Self-Defeating Pride: A Meditation on Luke 14 for the 12th Sunday after Pentecost

And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden,

when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them.

When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room;

lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him;

And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place;

and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room.

But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room;

that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee,

Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship

in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.

For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased;

and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

 

Arrogance and pride are elements of fallen human nature that plague every generation.  In Jesus’ day, not so unlike our own, weddings were among the most carefully planned and extravagant parties in a community.  They celebrated the union of a man and a woman into an indissoluble partnership this side of heaven, and echoed the promises God made to mankind in the Garden when He blessed them to be fruitful and multiply, and to have dominion over the earth.  The wedding feast would be full of guests, from the parents of the bide and groom, to friends and neighbors, and people of various social standing.  Seating arrangements for the guests would be made based on their role in the wedding, their relation to the wedding party, and their rank or position in the civil realm.  The master of the feast would carefully plan such places for each guest, and the guests would be expected to take their respective places.  After all, they were guests at the wedding feast, and in no position to dictate to the master of the feast where they would be seated.  In the parable above, Jesus ratified an ancient Proverb of Solomon that it is better to enter into such situations with humility than with pride, since being asked to take a more honorable seat would give honor to the guest in the presence of those assembled, rather than the humiliation of being told to get out of someone’s seat who outranked you.

 

While the example Jesus offered seems egregious, it is indicative of human nature.  There are few people with such unbridled arrogance that they would come as a guest to a wedding, then supplant a bridesmaid or groomsman or parents of the wedded couple by taking their seats.  But there are plenty of examples of people coming to weddings and using them as a forum to put the spotlight on themselves, declaring in effect that they think themselves more important than the people throwing the celebration.  Yet well beyond the context of a wedding party, the inclination every person has to arrogance and pride shows up far more often.  It can be revealed in the facial expressions and body language of a person who feels their time is being wasted by listening to another’s issues; in the avoidance of help and support when a neighbor is in need; in gossip and slander of another person, with the presumption of superiority over the one who suffers; in our choices of who we help and who we disregard in our own sense of pious worthiness; in those we invite to our tables and into our homes, versus those we think unworthy of our time, talents, and resources.  Pride is a flaw we carry in our bones, a corruption that has leached deep down into our minds, affecting so much of what we think, say, and do.  Not to be outdone, own generation seems to have asked other generations to “hold our beer,” while multiple times in any given year across nearly every major metropolitan area, hundreds of thousands of people who embrace evil lifestyles and horrific practices march in the streets declaring their Pride, and communities, civic leaders, and even church bureaucrats root them on, as if pride in any context were to celebrated rather than rebuked.

 

And lest we think pride is so ubiquitous that we ought not worry about it, Jesus speaks directly to us and to every human being, when He warns us that those who exalt or praise themselves will be brought low by God—while those who walk in humility before their Maker will be lifted up and honored.  Pride, perhaps unlike any other sin, makes us more like the devil than we’d like to admit.  It was Satan who presumed, as a creature who lived by the grace of God alone, that he should rule as God in the creation of which he was a part.  Satan deified himself by refusing to give God the glory and honor He alone is due, and in return, God banished and passed judgment upon Satan, taking what honor he was created to have and making it into the ultimate dishonor before the entire cosmos.  Likewise, when we, as creatures who cannot give ourselves life, presume upon the Author of Life to deify ourselves in our own eyes, we follow in the way of Satan and risk the same judgment he received.  Pride is a disavowal of our own reality and that of God Himself, and like all attacks on reality by a delusional mind, reality eventually wins.  We can sit in our own little corner of the world and presume ourselves our own gods, but at the end of the day, or at the end of our lives, all usurpers of God’s throne will be marched out of the wedding feast and into the fires of perdition.

 

The solution to our problem with pride is not found in ourselves, but in Jesus.  As fully God, He condescended to become fully man and walk among His creation, to suffer and die at the hands of sinful men, and to rise victoriously over sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil.  Jesus had every right to take the highest seat at His own wedding feast, but instead he took the lowliest, that His Father might exalt His Name above every name in heaven and on earth.  Jesus’ humility becomes the salvation of us all, as He gives us the mercy and forgiveness and life we don’t deserve, taking the punishment and suffering upon Himself in our place.  Then, by His Word and Spirit, He begins to transform us into His image, that we might also learn to walk as He walked, speak as He spoke, eschewing pride for humility just as He has done, that others around us might be transformed by Jesus working and speaking through us.  Our solution to our pride is not to seek to transform ourselves by our own power—a denial of the reality of our corruption and of our own depleted powers to effect our own change—but to be transformed by Jesus and His Word that we might be more like Him.  What we cannot do no matter how hard we try, Jesus has promised to do by His Gospel given to us, that we might live by grace through faith in Him alone, now and forever more.

 

See with honest candor the satanic pride which dwells so deeply within you, but see more fully the cure for your infernal disease in Jesus.  He has come to make all things new, including you and me, and has worked everything necessary through His Cross that you might be forgiven and free in Him.  Let go your presumptions and arrogance and wrestling for position or prestige, and instead set your eyes on Jesus, whose Word and Spirit will transform you into His humble likeness, that with Him you might be escorted by the Father into the place established for you in His Kingdom, to the roars of joyous celebration by all the saints and angels of every time and place.  It is Jesus alone who is our Savior, our Captain, and our King, to whom belong glory, laud, and honor, in this age and unto ages of ages unending.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.