Proper 17, Year C | Luke 14:1, 7-11
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
August 31, 2025
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
To watch the full service, please visit this page (available for three weeks after the date of streaming).
You probably recall Jesus’ statement, “The first will be last, and the last will be first.”[1] Similar to it is when he said, “whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave.”[2] Today Luke offers us another variation on that theme: “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”[3] Sadly, throughout the ages, we Christians have regularly taken these words and reinterpreted them to mean the opposite of what they say. We snatch the plain messages of deference and reversal of status and turn them into methods of self-advancement, often using self-deprecation and labels like “servant-leadership” to whitewash our greed and ambition.
So right up front I want to make clear that Jesus means what he says. He isn’t giving coded workplace or professional advice. He isn’t telling us the secret to making God or others think better of us or to finagling our way into a better seat at Heaven’s table. He’s talking about actual humility.
Humility is a challenging concept for us, in part because its existence, like Jesus’ statement about it, is itself a riddle, a paradox based in contradictory truths.
Humility is something we can recognize in others, but never something we can see in ourselves, at least until after the fact. As soon as we start to think, “Wow, look at me being so humble right now!”, we step outside of what makes humility a virtue in the first place. That’s because humility isn’t found in talking down about ourselves or intentionally treating ourselves as lesser in relation to other people. It isn’t found in self-hatred, nor can anyone express it through deliberate action. Voluntarily lowering ourselves isn’t necessarily a bad thing; over time, it might become an exercise that could eventually guide us toward lives of humility. But the very fact that conscious “self” is involved automatically divides the actions or attitudes from genuine humility.
That’s because humility has nothing to do with the self; it is, in fact, nearly—if not completely—impossible for the conscious self and humility to co-exist. The true essence of humility functionally involves forgetting about the self, meaning it appears only in the moment the self becomes fully present and engaged with someone or something else. Humility flowers, ever so briefly, in instances of genuine concern or care for another, those that minimize or, even better, move us completely beyond any active consideration of ourselves.
When I instinctively turn to make sure someone is okay after they trip, that moment is rooted in humility—care for the other’s physical well-being. When someone is sharing something important and I become fully absorbed within what that person is trying to say, that’s a glimpse of humility—complete care for the other’s experience and concern.
We can recognize it only through action, but humility isn’t the action in and of itself. The action is simply evidence of humility’s fleeting presence. Humility is a fruit that reveals itself when love for God manifests through focus on the well-being of our neighbor.
Several years ago[4] I was talking with a friend about how God must be the consummate and most perfect embodiment of all virtues. Chatted along those lines, I mused that, as the Bible calls for people to be humble, God must therefore be the most humble being of all. My discussion partner reacted with visible shock. They seemed offended, possibly even disgusted, at the idea that God, the ultimate being of ultimate perfection, could in any way be “humble.” God deserves praise. God deserves service and adoration.[5] In that moment, my friend couldn’t comprehend how those things could be compatible with the concept of humility.
Yet humility is exactly what the Bible keeps revealing about God, time after time and story after story.
In the beginning, God creates, not out of a sense of need or longing or loneliness, but out of joy and excitement. God constructs the platforms where that which is not directly God can live and then provides for their continued existence. God chooses certain individuals as examples, continuing to care for and guide their families throughout the generations.[6] Those people stumble under the consequences of their own choices, and God returns to strengthen and lift them up, standing with them despite their ongoing failures. As we humans continue to complain about God being against us, we eventually encounter God-With-Us. Offended by this ongoing evidence of humility, we attempt to erase its presence, only for God to insist on its continuing existence, causing it to persist despite the reality we keep attempting to create.
Again and again God provides for, refreshes, restores, and breathes life into that which is not God. Knowing from experience that there will be little to no return on this ongoing investment, God continues to present and reveal Godself as source through sustenance and generous care.
Like service, humility is something we can neither manufacture nor manipulate to increase our standing within any given community. Any attempt to emulate humility while focusing on our own gain is simply hypocrisy, a mask we don in hope of deceiving both ourselves and others.
The humble are exalted not because they achieve or gather some kind of merit for their actions and attitudes. Humility reveals itself when a person reflects God’s own nature. As their way of being both emphasizes and embraces the reality of who God truly is, they reveal themselves to be righteous—to have aligned themselves with God’s nature and to be traveling on pathways that guide toward God.
Like Jesus’ statement to us, humility truly is one of life’s deepest paradoxes.
No one can make themself more humble. Any consideration of the self instantly counteracts the effort at humility. We become humble only by seeking God: not seeking to get something from God, but by living in ways that reflect God’s reality—love, joy, peaceableness, patience, mercy, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness. The more we reflect God’s nature, the more we forget our own insecurity and selfishness. The closer we draw to God, the more clearly we reveal God’s Image among us. The more naturally we set self aside, the more humble we truly discover ourselves to be.
“All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
[1] A variation on multiple texts: Matthew 20:16, Mark 10:31, and Luke 13:30 among them | All Bible quotations are from the NRSVue unless otherwise noted.
[2] Matthew 20:26-27; Mark 10:43-44
[3] Luke 14:11
[4] Back in college, actually
[5] Note that being deserving of something does not require being demanding.
[6] The emphasis of an example or model does not state that God excludes any others from the same sort of care and guidance.