The 12th Sunday after Pentecost 2025
Texts: Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach 10:12-18; Luke 14:1, 7-14
by: The Reverend Marjorie Bevans
It would be easy for us to hear this lesson and think Jesus is talking about someone else, but not me. I would never presume to sit in the place of honor without being invited. Jesus must be talking about those nagging Pharisees. This lesson is really about a group or class of people that doesn’t include me.
When I was a teenager I remember sitting in Markham United Methodist Church listening to Bill, our minister, preach about such people. Somewhere in the world there were people who were impolite, arrogant, busy-bodies who pushed themselves into places where they shouldn’t be. I looked around at the people I knew. They were our neighbors, nice and polite, always willing to help each other. I wondered who Bill was talking about. I couldn’t imagine such people, but then I saw her sitting there, oblivious to the message that morning. Ironically, her name was Grace. She fit the description. Bill was talking about her. The rest of us were off the hook.
How easy is it for us to see something negative in someone else, but we are unwilling to admit we too are sometimes like that. Jesus is always speaking about all of us, speaking to that part of us that we don’t want to see or admit is there. Rather than thinking “I wonder who Bill is talking about”, we could be thinking “How am I sometimes like this?”
When have you and I presumed too much for ourselves? That we should have this or that, that we deserve something? When have you and I neglected to offer true hospitality because it might be too much trouble? When have we grudgingly helped our neighbor to ease a sense of guilt rather than out of genuine love?
The author of Sirach seems to raise the underlying human condition that leads us to be this way. “The beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord; the heart has withdrawn from its Maker. For the beginning of pride is sin, and the one who clings to it pours out abominations.”
Pride is the first and the greatest sin from which abominations, all selfish and evil behavior comes. It began soon after Creation, in the Garden of Eden, with Adam and Eve when they ate from the tree of knowledge. They were tempted by the serpent to put themselves in the place of God, to take the position that was not theirs to take. We all have had a tendency to do that ever since.
The problem with pride is that it quickly leads to the other sins of arrogance, presumption, malice, jealousy, anger, hostility and these sins, in turn, lead to such behavior as looking down on others, trying to control others, turning away from painful situations instead of helping, giving up when the going gets difficult, losing faith in God to bring the best in all circumstances. What is inside of us, whether or not we are always aware of it, will be revealed in the choices we make and things we do, or neglect to do.
The opposition of pride is humility. Jesus came among us as one who serves. Though Jesus debated the Pharisees because he would see what was in their hearts, he did not ‘lord it over them’. He was humble and more concerned for others than himself.
So, what does it really mean that each person is made in the image of God and equally loved by Him?
While each may have different gifts, talents, and abilities, and while each may have different levels of energy and diligence, we also have different levels of success and wealth. We are not considered by God to be more or less important than one another. Bill Gates is no more important to God than Michael James—a parishioner from my former parish with Downs Syndrome. Michael couldn’t speak clearly, yet he loved everyone and he brought out the best in others.
We are not loved by God because of what we do or what we have, but rather, in realizing how we are loved by God, we reveal what is in our hearts by our actions. Accepting the extent to which God loves each one of us helps us to see others as precious to God, and it changes the way we might treat them—with more patience and deference.
The first part of Jesus’ parable addresses the arrogance that leads some to claim special privilege, or to expect to be treated as more important than others. One day I was walking in a grocery store parking lot. Because it had just stopped raining heavily there was a rush by everyone to get in before it started raining again. Just as I was getting to the door, a man in a black Lexus rushed up to the curb near the door and parked nearly in front of it. He walked in ahead of me. He was obviously not handicapped. I wondered to myself, “Who does this guy think he is? Why is he more important than the rest of us who used parking spaces?”
That would be a natural reaction, to see the guy as being presumptuous, making it only about his actions.
However, I was guilty of being quick to judge this man’s motives rather than giving him the benefit of the doubt. What if the man had a sick baby at home and he was rushing to get medicine from the pharmacy? What if he was a diabetic with low blood sugar and was in immediate need of something sweet to eat?
Perhaps the better response would be “When, in my own haste, have I been like this?”
Christian humility comes from realizing who you are in relationship to God and others, and trusting God to provide just what you need, being content with what you have and who you are. As we have seen from the time of Adam and Eve, only trouble comes from putting ourselves in the place of God.
Amen.
