Luke 14:1, 7-14
On 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.
When Jesus noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. “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, and 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. But 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. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Jesus 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 and sisters or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Who is the character from literature or theater or film or television who, no matter what is going on around them, is simply unflappable… who can not be riled… who is eminently comfortable in their own skin, who can hear what other people think or say about them and can just as easily take it or leave it based only on their own honest, dispassionate reflection?
In the Family Systems psychology world, those people would be called, “self-differentiated.” They are not swayed or convinced by any sort of “group think” and never feel like they have to go along to get along. They might CHOOSE to be part of a particular group, but only after checking the group’s direction against their own values and then making a non-emotional choice for themselves. They are also NOT people who need everyone around them to do what they do and think as they think. Rather, they are the people who can be comfortable around others who have very different thoughts and values, but neither feel the need to become those people, nor convert them away from their way of thinking
The people Jesus encountered at that Sabbath dinner party were NOT self-differentiated. They were very much obsessed with what others thought, where they stood on the social ladder, and how close they could sit to the head of the table. They were the sort of people who easily changed what they thought and routinely abandoned their values if that would move them up the ladder, get them more influence, or a better seat at the table. These were the sorts of people who would bully others to conform to their way of thinking and being in the world, simply because allowing others to think independently around them would reveal just how much of their own SELF they had given away.
The particular folks at this parable’s dinner party who were struggling with self-differentiation needed to hear from Jesus that a little humility was in order. But a simple “BE HUMBLE” doesn’t get us to the real root of this parable. I can just as easily imagine Jesus telling a different room filled with different people struggling with self-differentiation in different way, “Do not think TOO LITTLE of yourselves!”
Our world is filled to the absolute brim with people who proclaim they are the only show in town. They call out to the world with promises of better seats and higher honors, all in exchange for the low, low price of your true SELF. AND, if enticing you to give them your own true SELF doesn’t work, they will taunt you, demean you, and bully you until you find yourself sucked into their circus through the back door.
At the real root of this parable, Jesus is telling each one of us… whether we happen to be erring on the side of needing a little more humility OR on the side of needing a boost of self esteem… that “What other people think about you is none of your business” or to quote the prophet Ru Paul, “Unless they payin’ your bills, pay them bitches no mind.”
At the root of this parable is the TRUTH those folks do not want you to hear, or remember, and certainly not take to heart and that is… Their show does not have to be your circus and you are absolutely NOT required to be one of their monkeys.
At the root of this parable is the reminder that you and I have been loved into being, with the Divine intention that each and every one of us would be a self-differentiated, unconditionally beloved, perfectly free, child of God.
At the root of this parable is God’s intention for you live free from the need to be told to “Be Humble” and also live free from the need to be told “Do NOT think too little of yourself!”
At the root of this parable is the truth that God has created you with the power to take a PASS on the world’s childish games of musical chairs and chutes and ladders.
At the root of this parable is Jesus’ call to you and me to instead, live this life in the self-differentiated, confident knowledge that we are… in every moment and every situation… nothing more than… and nothing less than… a BELOVED CHILD OF GOD… a child of GOD… for God’s sake! What the world thinks of us compared to THAT is a grain of sand on a beach, on a planet, on the other side of the universe! As a child of God, what the world thinks of us or has to offer us, is laughably insignificant. We are, after all, unconditionally loved and infinitely valued children of God! Children OF GOD! What could the game players and clown car drivers of this world even BEGIN to offer or even threaten that could ever compare to that?
Jesus loved the people at that party. He knew they were not made for circus life or for a life of childish games AND JESUS KNOWS… THAT NEITHER WERE YOU! Jesus called the people at that party out of the circus, away from the monkeys, to put down the games, and to live INTO the self-differentiated, unconditionally loved life they were created to live. Jesus calls you and me to nothing less! So let us pay no more attention to the man behind the curtain… let us pass on any sort of ride offered from a clown car… let us not be drawn into the silly social and political games of musical chairs or chutes and ladders AND INSTEAD, let us fully live the life we were loved into being to live. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment