Sunday, August 28, 2016

28 August 2016 - unassigned seats



The LORD is calling us to humility this morning.

My child, conduct your affairs with humility,
and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts.

He is calling us to seek the lowest place at the banquets to which we are invited. We need move beyond caring about comparing. We need to move beyond the vanity of needing to be seen as important. The only one whose opinion matters is the one who holds the feast.

Rather, when you are invited,
go and take the lowest place
so that when the host comes to you he may say,
‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’

The LORD is the one who calls us to the banquet where we join "countless angels in festal gathering". His opinion is the only we one need to care about. He is not one who is impressed by worldly feats and accomplishments. He himself is the one who first takes the lowest place. He washes the feet of his disciples. He comes not to be served but to serve. When we are invited to the banquet of this host we should strive to be humble rather than exulted because humility is what he values. He calls us to hold banquets for those who cannot repay us. But he himself first invites us to just such a banquet. We say, "LORD I am not worth that you should enter under my roof" and feast on the one whom we can never deserve, receive that which we can never repay. His invitation comes to us while we are yet sinners. Even after, washed clean by baptism, we ourselves have nothing that we did not receive which we could offer him as payment. All we can offer to him is what he himself gives to us.

What shall I render to the LORD
for all his benefits to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the LORD (see Psalm 116:12-13)

This is the model he gives us. We are to fellowship with others without comparing ourselves to them. We are to love others without demanding anything of them. In fact, we ought to try to share the gifts we do have with them, corporeal and spiritual works of mercy. Then our humility truly does make us loved more than a giver of gifts.

So let us approach the feast, Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, knowing that we have done nothing to deserve it. Let us strive to enter by our humility rather than our accomplishments. Let us imitate the generosity of the one who calls us to this feast by in turn calling others. We have nothing that we do not receive. But we have more than enough to share.

No, you have approached Mount Zion
and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,
and countless angels in festal gathering,
and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven,
and God the judge of all,
and the spirits of the just made perfect,
and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant,
and the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel.

This is the home the LORD prepares for the poor. To enter we must realize that poverty and allow our LORD to enrich us.


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