It is impossible for me to put into words how much of an honour and privilege it was last Saturday to officiate at my son’s wedding. Not a thing was out of place. Everything was in order. All the plans that had taken a year and a half to make were all laid out before us. We just needed to step into the day as it unfolded. At the reception the gorgeous table flower arrangements adorned each of the 23 tables and the head table. The Bride and the Groom sat at the centre of the head table. The best man and groomsmen and Maid of Honor and bridesmaids were seated accordingly at the head table. The order of the evening was to have dinner first and then to have the speeches and then to dance, then the cutting of the cake, the throwing of the bouquet, the garter. It was like a dream I will never forget—all laid out for us to enjoy.

The gospel text this morning comes to us also all laid out albeit in a strange sort of way. Jesus was invited to a party and when he noticed how the guests scrambled for the best seats he told a parable about a wedding banquet. In the parable Jesus talks about a new seating arrangement. Now Jesus is not the ideal dinner guest here. It is as if you invited someone to your house and they came and moved all of your furniture out and put their own in and arranged it their way. Who would want that!! It’s as if he said at our wedding last week, "You Best Man up there sitting beside the groom, move over there to table 23 and you at table 23 take your seeing-eye dog and move up to the head table beside the groom." and "You Maid of Honor go sit at in the seat next to the kitchen door and you stirring the soup in the kitchen move up to the head table beside the bride." What kind of crazy thing is that to do? What is Jesus doing, messing up the people like that?

The guests at the table were all sitting in the wrong place. Those who shouldn’t be at the top have chosen the upper seats. We might dare to call those people ‘peacocks’. These are the arrogant, overbearing ones who consider themselves better than others. They’re the ones at the head table singing, “O Lord it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in  every way.” When I was preparing this sermon I considered who I was going to be speaking to. I don’t think there are any peacocks here. We are nice people and certainly not showy and obnoxious.  

Jesus also saw that the people who shouldn’t be at the back of the room have chosen the lower seats. We might dare to call these people worm-like people. These are the ones who have low self-esteem, are ashamed of who they are and they don’t think they’re worthy enough so they diminish themselves and wait for all the others to claim their seats and then find the one seat left at the end.

The parable is set in a language of opposites with peacocks and worms and the worms are just as bad as the peacocks because the only thing the peacock-like people can see from where they are sitting is themselves and the only thing the ‘worm-like’ people see from where they are sitting is the peacock who made them sit at table 23. Neither can see much from where they’re sitting. So Jesus has them change places to improve their eyesight. Jesus is really saying “What you see depends on where you stand when you look, so the first thing to notice is where you are sitting. That is humility.

Humility is a big word for Christians and too often we think it means being meek and mild and making yourself little. Humility means something very different. It means knowing where you are in the grand scheme of things. Carter Heyward has a great definition of humility. She says

humility is not a self-diminishment. It is a certain way of knowing that we share the earth with the rest of humanity and creaturekind, including those whom we have hurt or who have hurt us. Humility is knowing that we belong here in life, all of us, no one more than another. Humility allows us to see each other at least a little bit through the eyes of God.

We have humility when we move to the place God calls us to where all feel honoured. It might be a high place if we tend to be worm-like people and it might be a low place if we tend to be peacock-like people.

I think we in the church have romanticized the Christian virtue of humility but there are some very  hard facts about humility that tell us that it is far from being romantic and nice. Humility is a place where truth is spoken. It is a very real and often hard place.

When I think of the issues and challenges we face in this threshold time I keep finding myself at the cross. Like a family or friends gathered around a palliative loved one and our denial we want to pretend that what is happening beneath our noses will not come to pass. ‘Hang in there buddy! You’re gonna be just fine!’ You gotta fight this thing.” The familiar church that we know and love is clearly on the ropes, if not already down and out for the count. Sunday mornings more Canadians can be found at Tim Horton’s or the arena or golf course than can be found at worship. Shopping on Sunday is no longer prohibited. It’s fast becoming the busiest shopping day of the week. God are the days when our pronouncements cause a ripple on Parliament Hill. The simple math of our annual statistics—Baptisms minus Funerals—gives us about 15 years before we turn out the lights and lock the door. Our church perhaps now more than ever, needs to believe in, needs to live, a resurrection that includes woundedness. Rather than hovering about the palliative bed of the church-as-we-know it uttering invectives to fight, we do well to touch the wounds and believe something of God’s promise is to be found there. We have been mostly a church of joy and resurrection and life. We have, until recent history, ridden a wave of growth and new life. We haven’t suffered much, not really. Mostly, we’ve been the winners, the middle class, the educated, the fortunate. Maybe the name “Jesus” catches in our throat because the smell of crucifixion clings to it. Yes, this is the promised path to new life.

The United Church is being moved to a lower place. Another way it has experienced humility is through its relationship with the First Nations people. The hard fact that is difficult for us to swallow is that more than 95% of all United Churches in Canada have no interaction whatsoever with First Nations people. No interaction at all! Yet we live physically close together. Jesus would say that we don’t see each other. The church has begun its way to a lower place so that its relationship with the First Nations community might become clearer. Here is the story:

On a dark August evening in 1986 the United Church of Canada said words of apology to the First Nations community [see below for the words]. Do you remember them? The United Church spoke words of apology to the First Nations community and in their wisdom the elders received the apology but they did not accept it. What we know now is that the elders were showing us the way to the difficult journey of humility. Twenty years ago our church was closer to the head table than it is now. But it couldn’t see fully what it was doing. There were many blindspots. The church was celebrating the apology as if the journey to reconciliation and forgiveness would unfold automatically, quickly, and with no pain. Twenty years later in the bright noon sunlight of August 2006 the church moved to a different seat, closer to table 23 where its eyes were not so blurred and it re-committed itself to this apology. The church saw that this apology would take a long time to make, probably past any of our lifetimes.

Humility is not a romantic place. I was there in Thunder Bay last year when they made that re-commitment and I felt the deep sadness in the room. It was a profound moment of humility in the church. Maybe some of you also feel that the United Church is in a lower place.

What about us here? We call ourselves inclusive, but I think we need to take a good hard look at that word. Do we see people who are different than us in such a way that they feel welcomed? I’m looking at the seating arrangement here. Most of the good seats at the head table in the back pews are taken. If a stranger comes in to share worship with us, which is the same as sharing a meal they would have to sit closer to the front in the cheap seats. Wouldn’t it make more sense to leave a space for them back there in the more preferred seats?

We are invited to this strange party where everything seems to be upside down and as we go through the gospel of Luke we are also accompanying Jesus to the cross. Jesus Christ, the One whose name is raised above every other name not because he made it to the top at the head table but because he made it to the bottom. The king of kings at table 23. This is how God’s crazy way of ordering is laid out, where all are raised in honor to life with Christ.