Today in the Spirit: Proper 17C
This week’s assigned Gospel reading contains yet more teaching of Jesus found only in Luke. The setting of Luke 14:1,7-14 is a meal with religious dignitaries to which Jesus has been invited to attend. To the guests who were maneuvering to take the seats of honor at the banquet, Jesus tells a parable concerning the consequences of human behavior rooted in pride. The man who chooses a seat at a banquet above his station is humbled, and the one who chooses one below is honored. A second wisdom teaching directed to the banquet host counsels him to invite, not the wealthy who can repay the favor, but the poor who cannot. Such humility and generosity receive a heavenly reward “at the resurrection of the just” (14).
Where the Gospel reading warns against pride indirectly through story, the selection from the deuterocanonical text Ecclesiasticus 10:7-18 speaks plainly of how pride is revolting in the sight of both God and people: “Arrogance is hateful to the Lord and to mortals, and injustice is outrageous to both” (7). Further, the root of pride is the sin of man and not intended by God in creation: “Pride was not created for human beings, or violent anger for those born of women” (18).
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The appointed Psalm 112 is a song celebrating God’s favor toward the “upright” who are generous toward others with what God has given them, and who do so with “great delight” in keeping the commands of God to share. In our worship, we sing or say this psalm like a chorus, affirming the promises found in the other readings of God rewarding those who are humble of heart.
The final installment in our Year C New Testament series out of Hebrews is Hebrews 13:1-8. The passage contains concluding exhortations, many of them touching on themes of hospitality and generosity found in the Old Testament and Gospel readings: “Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body” (1-3).
The mention of “good works” in the assigned Collect will prepare us in our worship to hear pointed teaching on humility in the Scripture readings. The petition assumes the aspiration of the petitioner is for grace from God, not to be self-serving, but to be “given to good works.” This phrase may well be inspired by Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (see also 4:12).
The Collect
O Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow after us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
The Beginning of Human Pride is to Forsake the Lord (Ecclesiasticus 10:7-18)
7 Arrogance is hateful to the Lord and to mortals,
Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 10:7-18 (NRSV)
and injustice is outrageous to both.
8 Sovereignty passes from nation to nation
on account of injustice and insolence and wealth.
9 How can dust and ashes be proud?
Even in life the human body decays.
10 A long illness baffles the physician;
the king of today will die tomorrow.
11 For when one is dead
he inherits maggots and vermin and worms.
12 The beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord;
the heart has withdrawn from its Maker.
13 For the beginning of pride is sin,
and the one who clings to it pours out abominations.
Therefore the Lord brings upon them unheard-of calamities,
and destroys them completely.
14 The Lord overthrows the thrones of rulers,
and enthrones the lowly in their place.
15 The Lord plucks up the roots of the nations,
and plants the humble in their place.
16 The Lord lays waste the lands of the nations,
and destroys them to the foundations of the earth.
17 He removes some of them and destroys them,
and erases the memory of them from the earth.
18 Pride was not created for human beings,
or violent anger for those born of women.
Note: The Anglican Church does not recognize the Deuterocanonical books (or the Apocrypha) as part of the canon of Holy Scripture, but, in accordance with the historical Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, “the Church doth read [them] for example of life and instruction of manners.” Enjoy.
Verse 12, “The beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord,” might have been composed as a parallel opposite to the well-known biblical saying, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7, 9:10). The similarity causes us to meditate on the meaning of both sayings more carefully. Is “the beginning” referring to our birth? It might be interpreted that way, since we are all born with mixed breeding: in the image of God we naturally “fear” him; and in our sinful condition we naturally “forsake” him. But “the beginning” might also be seen as the starting point of our lives when we have formed our thinking and established our behaviors. Our passage carries the dire warning that, left to our own devices, “sin” within us cause us to forsake the LORD and earn destruction.
Devotionally, we Christians can only look to God with tears of joy, forever thanking him that we were not left to die by our own hand. In his teaching about our loving one another in the church, the apostle John reminds us in his first letter, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God” (4:7) and, “We love because he first loved us” (4:19). What saves us from sin and human pride and death? It is the intervention of the Son of God into our lives. Here only is the path to avoid the establishment of our “human pride” and the black fruit of death coming out of it; and here only is the possibility of a “beginning” with “fear of God” in our hearts and a dwelling place of eternal rest.
All of us who drive cars know what it is to experience narrowly avoiding close calls with death and to thank God for it. Today, in the Spirit, looking with fresh eyes on “the beginning” of things in our lives, we thank you, Jesus, for rescuing us from the close call of a life of forsaking you.
Blessed Is the One Who Fears the LORD (Psalm 112)
1 Praise the LORD! Blessed is the one who fears the LORD, *
Psalm 112, New Coverdale Psalter (BCP 2019)
who has great delight in his commandments.
2 His seed shall be mighty in the land; *
the generation of the faithful shall be blessed.
3 Riches and plenteousness shall be in his house, *
and his righteousness shall endure for ever.
4 For the upright, there rises light in the darkness; *
he is merciful, loving, and righteous.
5 It is good for him to be generous in lending *
and to guide his words with discretion.
6 For he shall never be moved, *
and the righteous shall be kept in everlasting remembrance.
7 He will not be afraid of any evil tidings, *
for his heart is steadfast and trusts in the LORD.
8 His heart is established, and will not fear; *
at the last he shall see his desire upon his enemies.
9 He has given freely to the poor, *
and his righteousness endures for ever; his horn shall be exalted with honor.
10 The ungodly shall see it, and shall be angry; *
he shall gnash his teeth, and waste away; the desire of the ungodly shall perish.
In our worship, we employ this psalm as if we are repeating what we overhear as truth from a heavenly company declaring the promises of God concerning his community of the righteous on earth. What do we find here? There is both visible, external benefit (“Riches and plenteousness shall be in his house,” 3) and invisible, internal strengthening (“He will not be afraid of any evil tidings, for his heart is steadfast and trusts in the LORD,” 7). The prosperity is earthly (“His seed shall be mighty in the land,” 2), and, noteworthy in this particular psalm, eternal (“and the righteous shall be kept in everlasting remembrance, 6). No wonder “the ungodly shall see it, and shall be angry” (10): despite their every effort to overthrow them, the righteous prosper.
Devotionally, we must be careful to keep our feet here. Songs sung out of a heavenly perspective speak of things belonging to our future as if they are present, and celebrate the fulfillment of things that for us seem very much unfulfilled. No matter. We join the chorus of those revealing the mind of God with wider understanding. So, with Paul, we declare: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?…No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom. 8:35, 37).
Today, by the Spirit, who is in our hearts a deposit of heavenly truth, we hold the vision of this psalm in our worship as a guarantee for all those whose righteousness is found in Christ.
Jesus Christ Is the Same (Hebrews 13:1-8)
1 Let brotherly love continue. 2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. 3 Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. 4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. 5 Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 6 So we can confidently say,
“The Lord is my helper;
I will not fear;
what can man do to me?”7 Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Hebrews 13:1-8
The beloved saying in v. 8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever,” often stands alone in the church’s preaching, conversation and signage; but there is a connection we must notice with the text that comes before. See the sense of continuing action in the previous exhortations beforehand: “let brotherly love continue” (1); “remember those in prison” (3); “let marriage be held in honor” (4); “keep your life free from the love of money” (5). As Jesus Christ is the “same” always, so does the author of Hebrews commend a sameness, constancy, in our faith.
In our walk with the Lord, we are wise not to make too much of our occasional feats of obedience in the past and overlook the peccadillos we still commit most days. It is better to be constant in the everyday things of the faith, asking God for forgiveness when we fail, than to rely on acts of God like outdated press clippings to be pulled out of old drawers as needed.
I must admit to sorely missing some of the language of the BCP 1979 that I grew up with and used in ministry over many years. One phrase I love from the epiclesis (prayer for sanctification) of the Rite IIA eucharistic prayer is, “Sanctify us also that we may faithfully receive this holy Sacrament, and serve you in unity, constancy and peace.”
Today, Spirit of God, spur us on toward the sameness of Jesus Christ with a constancy in trusting you and making godly choices for our everyday behavior.
And He Who Humbles Himself Will Be Exalted (Luke 14:1, 7-14)
1 One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully.
7 Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, 9 and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” 12 He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
Luke 14:1, 7-14
Verse 1 tells us that inviting Jesus to this meal is an opportunity for the religious leaders “watching him carefully.” Yet, what we find, jumping from here to v. 7, is that Jesus is also watching them. The great controversy over our Lord’s healing the man on the Sabbath (2-4) is not so disturbing to these Pharisees that they will overlook the important matter of choosing the places of honor at the table. Thus, to the whole group, Jesus tells the short parable of people choosing seats at “wedding feast” (probably inspired by Pr. 25:6-7). And, just when the host may feel he has escaped the scrutiny of this scruffy rabbi, Jesus turns to him to discuss who, according to the law of God, should really be invited to his home for dinner.
A devotional lesson here is that our Lord is also at every moment examining the quality of our humility found in our treatment of others. It is not what we say about our humility when we are prepared to do so that counts, but what we do when we are not prepared that tells the true story. It is no wonder we find in the Gospels Jesus using the saying in v. 11, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted,” multiple times (see also Mt. 23:12, Lk. 18:14). And, if we are paying attention, we will hear the counsel of the Holy Spirit speaking to us similarly and clearly just like Jesus does in the Gospel narrative.
Today, in the Spirit, give us ears to hear the Son of God speaking to us about humility and compassion in the moments we least expect, and the courage to change our behavior.
Today in the Spirit
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