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In this Sunday’s homily, Father Randy reflects on Jesus’ teaching in Luke 14:1, 7-14 about humility at the Pharisees’ table. True humility is not about seeking recognition or false modesty, but about recognizing that every gift we have comes from God and that, even at our lowest, we are worth dying for. Rooted in God’s grace, we are called to live with dignity, respect, and love for all.
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Father Randy:
And so this is part of what Jesus starts to get at in the gospel today, where he goes to dine at the home of the leading Pharisees. Now notice that even though Jesus and the Pharisees, they have these great disagreements all around the gospels, you know, ultimately ends in them trying to kill him and killing him, but he still goes to dine with them. Jesus, he’s normally found with the poor, with the needy, but no one is excluded from Jesus’ presence, not even the wealthy and the powerful.
Father Randy:
And so now as Pharisees, these men would have been these upstanding members of society, keeping the Mosaic law, teaching the scriptures. They’re in a prime position for pride, for placing themselves above those around them who aren’t being as devout, who aren’t as faithful. So it’s to them that Jesus addresses this teaching about taking the lower place and letting the host move you up to a more honorable place.
Father Randy:
The point, of course, is not taking the lower place because you want everyone to see you being moved up. That’s false humility. We know what that looks like. But taking that place because you want to be there. Recognizing that on a certain level, you are no better than those around you at the lowest place. And this is why true humility can be very hard. How easy it is to look at the person on the street with all the poor decisions they’ve made and to hold ourselves above them.
Father Randy:
Much harder is it to look them in the eye and to see that every good thing we have is a gift from God, to recognize the grace at work in our lives. That put in their place, we could just as easily have made the same choices as they did. And so this is the first kind of grounding pole of humility. We all start from the same place, creatures in need of grace, in need of the mercy of God.
Father Randy:
But is that God has lowered himself down to our level. He has raised us up. We are dust, but dust that has been directly shaped by the hand of God, formed in his image and likeness. We are so important to God that even when we rejected him, he became one of us. And doing so, he took the weight of our sins onto himself. He went to the cross and died for us so that just as he took on our life with all its suffering, with all the pain, we might take on his life and live with him for eternity.
Father Randy:
True humility is knowing that even at your lowest, even at the worst moment, God still wants you, that you are still worth dying for because God has made us in his image and likeness. He has gone so far as to die for us. We have a dignity that cannot be compromised. It demands respect. It requires love.