Precious to God

Image credit: Olivuccio di Ciccarello, da Camerino, approximately 1365-1439. Works of Mercy, Clothing the Naked, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. Jim Forest

Proper 17 (22), Year C
31 August 2025

Jeremiah 2:4-13
Psalm 81:1, 10-16
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Luke 14:1, 7-14

My brother works in IT. His brush with fame was when he worked at the UN and Boutros Boutros-Ghali, then Secretary General, walked down the hall. He took a picture of the backside of the General Secretary with his cell phone. My brush with fame was when at a ceremony outside of the Manitoba legislature Lloyd Axworthy smiled at our children. I ran into him another time but that was in a hotel washroom.
When I was a young child and our family was still travelling together we visited the Cathedral where St Boniface is buried. I would not have known that St Boniface was a Benedictine monk of the 8^th century, archbishop of Mainz, and a martyr. But the Auxiliary Bishop happened at the Cathedral then, spoke with us briefly, and shook my hand. We were Lutherans then too. I remember the event because my parents said that it was a big deal.
It is remarkable how who we know defines our sense of identity. It does so because it gives us a sense of importance, of value, and I cannot say that some of the volunteer positions I have held did not appeal to me because being asked meant that people valued my gifts and expertise.

That is more or less what Jesus describes in the parable. There is no seating plan and everyone scrambles for the best seats. Sort of like at a concert where being close to the front may allow you to make eye contact with your hero, or get you a guitar pic, or maybe even the set list when the show is done.
The parable understands people’s vanity. Being up is good, down is to be avoided, but to be publicly demoted would be shameful.

At one point during seminary I worked in a warehouse and about two weeks in the warehouse manager was walked out of the building. We had no idea why but it was a humiliating spectacle. Understanding our vanity Jesus suggests that that is not what we want and that it would be better to be publicly praised and elevated than to be demoted.

But we could mistake Jesus’ advice for a strategy to get ahead. You will impress people with your humility, and because you are so very humble, they will not see you as a threat. And because they do not see you as a threat, you will be promoted.
But this does not actually change anything. If we use humility to get ahead, we are not actually humble. If we sit at the bottom of the banquet table to get noticed, we are still playing the same game of jockeying for positions. We have not yet figured out that our value comes from being God’s beloved.

A pastor I knew many years ago regularly used prospective calls to make himself more valuable. To him the prospective calls were bargaining chips. “I may leave, but if such and such happens I may stay.” The problem with this was that it does not build relationships. It is horse trading. After 29 years in the same congregation and one year before his retirement the congregation called his bluff and let him go, because leaving is what he said he would do, although it wasn’t what he wanted to do.
The parable Jesus tells is not career advice. It is advice for a godly life.

It is advice for a godly life, which is a good life, because what matters is that we are known by God.
Important people are only people, whoever they may be. Even auxiliary bishops are only people. We may want selfies with them but we don’t need selfies with them. We may climb the career ladder and be important in the eyes of the world, but we won’t always hold that position, or maybe never hold that position. And being important in the eyes of the world is not the same as being precious to God. And perhaps, just perhaps, we don’t want to be important in the eyes of the world because we do not want to sell our soul.
Being precious to God cannot be earned, it can only be given. And it is given to all without distinction.
While we may seek places of honour, places of dishonour are the places Jesus chose.
Jesus,
though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
⁷but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross. (Philippians 2)

Jesus did not scramble for a seat at the head table, instead Jesus came among us, born into poverty, at the edge of the empire, a child refugee.
When before his arrest the disciples argue about greatness (their timing is impeccable), Jesus said to them, ‘The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. ²⁶But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. ²⁷For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.
A little later Jesus says to them, ³⁷For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me, “And he was counted among the lawless”…’ (Luke 22)

To not seek the places of honour, to not define oneself through one’s position on the social ladder, is an act of faith, for it is witness to our trust in God, our knowledge that we are precious to God.

And precisely through his social positioning Jesus shows that the last, the least, the lost, and the little are precious to God. May they be precious to us also, to us who know that all people are loved by God.

Amen.