Today’s passage is Luke 14:1-14. When Jesus is eating at a prominent Pharisee’s on a Sabbath, he asks whether it’s lawful to heal on the Sabbath, receives no answer and heals a man, then asks them whether they would rescue their child or ox on a Sabbath and again receives no answer. He tells them not to take the best seats at a banquet or even invite their friends and relatives but to invite the poor and crippled, those who can’t return the favor because then they’ll be rewarded in heaven.
Why does Jesus repeat the Sabbath healing question already mentioned in Chapter 13?
What if you take a low seat and the host doesn’t invite you higher?
“When you are invited take the lowest place”(10)
Throughout my teenage life and my early manhood, I never showed respect to anyone with a high social position.
I resented the idea of having to show respect to someone just because of their rank. This may have been because my father had a low rank in the military and frequently complained about the quality of officers.
History is rife with the arrogance and stupidity of the aristocracy.
The recent nut rage of the daughter of the KAL owner is a good example of why some in high social positions deserve jail terms rather than respect.
But at the same time there are many people in high positions who have earned the respect of all and deserve to be honored.
My problem, my sin, is that I set myself up as judge.
When I taught at my first school, I showed no respect to my headmaster.
I was the arrogant one, not he.
I second-guessed him on every decision he made which involved me.
I did not understand or appreciate the context of those decisions.
I was a hugely popular teacher and when the headmaster took away a course I had created and gave it to an unpopular but long-serving teacher, I was outraged.
In order to give that teacher a full salary, the headmaster had to give him a full-teaching load, but that teacher couldn’t teach many subjects whereas I could.
My course had to be taken from me and given away to help an old and failing teacher.
I chose to see it as a stupid decision by an incompetent headmaster.
I could’ve been a true asset to the school, shown a generous attitude and given the headmaster my respect.
But I didn’t. When I realized my sin twenty years later, I wrote to him and apologized.
Now I am a principal and I struggle with the respect people give me because of my title.
Being principal is an important position but it’s easier to screw up than do a good job.
The ramifications of my mistakes are far wider and deeper than those I made as a teacher.
A good principal deserves respect no less than a good teacher or a good student.
But it’s the automatic respect that gets in the way of a relationship that troubles me.
Not only do I have to discern when someone is respecting me for their selfish purposes, but I also have to discern when someone’s respect is getting in the way of my being able to help them, especially with their salvation.
At the end of the school year students are asked to survey their teachers.
I asked the teachers to take a survey of me.
Two teachers totally trashed me! In their view I did nothing right.
I was so grateful for their disrespect because it echoed exactly what I felt about my former headmaster.
And they, like me, were hypocrites.
I disrespected my headmaster behind his back but was polite to his face.
I had long been deserving their reprimand.
As both principal and mokja, I receive respect that is rarely comfortable because it gets in the way of fostering a dialogue that could help us get closer to God.
On the other hand, that is my circumstance that I need God’s training in.
Application: Pray for a right humility and give respect to all God’s people.
Lord, let me not selfishly seek the position of honor nor be falsely humble in seeking a seat so low that I know someone will come and raise me higher. Guide me with your Spirit to where I need to be.
