Skip to main content

Humble Pie



When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place.  But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests.  For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 14:7-11)

          “Humble” is another of those words with a bad reputation. Some seem to believe that the humble person sees himself/herself as a worm in the dust, unworthy, incapable, insignificant, useless, hopeless. A sycophant. C.S. Lewis said that a humble person doesn’t think himself less, he thinks of himself less. Gary Chapman describes it as “a peacefulness that allows you to stand aside in order to affirm the value of someone else.” He also points out that some people say, “Look at how (fill in the impressive positive) I am.” Others say, “Look at how (fill in the impressive negative) I am.” Neither is humble.
          But what happens if you love someone or something? It seems to me that when someone or something matters to me, I spend my time, money, effort on it. If I were going to the wedding feast described above, and I took someone I loved, who happened to be friends with the bride or groom, I’d try to get that loved one as close to the bride and groom as possible, even if it meant sitting out in the back, in the ”overflow” area. OK, to be honest, I might do it especially if it meant sitting in the “overflow” area, but I’m not a party person. We make sacrifices for those we love.
      The other this story tells us about being humble is that whether we are proud or humble, when our seat gets changed, we’re likely to either be humiliated or honored. If you’re going to set yourself up for one or the other, wouldn’t you rather set yourself up to be honors? Humble pie can be sweet, if you make it  yourself.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more