Pros
update
24 April 08
A Totally New Way of Looking at Yourself (part 1)
‘When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast do not sit in a
place of honour, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by
him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your
place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the
lowest place. (Luke 14:8-9)
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles
himself will be exalted (14:11)
One of the great blessings of the good news of Jesus is that when it
starts to shape your life then it gives you a totally new self-image.
Here I’m not talking about how others look at you, but how you look at
yourself. To put it plainly you stop thinking that the world revolves
around you.
The backdrop to this parable is important because it explains what Jesus
is teaching through it; He is diagnosing the attitudes of the Pharisees
that have led to the complete social dysfunction of them trying to use
the marginalised of society for their own ends. He teaches that the root
of social dysfunction lies in pride – a view of yourself that puts you
at the centre of everything, or as Jesus puts it in the parable, a view
of yourself that thinks you deserve ‘the place of honour’ at the feast.
Jesus teaches us that the gospel gives us a totally new self-image by
showing us the inevitable consequence of taking the top-seat.
The inevitable consequences of taking the top-seat
‘Do not sit in the place of honour, lest someone more distinguished than
you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to
you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with
shame to take the lowest place.’ The world of sport is a place of
self-promotion and self-exaltation. How often do we hear sportsmen and
women claiming to be ‘the greatest’ or pointing to themselves courting
the applause and the accolades? This is the mindset of the person who
wants the top-seat but Jesus teaches that in the end ‘you will begin
with shame to take the lowest place’. He is saying that this proud
self-image inevitably leads to shame and dishonour.
Why will this happen?
First Jesus teaches that if you think the world revolves around you then
shame and dishonour come when you encounter someone better than you. How
true is this of the world of sport? Those who set themselves up as the
greatest are seen as those to be knocked off the top. You may well
think, ‘but what’s wrong with not being top – is second place really
that bad?’ Well no of course it’s not, but the problem is that if you
make the world revolve around you then you won’t be able to settle for
second place – your mindset tells you that you’ve got to be number one
or you’ll be nothing – or as Jesus brilliantly puts it, it’s number one
or ‘shame and the lowest place’.
But what about those who stay as number one throughout their career in
sport? Well there are some players who retire as number one, and there
are some people who always seem to be the best at whatever they do, but
Jesus is teaching that if they are proud then ‘he who invited you will
say to you ‘Give this place to this person’. Jesus tells us that ‘God
opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble’ and in the parable ‘the
one who invited you’ is a metaphor for God. So God deposes the proud
person from the ‘top seat’, and this is the ultimate folly of thinking
the world revolves around you; when you meet the person whom the world
really revolves around then he will oppose you and in shame you’ll be
forced to take the lowest place. God doesn’t share his glory with
another, and he won’t share his seat at the centre of the universe
either.
‘Humble yourself therefore under the mighty hand of God, that at the
proper time he may exalt you’ (1 Peter 5:6)
Pete
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