A sermon delivered on August 31, 2025 by Patrick H. Wrisley, D.Min.

Here’s a riddle: What’s the one thing you can strive for, but once you have it, you immediately lose it?

Humility.

So, let me ask you: Are you a humble person? Be careful now; you better think before you answer! Now, hold that thought, and let’s turn to our text.

Luke tells us Jesus was invited to dinner at the home of a Pharisee – a very serious religious leader, who knew the Law backward and forward and who lived life with impressive polish. These were the movers and shakers of their world. Their robes were crisp, their manners impeccable, and their social standing was secure.

The meal begins, and Jesus quietly watches as the guests angle for the best seats at the table. Without being asked by the host to do so, Jesus goes on to tells a parable, a story; we may tend to think it a story about proper dining etiquette but rather, it’s a parable that gives us a glimpse into God’s kingdom and how the Kingdom is structured. Jesus serves his hosts and others a slice of proverbial humble pie.  Listen to the text from Luke 14:7-14.

Luke 14:1, 7-14

^14.1On 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…

⁷When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. ⁸“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; ⁹and 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. ¹⁰But 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. ¹¹For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” ¹²He 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. ¹³But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. ¹⁴And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”(NRSV)

This isn’t a teaching about table manners; no, it’s a description about how we live in community. Jesus is saying, “Imitate me.” But how do we do that?  We do that by changing our perspective and point of view. 

Think of the least desirable table in a crowded restaurant; do you know the one? It’s the one by the kitchen door. Have you ever sat there? It’s noisy. The door slams into the back of your chair. You hear the clatter of dishes, the cooks yelling orders, the staff grumbling about that impossible customer at Table 16. You see things you wouldn’t see from the best table in the room; no you see a dropped lemon wedge scooped off the floor and tossed back in the bowl, a waiter wiping his nose with his sleeve, and hear managers hollering at the staff. 

When you sit by the kitchen, you start to notice who’s struggling, who’s invisible, who’s under pressure. You can learn empathy. You begin to see the whole room differently.

Contrast this with sitting at the best table in the house where you have beautiful views, quiet conversations, and doting staff service.  The Manager usually comes by and checks on you. Other customers watch the staff fawn over you and your party and build up in their mind how special you must be or how important you are.

Friends, here is the uncomfortable and inconvenient thing Jesus is asking us to do. To be like Jesus and to live in God’s reign, we are told to give up our seats of privilege and choose a place where we see life from the margins. When we do, we begin to understand how others live: those who never get the best table, those whose voices aren’t heard, those who are told in subtle ways they don’t matter.

That shift of perspective we get is the soil where humility grows.

Humility isn’t about pretending to be small or timid. It’s not something you “achieve”; humility is a way of being. Humility is our conscious choice to see others first; it’s letting go of our self-importance. Humility is to learn gratitude for what we do have rather than grasp for what we think we’re owed. When our personal perspective changes, so does our response to the people around us. We begin to feel their isolation and hurt. Our hearts grow larger. Our arms open wider.

This, after all, is exactly what Jesus did. Philippians 2 says that though he was in the form of God, he emptied himself and took the form of a servant. In other words, God changed seats! In Christ, God left the best table in heaven to sit by the kitchen door with us. Jesus entered our world, our flesh, our time, to see and experience humanity from the inside out. That’s humility and humility is always an expression of love. 

Even our word “humility” comes from the Latin humus; humus is the rich dark soil, the very dirt of the ground composted with dead leaves and broken things; humus is the very stuff that makes new life possible. Isn’t that what happened at the cross? On Good Friday, Jesus became humus; he laid his own life, becoming composted soil out of which new life sprung forth on Easter morning!

And here’s the wonder of it all, beloved. Jesus calls us to be that kind of soil, too. We too are to give up our seats of honor, to let our lives become a place where others are nourished, where God’s kingdom takes root here and now.

Beloved, when we change our seat, we change our perspective. And when we change our perspective, God changes our hearts. Jesus is calling us to imitate his humility for the sake of a world hungry for grace. Our life, the church’s life, is the compost soil, the rich humus, where new life is formed by the Spirit. In the Name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

© 2025 by Patrick H. Wrisley. Sermon manuscripts are available for the edification of members and friends of First Presbyterian Church of Glens Falls, 8 West Notre Dame Street, Glens Falls, NY 12801 and shall not be altered, re-purposed, published or preached without permission.   All rights reserved.