August 31 – Sermon
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, through the death and resurrection of Your Son, Jesus, You have given us the gift of Your love, redemption, and the hope of life eternal in Your heavenly kingdom. Please O God, help us to realize our dependence upon Your grace for our lives, and empower us to care for others as Your forgiven disciples. This we ask in Christ’s Holy name. Amen.
I would like Your opinions on a few things this morning. I will say a word, and you will tell me if it is “good” or “bad”. Here we go.
– God
– The Devil
– The Minnesota Vikings
– The Green Bay Packers
– Vanilla Ice Cream
– Chocolate Ice Cream
– Cleaning the house
– Mowing the lawn
– The back Row at a Concert
– The back Row at Worship
We all have our own ideas about what is good and what is bad, what is pleasant and unpleasant, what is appropriate and what is inappropriate. It all depends on our perspective, or our experience, or our perception of ourselves.
In our Gospel text, Jesus was invited to a dinner in the home of His adversaries. The Pharisees didn’t like Jesus, but they wanted to scrutinize Him, so they invited Him to a dinner party. When Jesus arrived, He noticed the guests were racing to take the best seats. They wanted to sit up front where they could see and be seen. They wanted to rub shoulders with the people in power and be the first to eat. Jesus also noticed that the people who sat down front were wearing fancier clothes, more jewelry and were quite noisy– another means to gain attention. Jesus noticed that those in the back of the room were not dressed as well, had little or no jewelry, and they waited quietly.
Looking at the beautiful people, Jesus said “You should really be ashamed of yourselves for taking all the best seats thinking you deserve them! You should really be ashamed of yourselves for thinking you are better than those who sit behind you! Or that those people deserve to sit in the back! In my Kingdom, if you make yourselves great you will be humbled, and everyone who humbles themselves will be made great!”
What do you think would have happened if Jesus sat down in the back and told everyone to turn their seats around? The great were humbled, and the humble were made great.
But Jesus wasn’t finished. He turned to the host and scolded him for inviting only his favorite people to his party–guests who were healthy, wealthy and proud. So Jesus said, “I’ve noticed that your guests are either related to you or will pay back the favor when they invite you to dinner.” Then Jesus said to the host “I dare you to invite only homeless beggars—the least and the lost, into your home.” And suddenly the proud had been humbled, and the humble became proud. Humility is one of the important marks of God’s kingdom. Humble people make good disciples; proud people have difficulty following. So are we among the proud…or are we among the humble?
I can’t answer for you. I can only answer for me. When facing the truth do I like to rub shoulders with those who are popular, wealthy, members of the country club? Am I willing to rub shoulders with the stranger, and the homeless, and the poor?
So in this text, Jesus is speaking directly to you and me: Jesus says, “Everyone who makes himself or herself great will be humbled and those who make themselves humble will be great.”
With society screaming for us to be number one and Jesus whispering in our ears to be humble, faithful servants, we find ourselves struggling to obey Jesus’ call.
False humility—telling others that we don’t have many talents or abilities is not the way to humble, faithful service. Authentic humility cannot be based on a lie.
Humble, faithful service is based on the cross of Jesus.
• Through the cross, we know that we are loved.
• Through the cross, we know that we are forgiven.
• Through the cross we know that God has a relationship with us and will never be separated from us.
Jesus took away our need to be number one, through the cross. We no longer need to be great in order to please God. We no longer need to be number one in order to be saved.
The scene at the end of the gospel reminds us that the cross of Jesus Christ is good news for all of us.
Without the cross of Jesus Christ, we would be doomed to live out our lives as failures—accounting for nothing.
We all come as beggars, in need of God’s redeeming grace.
Only through the cross of Jesus Christ, are we given places of honor in God’s kingdom. No matter what our abilities, limitations or achievements, we are loved and forgiven by the Lord our God.
Knowing who we are, we can strive to live lives pleasing to Him and forget about trying to impress others.
Knowing that we are loved and forgiven we can concentrate on faithful service that will touch lives and transform the world in which we live. May God, through His grace and the power of His Spirit, give us the power to amend our lives, that we might truly reflect his grace to others.
Amen.
