Back in Chicago in 1953, at the train station, city officials and reporters waited for the arrival of that year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner. When he stepped off the train, they were impressed by this 6 feet 4 inch man with bushy hair and a large mustache. As you can imagine, there was much fanfare and flashing of bulbs as they welcomed him.
But after he arrived, he thanked them and then asked to be excused for a few minutes. He walked quickly to the side of an elderly woman struggling with 2 big suitcases. Smiling at the woman, he picked up her luggage and walked her to her bus. There, he helped her aboard and wished her a safe trip. Then, he returned to the officials and others following him and apologized for keeping them waiting.
This man was Albert Schweitzer, the famous doctor and missionary, who for many years, worked with the poorest of the poor in Africa. One of the reporters turned to one of the city officials and said, “That’s the first time I ever saw a sermon walking.”
I tell this story because today’s readings are about humility. Humility is a hard concept to explain, especially in our world, when the temptation is to be bigger and better, richer and better-known than the person sitting next to us.
Being humble doesn’t mean debasing yourself or thinking you are the worst person in the world. We are all made in God’s image and likeness. We are all children of God, redeemed by the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus. In the eyes of God, we are all equally important. Being humble means being honest with ourselves, and with our gifts and talents. It is realizing that everything we have and everything we are is a pure gift from God.
When Jesus comes to dine at the home of a high-ranking Pharisee, He is being closely watched by everyone. He had healed a sick person on that Sabbath morning, and everyone knows that’s a sin against the law. Any work done on the Sabbath, including healing the sick, was strictly forbidden. So, now He is being watched closely, but so is Jesus watching them.
Jesus notices how some people are finding themselves the best places at the table, and He tells them that’s not a good thing. It is better to be honored by being invited to the best place of honor rather than simply taking the best places themselves. Be humble we are being told and you won’t be embarrassed.
And, Jesus also notices that the host invited only the beautiful people to his dinner, the money people, the powerful, those of equal social or religious status, people who think and act like himself. Jesus tells the host that if we are to live by God’s standards, we are to bear witness to God’s Kingdom by welcoming all people as God’s beloved, where the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind are accepted as equals.
The host and his guests didn’t want to hear this. Such ‘outcasts’ were not equal to them, and they would never be invited to their tables. So, Jesus is turning things upside down. He cures the sick on the Sabbath and welcomes the unwelcomed to God’s kingdom.
What next? Jesus went after the religious establishment with a vengeance, because of their pride, their arrogance, their complacency, and self righteousness. But, like it or not, we are part of today’s religious establishment. We are part of a church that has its liabilities.
For example, we seem to lack the freshness and energy that characterized the early days of Christianity. The early Christians challenged and upset their society. We seem to have tamed the Gospel and the liturgy, and drained the faith of its excitement. This may be our greatest sin.
Oh, we love our conversion moments when we sense God’s presence. We know God loves us, and we are filled with the wonder of our faith, but then there are other times, like what Mother Teresa wrote about in her journal, when we feel nothing, we are plagued with doubts of faith, prayer is difficult, and God seems so distant.
Today’s Gospel is not about where we should sit in church. Have you noticed, the front seats are the last to be taken? Rather, it is about humbly knowing our need for God. We come to church with an awareness of our brokenness, our blindness, and our pride. We never know what God has in store for us.
We must always assume we have enormous room for spiritual growth and that God will help us find it. So, notice the good others do; then go and do likewise without telling anyone else.
Quietly, be a walking sermon like Albert Schweitzer. This is how we can grow in humility and in grace in the eyes of God.
It is the needy and humble, not the proud and the complacent, to whom the Divine Host at the banquet of heaven will surely say, “Friend, move up higher!”