On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely. Just then, in front of him, there was a man who had dropsy. And Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees, "Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath, or not?" But they were silent. So Jesus took him and healed him, and sent him away. Then he said to them, "If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a sabbath day?" And they could not reply to this. When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, 'Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at 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 the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." (Luke 14:1-14)

This morning's gospel text speaks of pride and humility. Jesus is speaking to the religiously proud. I imagine the Pharisees secretly singing the old country song by Mac Davis: "O Lord, it's hard to be humble. I can't wait to look in the mirror 'cause I get better looking each day. To know me is to love me, I must be a heck of a man. Oh Lord, it's hard to be humble, but I'm doin' the best that I can." The Pharisees had made it to the pinnacle of religious success and felt they had earned their place in the best seat of the house. Having made it to the best seats, it was their duty to protect their place, lest they lose it. After all, in their thinking, there were only so many seats to go around. Indeed, in the synagogue system seats were ranked, and only so many got to sit in the inner circle.

At one level it is hard to relate to that way of thinking. While we joke about our assigned pews, we no longer have "family pews." You can see this kind of system in some old sanctuaries – the pews literally have doors to get into them and often still have the name of the family who had paid to sit in them. Some of the pews are even "decorated" for the worshipers who would sit there Sunday after Sunday. The thought of someone else sitting in someone's pew without an invitation would not even be entertained. On a holiday weekend like this one, we are surely not lacking seats – we'd welcome a few of the crowds that the Pharisees try to keep out! But, as always, the moment we begin to think that Jesus is not looking at us in the text … the moment we are comfortable in assuming that he is speaking to someone else's problem … is the moment we should realize he IS speaking to us."

I am compelled by the line in the text: "When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor … " It reminds me of all the times in our lives that we worry about being left out … how we scramble, no matter the cost, to assure that we will have a place. In spite of their tough guy act I suspect it is what the true worry of the Pharisees. Remember school lunch room behavior? What is the biggest fear – that you won't have anyone to sit with. In the movie, "Mean Girls," Lindsay Lohan's character thinks she has it made when the cool girls invite her to sit at their lunch table:

OK, you should just know that we don't do this a lot, so this is, like, a really huge deal. We wanna invite you to have lunch with us every day for the rest of the week.
Oh, it's OK...Coolness.
So we'll see you tomorrow.
On Wednesdays, we wear pink.
Oh, my God! OK, you have to do it, OK?

Again, what is behind all that struggle is that worry that deep inside we won't measure up, that things are not ok … and because of that our place is in jeopardy. In a wonderful book about the art of writing Anne Lamott writes about the lunchroom. School lunches, she writes, "only looked like a bunch of kids eating lunch. [But] it was really about opening our insides in front of everyone. . . . The contents of your lunch said whether or not you and your family were Okay. Some bag lunches, like some people, were Okay, and some weren't. There was a code, a right and acceptable way. It was that simple. . . . If [c]ode lunches were about that intense desire for one thing in life to be Okay, or even just to appear to be Okay, when all around you and at home and inside you things were so chaotic and painful, then it mattered that it not look like Jughead had wrapped your sandwich. A code lunch suggested that someone in your family was paying attention, even if in your heart you knew your parents were screwing up right and left." (Thanks to Dan Clendenin, Journey With Jesus, Notes to Myself, "Jesus Does Dinner: Food for Thought for Guests and Hosts")

Pride and humility, place and no place. Of all the spiritual traps we fall into perhaps this area is most tricky. Because we can go two ways at the same time. We feel pretty good about ourselves. After all, we are the ones sitting in worship this morning on a beautiful holiday weekend. We can point a finger at all the rest sitting on the beach, saying "we are where we should be." Yet, even as we feel good about ourselves we acknowledge a deep insecurity about our place of belonging. We can point a finger inwards at all the places "we are not where we should be." Just like the Pharisees we puff ourselves up with false pride and debase ourselves with false humility. In her lectionary blog Sarah Dylan puts it this way: "People at both ends of this pride spectrum, though, have something in common: they're deeply concerned with boundaries, with what's right and wrong, with what's appropriate, with who deserves what, and they have a very hard time seeing anyone -- themselves or their neighbors -- getting something that's given "out of bounds."

Jesus has words for us this morning in our worries about pride and guilt … when we worry about whether there will be a place for us. First of all, we are assured of God's love for us … that God loves "all of us" … both in the plural sense and in the singular sense. That God loves our whole being, not just the parts of us that we are happy with, but also the parts of us we are ashamed of, and wish would go away. And God loves all people – from the scruffy street person who tells a good tale in order to get a few bucks from us, to the beautiful people sitting in their mansions. "All of us" … in a grammatically incorrect statement … is and are loved more deeply than we can imagine.

In that we do not have to worry about our place. We do not have to worry about being left out. It is in that assurance we are sent out to live freely. As you go forth today I send you out with the "so what" factor. A bit of explanation – this past week I was doing some research with a friend on anger management. In looking at some of the issues we came across some information on cognitive therapy and anger management. I was struck by one of the questions used in dealing with anger and it seems appropriate for this morning's text. Again, it is the "so what" factor. Because go forth assured of a place in God's love, we are set free. We do not have to worry about someone taking our place, or getting a better seat with God than we have. In that mindset we can treat much of what happens to us by asking so what – for example: So what if the person in front of me has 20 items in the 10 item check out line? So what if that driver cuts me off? So what if he or she is chosen first? You can add your so what questions to your life this week and see what happens.

In asking "so what" about the little things of life may you find that you treat people with the grace of God … giving them a glimpse of there true place in life. And in so doing bring the kingdom of God envisioned by Jesus a little closer to reality.