Change Your Seat

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Sometimes, Jesus is a really lousy dinner guest.

In the story we heard today, he’s already made a point of provoking the Pharisees he’s eating with by working on the Sabbath (spiritually and morally offensive to those who take their faith seriously), and now he’s making remarks about how everyone is seated (no more polite then than now).

In a way the advice he’s giving is about how to avoid social embarrassment, and how to get on the good side of heaven – topics that may not sound terribly Jesus-y, or holy.  But to achieve those rewards, he’s telling us to voluntarily do the most embarrassing, humbling, awkward thing you can do, whether you’re invited to a meal or throwing the party:

Choose the worst and lowest place, or invite the most awkward people possible over to dinner.

Humility is a virtue, and it comes easier to some of us than others, but humility is not quite what Jesus is talking about. He’s talking about humbling yourself.

Being bumped to down to a lower place at a first century meal is not unlike being told your performance was terrible and being sent home on a reality TV contest.

It’s public humiliation.  And it stinks.

“Humbling yourself” is deliberately choosing public humiliation; inviting mockery and disrespect. 

That’s very like Jesus.  But it is nothing like easy for most of us.

And Jesus treats it as a matter of course; as the normal behavior of the people of the Kingdom of God.

So I want to try a little exercise with you now.

Will you please stand up, if you are able, and go to the worst seat, or to the lowest place in our church.

Go ahead.  Take this challenge seriously, and find the worst seat or the lowest place at Calvary.

Why is this the lowest place?

What would it mean to you to give up your accustomed place and worship from there?

People moved to the very front or very rear, to the columbarium, to outside the doors, hidden seats in the choir loft, to the priest’s seat, and metaphorically, to the kitchen.  These were the worst places because they cut you off from community, or from participation in worship, they meant a lot of work, or meant that everyone is watching you and judging you.

Thank you. You have a choice now. Finish the worship service where you are.  Or go back to the seat you chose when you first came in today.  (only 4 people stayed in the new seats.)

It’s not quite the same to move to a different seat for worship as to really take the lowest place in the world.  But it does shift your perspective, doesn’t it?
And that’s important.

You see, when we embrace the lowest place – the seriously worst place – with all its difficulties and humiliations, we have a chance to see some of the truths of God’s kingdom with new eyes.

In that lowest place, you get to see what the view looks like from every seat in God’s kingdom. 

Because in God’s kingdom, there aren’t any places where you can look down on others, not even accidentally.

And the view from the bottom is the only view that gives us a real chance to appreciate the truth that God doesn’t measure us against others.

God doesn’t judge us the way we expect.

God doesn’t believe in our judgment of ourselves, either – whether you’re drowning in doubt or completely confident, whether you’ve worked hard for self-respect or constantly feel like a failure.  God doesn’t use our measures.

We can’t win honor or promotion or glory from God. 

The only choice is love.

That’s why Jesus is pushing us to take the lowest place.

Is there a lowest place at your work?  A job that is almost invisible? Or a role that everybody loves to hate or mock?

See if you can do a little bit of that job this week – fetch the coffee, fix the copier, empty the trash – without being thanked for it!  See how it would be to look at the people and the place from that point of view.

Some of you already do that, every day.

So pay attention, too, in the stores where you shop. 

Or in your family. 

Many families have a least-respected member, for one reason or another.  Can you walk a mile in that person’s shoes this week?

I’ll warn you, this is complicated.  It’s hard to take just a little bit of the lowest place. But if you can’t go completely “Undercover Boss,” you can still pay attention this week to what the world looks like from the lowest place.

You could go to the library and get a copy of Barbara Erenreich’s Nickel and Dimed.  Or do a little research on just what it would take to try to get by in Lombard on the minimum wage.   Try to find a story that will show you daily life in the midst of Syria’s civil war, instead of the politics of bombing.

Because you can’t see what God sees without changing your perspective.  And the cracks in our society and our selves, the burdens people bear, and the power of love, are most visible from the worst seat in the house.

Jesus has been there, and done that. And that’s why he tells you and me and the Pharisees that there’s glory in it.

The lowest place can make you bitter, miserable, or oppressed, especially if you’re forced to it.  But when we choose that place and make it our own, all the ordinary measures of our selves and others break down, and we get a chance to see what God might see:

That honor or promotion or popularity can’t heal the cracks in our world or in ourselves. So the only choice is love.

And nothing is more glorious, in the end, than opening ourselves completely to God’s love.

So change your place this week.  And see what happens.