Seeking humility

Dunning-Kruger Effect

I’ve mentioned before from the pulpit that my first car was a 1979 Holden Gemini. I’ve also mentioned before my attempts to fix this car - and just so we’re clear, the conclusion was that if you need work done on your car, perhaps best stay clear of me.

Now, the Holden Gemini, like perhaps many of the cars around that time, were relatively easy to learn how they work. I had someone explain the distributor to me, and how this sent sparks off to the spark plugs which in turn make the engine turn over.

It didn’t take long, just a few lessons and I became an expert in how a car engine works.

Or at least, so I thought.

It’s interesting that some researchers have documented what they have since called the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is the name of the researchers.

They came up with a graph with confidence on one axis, and wisdom (or knowledge) on the other.

It’s a phenomenon that is commonly observed. You start with a subject - I’ll take for example, knowledge of the car engine. Let’s say you’ve got zero idea about how the engine works, you’re going to have no confidence at all to do anything.

But Dunning and Kruger realised, that when people get just enough information that things start to make sense for them, they get this rush of confidence. Some people have called this early peak of confidence as the “Peak of Mount Stupid”.

When I had a go at fixing my first car many years ago, I was sitting pretty on top of Mount Stupid.

Dunning and Kruger then realised that once people gained a little more information, they then suddenly go from a high level of confidence to a realisation of how little they know.

And it is only after they continue to put a lot of study and hard work that they start to get an appreciation for the particular subject.

The reality is, you can observe this phenomenon a lot. We’re pretty much right on 12 months since Russia invaded Ukraine, and it was interesting how it seemed there were suddenly a lot of people who were experts on the Russian-Ukrainian relationship.

Or during the pandemic, there were a lot of people who seemed to be experts on public health - perhaps I was also guilty of becoming one of those self-appointed experts at the time, after all, I did read a few articles on it.

Now, make what you will of this curve, but I bring it up because I believe it highlights how we can get sucked into what I’m going to call, a pride blind-spot.

It’s those times when, without you even realising it, your humility goes out the window and you become arrogant without realising it.

This morning we’re coming to a parable which, to be honest, you don’t exactly need to be a biblical scholar to figure it out. It’s a clear call for humility.

And for the most part, Christians usually know that were meant to be humble - but I’m pretty confident that you don’t need to think too hard to think of a Christian who has allowed their pride to shine forth. Of course, the reality is, you don’t need to think of another Christian, if we’re honest, we’ve all from time to time allowed our pride to take a hold of ourselves.

But why? Why is this something so hard to control?

In part, I think it can be put down to the pride blind-spot a spoke about a moment ago. But also a significant part, is that pride is a part of the sinful nature that humans have.

Well, before we explore this further, let’s jump into our passage for this morning.

A Dinner Party with Jesus

The parable itself only makes a short few verses in Luke 14, but if we look at this whole chapter we find the it occurs in the setting of a dinner date that Jesus got invited to.

Now, sometimes today, people will ask the question - if you could have dinner with any historical figure, who would you choose. I often think - surely that’s a no-brainer - I think having Jesus as a dinner guest, as confronting as it might be, is always going to be life changing.

Well, Luke 14 shows us just what it might look like if we invited Jesus over to dinner.

Now, when I’m invited for dinner, I normally think, right, what are the controversial topics, I then park them to the side so that we can have a warm friendly encounter.

It seems quite clear to me that Jesus does not operate within this framework.

Of course, it all starts on a Sabbath day. Any good Jew knows this is the one day that you do not do any work.

What is work? (you may wonder)… well, the Pharisees of course had this one covered - they’d figured it out!

Well, it just so happens that at this dinner date, right in front of Jesus is a man suffering abnormal swelling of this body.

Now Jesus could of course side-step this one, after all, surely if the man had swelling for one more day that wouldn’t have been too bad - would it?

But Jesus isn’t going to let politics stop him doing what is right.

If you look at verse 6, it was almost as if they were so dumbstruck by the audacity of what Jesus just did, that they were left with nothing to say.

Well, this dinner parties off to a good start, isn’t it!

But Jesus of course is only just getting started.

You see, it is right now that he breaks into the parable that we’re going to focus on this morning.

Now, verse 7 does turn our gaze to a slightly different focus - that is, that the guests were choosing the best seats in the house.

But I want to suggest a link which connects what has just happened at this dinner party to this parable.

You see, in a way, it’s like the Pharisees have got just enough information about God that they’ve reached the peak of Mount Stupid.

Actually, they do know quite a lot. They’re very familiar with what we call the Old Testament and for them would have just been called - the Scriptures.

But they’ve found themselves in a situation where they think they understand everything and the can confidently tell others about it.

They’ve entered that pride blind-spot. Where you feel completely justified in your position - because you know the truth.

I’m going to suggest that it is this arrogance of the Pharisees which has translated into their arrogance of taking the best seats, which has prompted Jesus to give this parable.

The Parable

As I’ve already mentioned, the parable is not a complicated one. He paints the picture of a wedding feast.

Now many Weddings today, there will be a pre-arranged seating plan. I remember this was certainly the case at Fiona and my wedding. And there were always a few difficult decisions to make.

Well, in the parable that Jesus is telling, they don’t have the pre-arranged seating plan. The guests come in and they have to choose for themselves which are the most appropriate seats for them.

Now, I suspect that the people listening to Jesus tell this parable were probably well aware of the social conventions around which seats to choose.

In fact, I think people tend to understand that a natural social hierarchy is fairly normal and you don’t have to be in a group for too long to figure it out.

But in many ways, this becomes another one of those pride blind-spots.

Of course, someone higher up the social chain would take a more prestigious seat.

But Jesus takes this unspoken social convention and gives it a bit of a shake-up by giving a ‘what-if’.

You see, what-if… after you’ve taken your top place, because after all, you deserve it - someone even more distinguished comes along, then you get bumped - but not to the second best spot, but all the way to the bottom.

Perhaps you might think a drop to the bottom seems unlikely - but cast your minds back a decade or so ago, I remember this young billionaire called Nathan Tinkler. The Newcastle Jets and the Newcastle Knights were struggling, and he said, look at me, I’m so great, I can save these clubs… and so he bought them. If you don’t remember him, there is a good reason.

After taking the most prominent seat in Newcastle, he promptly lost his billions and he became just another ordinary person in the Hunter.

The parable continues… but if you take the least important place, then when the host comes, he will say to you, “Friend, move up to be a better place”.

How would they have responded?

Now, this is where I would have loved to be at this dinner party, because I want to know how the people listening along to the quite pointed story would have reacted.

You see, I think sometimes we listen to this parable and think there is nothing controversial to it. After all, embedded somewhere in the Australian culture is what we often refer to as the ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’. This is where we love to see those who put themselves forward to stumble. We talk about the Aussie battler. We root for the underdog.

In this way, our response is often - yeah, that makes sense - and then move on.

But let’s just think about it… the social ladder might be unspoken but I want to suggest it exists even in our culture, far more than we care to admit.

At this dinner party with Jesus, I’m thinking that going through their minds is… ‘who does this man think he is… I’ve put a lot of time and effort to work myself up this social ladder. I’m not trying to push my way to the top - I just deserve it.’

Perhaps the Dunning-Kruger effect is one source of the pride blind-spot, but I think this idea of ‘I deserve it’, is another.

Why pride is bad

Now, perhaps you might think - well, you know, if the social convention is working, why does Jesus need to try and mess it up?

While Jesus doesn’t explicitly say so, I’m going to suggest an educated guess based on what is happening at this party.

Pride blinds you to the bigger picture of what God is doing.

The social conventions of taking the most prominent seats, feeds in to your pride that you have somehow made it… that you’ve understood the system.

It might be for a different reason to the Dunning-Kruger effect I talked about at the start, but nevertheless, I think you could still describe it as seating at the peak of ‘Mount Stupid’.

I suspect after Jesus has just healed someone on the sabbath, he’s looked around the table, and he’s thought… isn’t it amazing that the more prominent the seat, the more confident they are in the opinion, and the more blind they are to what God is really doing.

Isn’t low positions bad?

But perhaps these dinner party guests are also thinking how this parable forgets a simple thing. The parable posits a ‘what-if’ scenario whereby the host comes with a last minute seating change. But what-if, the ‘what-if’ wasn’t there? Now, your stuck in the least important seat for the remainder of the feast.

So, we need to consider, would it be bad if we were stuck in a low position?

I remember hearing a story of a prominent professor who had the world at his feet, and yet circumstances led him to a situation where he became the full time carer for a disabled child. There are many similar stories like this one.

And you can ask - well isn’t this a waste. Someone who has so much skill and abilities to offer the world… shouldn’t they be in the positions where they can best do what they do? And the answer is that yes, usually it is best for them to be using those skills. But sometimes, in what might be thought of as a low position, you actually get a much better picture of the world.

It’s almost as if the pride blind-spots come off, and you can see clearer.

So what if you do end up in a low spot?

Well, embrace it. It is often in these lower positions that you feel closer to God - not because God doesn’t care for those in higher positions, but they have too many things to entangle - one being their ego.

Application

As a result of this parable, I think we need to ask the question of ourselves - ‘in what ways are my positions in society causing blind spots in my view of God?’

I think that is actually a hard question to answer, because a blind-spot, by very definition is something you can’t see.

Just think about it in terms of the blind spot in a car. When you’re learning to drive, you have it drummed into you - look over your shoulder into your blind spot.

Well we need to do this with life too. But rather than looking over your shoulder, it’s identifying the pride in your life - and this takes careful reflection.

Pride leads to assumptions being turned into certainties.

The assumption that God must want to bless you with all that money, becomes a certainty that this money belongs to me because God gave it to me.

It was pride that told you that you deserve it.

That is one example, but where else might you have been misled because of pride?

Once you do, be prepared to put yourself down a few notches on the ladder.

As we do this, often our view becomes more clear.

False modesty

But all of this raises an interesting question… should we seek a high position when we think we have something to offer? Or should we just always be seeking the lowest positions?

To answer this, let me suggest that Jesus says elsewhere to use the gifts and talents that he has given us.

If God has given you gifts of leadership, then seeking a position of leadership is not wrong. In fact, it would be wrong to not exercise your gift.

However, even in exercising your giftings, you can still have the blind spots. You can exercise your gifts with humility.

If it is leadership, then Jesus is the perfect example of leading as a servant.

But it applies to other gifts as well. We utilise our gifts with humility.

One way we do this is to constantly acknowledge that they are in fact gifts - that is to say, to recognise that the abilities you have exist because God has given them to you.

Receiving thanks

Which brings me to another point I want to make.

The issue of receiving thanks.

For the Christian who understands humility, receiving thanks can sometimes feel awkward.

Receiving thanks can sometimes feel like you’re getting the glory when you know that God is the one who should be getting the glory.

And at times, this concern can be a legitimate concern to have. Particularly when the thanks is over-the-top.

However, I do argue that it is appropriate to give thanks and show your appreciation to others.

It is therefore also appropriate for a Christian to receive thanks for work they have done. However, the Christian receiving the thanks should likewise be in a constant state of thankfulness to a God.

Conclusion

When we first read this parable, there is a good chance that your initial impression is that this is an easy one.

Perhaps many of you are thinking - I don’t even like putting myself forward so this is hardly something I need to worry about.

However, as we start to explore it, we can start to realise that it raises issues that I suspect all of us struggle with at times.

We might not be a go-getter who is trying to exalt ourselves, but yet we place ourselves in positions where we think we know.

The pride forms, and without even realising it, we’ve got this big blind-spot in our lives. A blind-spot that obscures our view of God.

It might not be the Dunning-Kruger effect where a little bit of knowledge gives us an exxagerated sense of confidence, but yet, our pride still manages us to sit on top of Mount Stupid - a place where God is not easily seen.

So climb down from that mountain. Take a low seat. It might seem counter-intuitive, but you actually get a much better view of God from there.

And from there, let God be the one who exalts you.

Let me pray...