explaining that he wants someone else to come up to that place,

so this man is going to have to move down.

And he doesn’t look very happy to be told that!

Next…… the host invites the man who had stayed back and brings him right up beside him.

The host could see that this person wasn’t the sort to put on airs and graces.

He could see that this was the sort of genuine and honest person he would like to welcome.

And finally, we have Jesus explaining to the host how if,

rather than inviting those who have a lot and might invite him back to their homes,

he will be blessed if he invites instead those who can never repay his hospitality,

people like the blind beggar Jesus is describing.

There are a couple of lessons in that.

One is that if we are hosting a party we shouldn’t look down our noses at the thought of inviting those whom others don’t think important.

And the other is, making sure that you get to be right at the front isn’t always good for you.

And if you do find yourself in the best seat, you do need to pay attention to what else is happening around you.

And for all that, people do sometimes behave as if they are more important than others.

You might have seen it in the playground at school, when someone went running around expecting everyone else to move out of their way.

You might have seen it when exam results came out and some people thought they were more important than those who hadn’t got such good grades.

You might have seen it out on the roads where a driver was so determined to overtake that they forced other drivers to brake to make room for them.

You might have seen it when you have been sat with others as food arrived and, straight away, someone else has leaned over and helped themselves to the best pieces.

There are all sorts of ways in which people act as if they are more important than others.

You can probably think of times when you have seen things like that.

And, if we are really honest, we can probably think of times when we’ve done something like it ourselves.

But Jesus is telling us that this is not the way we should be.

In fact, he’s saying that we should be the other way.

That we should put the interests of other people before our own.

And we see that too.

We see that in the playground at school, when someone stops whatever they were doing and goes and sits with someone who is looking sad.

We see that in exam results when people really show their friendship by encouraging those who have not done as well.

We see it out on the roads, when a driver waves someone on ahead of them at a busy junction.

We see it at the table when someone passes the food to everyone else before taking something for themselves.

These are acts of love for other people.

Examples of valuing other people as equals, regardless of how the world might value them.

Now, I’ve sometimes made the mistake of thinking myself important and I know how embarrassing it is when we get cut down to size.

Sufficiently embarrassing that I’m not going to share any of that with you now.

But there is one experience I will share, about a time when I got it right.

It was about 10 years ago, while I was in the RAF and working in a Headquarters near Gloucester .

Sometimes, I had to travel by train from Gloucester to meetings in London .

And, although I’d never have paid for 1^st class myself,

this was in the days when I would be given a ticket for 1^st class travel when travelling on duty.

And that’s a dangerous thing – it can make you feel just a little bit superior!

Anyway, early one morning I arrived at the station, looking forward to a very comfortable journey.

And, on the platform, I happened to meet the assistant minister at our church.

We’d become friends, his name was Roger and he was the parish evangelist.

It turned out that Roger was travelling for an interview for his next appointment.

Now, Roger was paying for his own travel, so he had a ticket for standard class,

what used to be called 2^nd class – just as I would have done had I been paying.

The train pulled in. First class at the front. Second class at the back. And I had a choice.

Either I could say ‘nice to see you Roger, I’ll not be joining you as I’ll be up front in the really comfortable bit – good luck with the interview’.

Or I could say nothing and simply join him in the normal bit of the train.

So I said nothing and when the train arrived I settled in to standard class for a chat with Roger.

Anyone want to guess what happened next?

The conductor came and checked the tickets.

And rather to my embarrassment, he pointed out, in front of Roger, that mine was a 1^st class ticket.

I explained that I’d bumped into my friend and that I’d decided to travel with him.

Anyone want to guess what happened then?

Well the conductor said, ‘that’s ok – why don’t you both come on up to 1^st class?’

Why don’t you both come on up to 1^st class? You could have knocked us down with a feather.

But off we went. The conductor leading the way.

And there we were, Roger and me, seated in the very comfortable 1^st class compartment, drinking complimentary coffee, eating complimentary biscuits, and happily enjoying our good fortune!

Roger was delighted and so was I.

Now, Jesus says - when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, 'Friend, move up to a better place.' Then you will be honoured in the presence of all your fellow guests.

And roughly speaking that’s what happened on that train.

My friend and I were moved up to the better place and travelled together in the posh part of the train.

But, that’s not normally the way things happen. And it’s not quite what Jesus is saying either.

The truth is it’s far more usual for our kinder acts to go seemingly unnoticed.

But there is someone who is always watching and noticing.

Someone who knows that it’s not all about seeking rewards in this life.

Someone who tells us to build up our treasure not on earth, but in heaven.

Jesus.

And there will be a day when he is going to remind us of how we lived.

So, just as we saw with Flint and his spray-on shoes, as we saw with Shameika jumping the queue, whenever we act as if we’re cleverer or more important than others, we know that we will be embarrassed – either now or in front of Jesus.

But we also know that Jesus is really pleased about those times when we put other people’s interests ahead of our own.

Times when we don’t think about 1^st class or 2^nd class.

Times when we put others first, building up treasure in heaven.

And that’s how it is in God’s kingdom.

Because Jesus came and travelled with us,