Humbled and Exalted in the Kingdom of God

When I was training for the ministry, my mentoring minister gave me quite qa lot of advice about weddings - lots of it was useful, practical and wise. But, looking back, he gave em what now seems an incommensurate amount of advice on how to deal with the etique of wedding invitations.

The logic goes like this: You’ll preside at a lot of weddings throughout your minstry, and, on most occasssions, you’ll be invited to the wedding reception. Sometimes that will be wonderful, but often it will be a long afternoon with a bunch of people you don’t know very well. How should I deal with that tension politely and gracefully?

And, on the surface of it, Jesus seems to be talking about the same thing.

Wedding etiquette.

You’re better off understimating your importance, than overestimating it.

It’s sage advice.

Underpromise, and overdeliver.

Well, that about wraps things up for today. I think we can all go home early.

Hmmm. Maybe not.

Life’s not that simple

First of all, the teaching of Jesus nearly always has more to offer than what it shows froma surface reading.

Second of all, this wise advice that I received about wedding invitations? In ten years of ministry, I’ve only ever been invited to the reception a couple of times.

As a minsiter, I’m no longer being invited to sit at the top table.

We’re no longer at the top table

And that’s not just about me, it’s not just about ministers. It’s about the whole p-lace of the church in society.

There was a time when church leaders would be included at teh top table of society almost as a matter of course.

The Christian church was regarded as the moral compass of society. Even if you didn’t attend church, you respected the church and what it had to say in almost every area of life.

The truth is, that’s no longer the case.

To Fight or to Embrace

So,, what do we do about this?

It would be so easy to lose confidence, in the church, and even in the power of the Gospel, and the work of God in our world. How could God allow his church to become so marginalised? I mean, we’re not even persectued, we’re just ignored!

It’s all a bit depressing, isn’t it?

So maybe, we want to fight back. Get back to the way things are “supposed” to be.

And we see this happening around us, don’t we?

Soemtimes Christians seem like they want to take on the world, and wrestle their way back to the top. To enforce the church’s position as society’s moral authority. So we see marches, political movements. Anger. Self-righteousness. It’s like they want to grab whoever it is that has taken their “rightful” place at the top table by the scrufff of the neck, and toss them out. In the end, everything about this life of faith we’re trying to lead gets compromised on the altar of self-importance.

Or maybe, there’s a idfferent kind of fight. Instead of trying to force our way into somebody else’s party, we want to set up a party of our own, where only the people we like, the friends that we agree with are let in.

But Jesus doesn’t leave us with either of these options.

Instead, he invites us to let go of the place that we think we deserve, and to embrace life at the edge.

Desmond Tutu was once asked why he had not done more to fight for his own rights in the midst of oppressive regimes in society and in the church in apartheid South Africa. His reply was this “The only rights that Christian should be concerned with, are the rights of other people.”

It’s not easy.

It demands a total transformation of how we see ourselves, and how we see the world.

The Great Reversal

Some people say we need a reset button on society. Jesus isn’t just talking about wedding etiquette. He’s saying that reset needs to start with you and me.

From the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) with its toppling of the

mighty and exalting of the humble, to the cross with Jesus’

words to the dying thief (Luke 23:43), there are repeated

promises to the poor, downtrodden, excluded and exploited

and threats to the powerful, rich and smugly religious,

that one day the tables will be turned. The “first will be last

and the last will be first” (Matthew 20:16); the disregarded

beggar will dine in splendour at Abraham’s table while the

uncaring rich man endures eternal torment (Luke 16:19-31).

The frequent recurrence of these themes tells us both that

they were central to Jesus’ belief system and that the early

church needed to be reminded of them. Jesus’ own disciples

showed that they had completely missed the point when

they squabbled over seating arrangements in the kingdom

(Mark 10:35-45) and St Paul was outraged at the failure of

the Corinthian Christians to put social differences aside

when sharing communion (1 Cor. 11: 17-21).

A Burden or a Blessing?

This could seem like a heavy burden. We have to give up so much of what we hope for and expect

Always carrying that humility with us - wherever we go, whatever we do - that servant-heartedness. In that servant-heartedness there’s a rich way of living, that you’re missing out on because you’re not in that space, you’re in this other space.

Being humbled is not a negartive thing, it an invitation into a new way of life.

When we’re trying to force things, then we paint ourselves into ever smaller corners. Once you’ve said “or else” you leave yourself very little room to move.

But when you remove yourself from that burden of expectation to be at the top table, to be at the centre of everything, then, suddenly, the world becomes a much more spacious place.

Suddenly you have the freedom to see the beauty in the lives of the people that the Spirit has placed you among.

Helping vs. Loving

Jesus describes them as the poor, the lame, the blind and the crippled. Those who could never repay the kindness they’ve been shown.

And, I’m pleased to say that I see so much of this around me. I think one of our strongest instincts in our church is to help people.

To help people.

To be kind.

To be generous.

But there’re fish hooks here too.

What is our posture and our attitude as we reach out to help people?

If we’re not careful, then helping people can just become another kind of one-upmanship. Another way to propel ourselves toward that top table.

That’s not the kingdom that Jesus envisages when he speaks about the great reversal.

Jesus is calling us to see people that we help not just as receivers of our charity, but as brothers and sisters in our humanity.

You see, when we realise that we too are in need of help. That we too are lost and vulnerable, blind and crippled and lame, each in our own way. Then sharing our lives with people becaomes an act not only of generosity, but also of love.

And love is not something that can be measured and quantified and balanced in our books. But love is transformative. Love is overflowing. Love is eomthing that grows and grows and grows of its own accord.

Love is a richness of life that we can never find if all we’re ever concerned about is getting invited back to the top table that was never really that great in the first place.

At this dinner party where Jesus was invited to the top table in a mocking way, he takes the opportunity to to totally dismantle the idea that the table is anything to get really excited about. There are so many more important things than what other people think of us.

And the most important is how we treat other people.

Because as we allow the great reversal to transform us, from the inside out, then we will find life here in the margins. Life in all of its abundance.

Raz & Alli

Transformative reality - in spite of us, God will be changing things

Who are the poor, the lame, the blind, the crippled?

When we forget about God, we forget about this life-giving water, this source of richness of life

The exalted humbled is not a negative - not shaming, transforming into useful tool for others - get over yourself