Loving Father and Creator of all that is, by the
grace of your Spirit give us humble hearts that we might be exalted to the
Kingdom of your Son. Amen.
Over
the past five Sundays, the readings and sermons have pointed us towards the
Kingdom of God. The refrain of this sermon series has been that the Kingdom of
God is not a place, rather it is a reality, an event. Furthermore, the Kingdom
is not something that we enter only after death; instead, the Kingdom is a
present reality and a future promise. The Kingdom of God is what was
inaugurated through the Crucifixion and Resurrection of God the Son, the
Kingdom happens in the world that was purposefully and lovingly created by God the
Father, and it is continually unfolding by the power of God the Holy Spirit.
The
way that the Resurrection is described in the Gospels, it takes place on the
first day of the week in a garden, which immediately recalls to mind the story
of Creation in Genesis in the Garden of Eden. For thousands of years,
Christians have described the Resurrection as taking place on the 8th
day – it is the start of a new week, but it is also in continuity with what has
come before. This 8th day is where the Kingdom of God is located –
the Kingdom is the New Creation that has come in light of the Death and
Resurrection of Jesus Christ. And so the Kingdom is a reality of hope over
fear, of light over darkness, of peace over strife, of trust over selfishness,
of life over death, of love over evil.
And
this Kingdom is one that intersects with all parts of our lives. As we
considered the Lord’s Prayer and the petition “thy Kingdom come,” we saw that our
citizenship in the Kingdom makes us resident aliens in society and that the
Kingdom often clashes with our political life. In reading parable of the rich
fool, we saw that Kingdom reshapes our understanding of economics. Through the
parable of the master returning from the wedding banquet and Isaiah’s prophecy
against rituals without justice, we saw how the Kingdom calls for a realigning
of our priorities with spirit of generosity. Jesus then showed us how the
boundaries of the family and the Kingdom are ever-expanding. And last Sunday we
heard that worship in the Kingdom isn’t about rituals, but rather the posture
of our entire lives. Politics, economics, relationships, and priorities – the
Kingdom is a reality that has a bearing on everything. At its core, the Kingdom
of God is about the abundant life that Jesus tells us that he came to give us, it
is about living in the grace and glory of the Resurrection. And since God wants
us to flourish in love, the light of the Kingdom shines into all parts of our
lives.
So
this morning in this final sermon about the Kingdom in this series, the aspect
of the Kingdom before us is an important one – what is the doorway into the
Kingdom? The answer is “humility.” Jesus tells us to not go for the luxury
suites, but to be content with General Admission saying, “All who exalt
themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” It
tells us something about the hierarchy of the Kingdom, that instead of being a
race to the top, a competition to be better, the Kingdom is about lowliness,
meekness, and humility. Humility, it seems, is the doorway into the Kingdom.
But
what exactly is humility? It’s one of those hard to define and elusive things. Is
humility something like being civil and polite? Here in North Carolina, might
we call humility “Southern Charm”? You know, holding the door for strangers, always
saying “No, you go ahead first.” And the fact of the matter is that if this is humility
– it works. Being polite and deferential gets you places and rudeness doesn’t.
If you want to get invited to the head of the table, certainly, you can
probably charm your way there. But surely that can’t be what Jesus is after. We
all know that humility is more than just common courtesy.
Well,
might the path of humility be about self-restraint, about not asserting
yourself over others? That sounds a bit more Christ-like. You know, don’t
gloat, don’t brag, but rather just be unassuming. It’s also a rather practical
way of being in the world: if you don’t stick your neck out, there’s little
chance of it getting chopped off. So, sort of like the student who sits in the
back of the class, silent, until she offers an astute observation that wows the
professor and is then invited to come and sit closer, self-restraint as you
wait for the opportune time to act can be rather helpful. But clearly, modesty
and reserve are not the same as humility.
How
about self-loathing? A lot of times we think about humility as saying “Woe is
me, I’m just an undeserving sinner.” Too often we think that in order to be
humble we have to think that we’re insignificant, that we don’t deserve
anything, that we aren’t really that special. A lot of people fake this sort of
humility by talking down about themselves – so either it’s just a lie, or even
worse, they actually start to believe that they are worthless. But wallowing in
self-deprecation does not prepare us to receive the grace of God. So humility
can’t be about thinking poorly about ourselves.
So
what then is humility and how do we do it so that we might enter the Kingdom?
Well, perhaps, humility isn’t about us. Which is a rather obvious, if not
ironic, way of viewing humility. So often we try to make ourselves humble, but
that’s just turning humility into an idol to chase after. What if, instead of a
goal of ours, humility is something that comes as an accident from being near
to God?
The
word “humble” comes from the Latin word humus,
which means “ground.” So one way to read that is that we’re supposed to wallow
in the dirt, but another way would be to recognize that humility is about being
grounded, and namely grounded in God. If you make humility your goal, you
generally end up with arrogance. If you haven’t heard the joke, you’ve probably
met someone it describes – the person who lists humility as their greatest strength.
That’s the thing about humility, it’s sort of something that just happens as a
byproduct, it’s not actually something that can be pursued in its own right.
Instead, the closer we get to God, the more humble we become.
For
one, by being close to God we realize just how amazing, wonderful, and grand
God is. The natural result of this is that we recognize that we aren’t the
center of the universe and we aren’t perfect. It’s something like a candle compared
to the sun – the candle isn’t bad or evil or deficient, it is what it is made
to be. But compared to the sun, the candle, well, it doesn’t hold a candle to
the glory of the sun. So through prayer, through meditation, through reading
Scripture, through serving those in need, through generous giving, through the
Eucharist, we can get closer to God which grounds us in the reality of God’s
grandeur and of God’s love for us.
And
this proximity to God, this grounding in the love and grace of God, this
humility will start to transform us. CS Lewis once said that “True humility isn’t
about thinking less of yourself, it’s about thinking of yourself less.” Drawing
nearer to God becomes the path towards humility, and the thing is that closer
to God we get the less we really care about things like reputation. But if
humility is the goal in itself, then we’ll never get closer to God because we’re
still focusing on ourselves.
There’s
a very important verb in this passage from Luke. Eight times in this passage
the verb “invite” is used. Being exalted to the head of the table comes not
because the humble have deserved the seat through their humility, but because
God has invited them. It’s about the abundant grace of God, not the excelling
virtue of the invited. And notice that God suggests that this invitation ought
to go out to the poor, crippled, lame, blind, and those who cannot repay such
an invitation. We tend to think of this in terms of others – surely we are not any
of those things. But we absolutely are. Without God, we are poor in purpose, we
are crippled by Sin, we are lame in Death, and blind to grace. But God has
graciously invited us into the Kingdom through the Death and Resurrection of
Jesus Christ.
When
we come to grasp the message of God’s abundant and amazing grace, we start to
realize that we can stop striving to make ourselves worthy. And if we’re not so
focused on ourselves, we can then start to focus more on God and our brothers
and sisters all around us. And that’s where the Kingdom happens – when we focus
on God and serve God through those in need. When we aren’t captivated by
ourselves and our quest for humility, we can be captivated by our gracious host
who has invited us to have the best seat at the table.
The
thing is, we can’t enter the Kingdom of God with divided loyalties. It’s why the
Sacramental ritual that symbolizes entrance into the Kingdom is one of death –
Baptism is about dying to self, to Sin, even to Death and rising in the
Resurrected life of Jesus into the Kingdom. If we’re clinging on to reputation,
or our vision for what we want out of life, or wealth, or prestige, or power,
or control, or autonomy, or privilege then we reject that invitation because we’re
too busy trying to pull up a chair to the table when God has already given us
one.
Humility
is the doorway into the Kingdom, but paradoxically, humility isn’t something that
we can obtain on our own. Instead, humility comes from the gracious invitation
of God to “come near and move up higher.” You enter the Kingdom not by anything
that you do, but by what Jesus has done for you. In Jesus Christ, God came
close to us to give us abundant life by exalting us with him into the Kingdom.
By the power of the Holy Spirit, God remains as close to us as our very breath.
Out of abundant love and grace for us, God has said to each of us, to you and
to me, “Here, I’ve saved you a seat.” It’s an invitation that we didn’t deserve
and will always be open. You can take a seat in the Kingdom, or you can sit
somewhere else, but the invitation will always be there.
Later
in this liturgy, I will have the honor issuing God’s invitation to you by
saying “The gifts of God for the people of God.” It is the invitation to the
Kingdom – to draw near to God, to be grounded in our Baptismal identity as partakers
of Christ’s Resurrected life, to be transformed by the Holy Spirit just as the bread
and wine are transformed. Don’t worry about deserving this gift, don’t try to make
yourself humble, just stretch out your hands and receive the gift of God’s
love, of God’s redemption, of God’s peace because you are the people of God.
And as you receive it, know that you are receiving nothing less than the invitation
to enter the Kingdom of God.
