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Why are you sitting where you are? For some, the answer will be obvious: e.g if you're Martyn, then in order to play the organ you need to sit on the organ stool. If you're Jeremy, then to operate the PA you need to sit by the control box. Several of you have roles that require you to sit in a particular place, while you are serving in that way. Others of you have chosen a particular area, because of something that it offers - e.g. the Children's Space, or the Loop on the north side of the nave. And then, of course there is the choice of seat itself - rush seat in the nave, pew in the north aisle, or monk's stall in the chancel - but perhaps we'd better not be distracted by the current debate about seats!
Sometimes where we choose to sit says something about how we see ourselves in relation to others. I well remember someone here at the Priory a few years ago who always chose to sit behind one of the nave pillars. He was a confident and successful businessman, and yet was also someone who saw himself as being very much on the fringe of faith. And so he did not want to draw attention to himself, but rather keep out of sight. A rather more extreme example of that Anglican tradition of filling the church from the back!
Why are you sitting where you are? In some older churches, there are still echoes of an earlier age, when social distinctions were reflected in who sat where - the local squire and his family in the box pew at the front, with the best seats in the house for those who could pay the pew rental. Thankfully there are no reserved seats here at the Priory - first come, first served!
In the Gospel we've just heard, Jesus was at a meal in a Pharisee's house. Noticing how those present picked the places of honour, he told them a parable about a wedding feast with this punchline: "Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted" (Lk 14:11).
Then, as now, people were jostling for position and were obsessed with status. We may think our celebrity culture is something new, but it isn't. The same old human traits have been there from the beginning - and at their root is the sin of pride. Pride that seeks self-advancement at others' expense - whether in terms of power or wealth, status or fame.
Now you might think that religious people would see this sin for what it is, and seek to root out any traces of pride in their own lives. If only! The truth is that the sin of pride entraps religious people just as easily, affecting their attitude towards others and themselves. No wonder Jesus was not popular with many of the religious people of His day! He challenged their own self-righteous pride, and He exposed their hypocritical attitudes and actions. As Kevan reminded us in his sermon here last Sunday morning, the Lord focussed primarily on the inner attitude, for it is the attitude which affects external action.
"Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." According to Jesus, the antidote to the sin of pride is the virtue of humility. The only virtue, as someone once wryly remarked, of which you can't be proud! Humility which is based on a sense of our true worth in the sight of God, and which refuses to allow our lives to be shaped by the opinions of others, whether at home or school, at work or leisure. Humility starves the insatiable cravings of our ego - our false selves - for attention. It rejects the distorted values of the world, the flesh, and the devil - Satan, the Accuser, whose own pride came before his fall from heaven.
So how then, can we grow in the grace of humility? First, we need to recognise and honestly admit where we lack it, and to acknowledge before God our constant need of His mercy and forgiveness. Like the tax collector in the parable Jesus told in Luke chapter 18, our heartfelt prayer needs to be "God, have mercy on me, a sinner" (Luke 18: 13), rather than the smug self-congratulatory prayer of the Pharisee in the same parable. For, as Paul reminds us in Romans chapter 3, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3: 23).
Then, as we look to Jesus, and open our lives day by day to the leading of the Holy Spirit, so the grace of humility will grow within us. We shall be less affected, and infected, by the distorted values around us, less concerned about where we're sitting in the sight of others, and less inclined to justify ourselves, or to seek to score points against others. For those who look up to God rarely look down on others. And so as you and I look up to God, as we seek to respond to His love in worship, then we will gradually become more Christ-like, and the fruit of the Holy Spirit will grow within us.
The question is: Do you and I really want this to happen? Do we really want to become the humble-hearted people and humble-hearted church we are called to be in Jesus Christ? If so, then we are shown what we need to do, and are also offered the God-given means to help us do it. In all of this, prayer - on our own and together - is vital. For everything in God's store is on the bottom shelf … we have to get on our knees to get it.
Today, in this Holy Communion, we are shown, and are invited to receive in bread and wine, the utter humility of the Lord we gather to worship. The One who came not to take His deserved place of honour at the top table, but rather to assume the lowly towel and basin place of the servant or slave. That is why in Philippians chapter 2, Paul urges us "in (our) relationships with one another, (to) have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather he made himself nothing, by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human being, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death - even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2 : 5-8).
That is Humility Incarnate. The humility of the God who comes to search for us, and who empties Himself, out of love for this broken and sin tarnished world. Our world celebrates stories of 'rags to riches.' Yet the Gospel is about a 'riches to rags story.' Jesus became like us, that we might become like Him; became a slave that we might go free; died that we might have life in all its fullness. Such humility should shame our own pride, and challenge us to turn - and return - to the Lord. For let none of us ever forget those words of Christ, the Servant King:
"Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."
John Barr
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