There are Thirty-nine Articles of Religion which describe the Anglican comprehension of the Faith and Discipline of our Christian heritage.  These Articles may be found in The Book of Common Prayer, beginning on page 867.  The Sixth of these Thirty-nine Articles declares that there are certain ancient scriptures which “the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth not apply them to establish any doctrine.”  In other words, there are certain ancient scriptures which are not precisely “the Word of the Lord,” . . . but which are to be highly valued for their wise instruction which is founded upon the Word of the Lord.  One such book is the Book of Jesus ben Sirach, . . . also known as the Book of Ecclesiasticus, from which we have the First Lesson appointed for today.

    And what Jesus ben Sirach has given us today is a definition for sin.  . . . “Sin,” says ben Sirach, . . . sin is “to depart from the Lord”.  . . . And the thing that causes sin, ben Sirach says; . . . the thing that causes sin is Pride.  Pride is the cause of sin, because it is “to depart from the Lord”.  . . . Pride is a departure from the Lord in preference for the authority of one’s own mind, . . . imperfectly informed by worldly prejudices, fleshly passions, and devilish lies.

    The consequence of pride is arrogance; . . . arrogance and injustice, ben Sirach says.  . . . And as tragic as it can be on a personal level, . . . on a public level sin is disastrous.  . . . Because of sin, ben Sirach says; . . . because of sin “sovereignty passes from nation to nation.”  . . . Because of sin (spawned in private and practiced in public) . . . because of sin the entire world restlessly quarrels with itself . . . so that one nation (for instance) will conquer another in order to overcome injustice; . . . but the thrill of victory will spawn insolence.  The victorious nation will think itself elected by divine preference . . . and will become convinced that the authority of its own mind is preferable to that of any other; . . . and the victorious nation will become proud . . . and arrogant . . . and unjust . . . until the day arrives  when another nation must rise up to beat it down:

Sovereignty passes from nation to nation [ben Sirach says] . . . Sovereignty passes from nation to nation on account of injustice and insolence . . .

    So, why then does Jesus, the Christ, say to us?

When you are invited to a marriage feast, . . . sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you.

A rather proud thing to do, don’t you think?; . . . a rather insolent bit of scheming, wouldn’t you say?  . . . To plan to be noticed by people by feigning humility; by intentionally sitting where you know your host will be embarrassed to find you and publicly, in the sight of everyone, give you a more honorable place at table.  . . . Of course, that sort of subterfuge is designed for a stratified society, such as we find in first century Judea; . . . it probably wouldn’t work in Morris.  But still, . . . it’s a rather peculiar thing to hear Jesus say; to counsel such a proud act.  . . . Or is there more to this saying than can be discerned just in hearing it, do you think?

    I believe Saint Luke thinks so; . . . that there’s more to this teaching than a casual glance can discover.  . . . And so, Luke introduces Christ’s teaching by telling us that Jesus “told a parable”.  By saying this, Saint Luke alerts us to the fact that what we are about to hear is the Word of God . . . in which is secreted a great spiritual treasure.

    So, what spiritual treasure do you suppose is hidden in this seemingly crass saying?  . . . Well, let’s pay attention to where the saying is located in Luke’s Gospel.  Remember that in the Ninth Chapter we’re told that “When the days drew near for him to be received up, [Jesus] set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  And here we are, in the Fourteenth Chapter . . . and Jesus is still journeying toward Jerusalem.  Not to see the sights, mind you, but Jesus is journeying toward His crucifixion.  In other words, Saint Luke has constructed his Gospel so that everything that Jesus says while He is on this journey . . . bears upon the meaning of the tremendous event of His being “received up” onto the Cross.

    So, in the portion of the Gospel we’ve heard today, Jesus, on His way to Jerusalem, finds Himself at the house of a haughty man . . . eating a meal in the company of haughty men.  And so Jesus says to them, with a parable (so as not to disturb their complacency unless they permit it), . . . Jesus says to them:

if you find yourself at a marriage feast you shall discover that you have no reason to be proud, . . . but if you are humble, . . . then you shall be exalted!

Now, Jesus is very specific about the kind of banquet His hearers shall be invited to:  . . . a marriage feast.  And every good Jew living in the days of Christ’s Incarnation; . . . every good Jew knew that a marriage feast was a symbol for the End Time; the Day which all the Faithful yearned for; . . . the image of a marriage feast symbolized the Day when all the People of God shall be gathered into the halls of Eternity to feast at the supper which shall celebrate the wedding of Israel to Her God forever . . . while all the wicked shall be utterly destroyed.  . . . But, as I explained last Sunday, Saint Luke asserts in his Gospel . . . and all the Church, in former days, has agreed that the End Time happened at Calvary.  The End of the World came when Jesus was crucified.  . . . And three days later -- on a Sunday; . . . today -- the joyful wedding festival was begun.  For, the gloriously risen Lamb of God escorted us into God’s presence, and the Church was wed to Her Christ.  . . . And we who are the Church have become sons and daughters of God!

    And so, . . . if you should find yourself at a marriage feast; . . . if you should find yourself, as you are now, before God’s Holy Table . . . you shall discover that you have no reason to be proud.  . . . Indeed, upon the Cross is inscribed the shame of each one of us.  Upon the Cross is the consequence of human pride and arrogance and injustice.  Upon the Cross is the suffering of the Innocent One Whose birth we greeted with such happiness and love on Christmas Day.  . . . Upon the Cross is our post-Christmas treachery; our very departure from God Himself, blasphemously treating Him with thorns and scourging and spitting and nails and spear.  . . . But from the Cross come what?  . . . What do we hear Jesus say as He hangs upon the Cross?  . . . From the Cross come words of forgiveness.  . . . And so, upon the Cross restitution is made for our sin.  Upon the Cross each of you are redeemed!

    And if you are humbled by these things; that each departure from the Lord involves a cruelty and insolence equal to that of Calvary . . . in spite of our good intentions.  If you are humbled before God as the consequence of Calvary; . . . if you are humbled by these things, then you will perceive the joy of the Resurrection; . . . the Living Jesus, Who was dead but now is alive; . . . the Risen and Living Jesus will come to you and take you by the hand and say, “Friend, come up higher.”  . . . And He will bring you into the Presence of God!  . . . That is the shining spiritual treasure which the Lord has secreted in this trivial little parable that has been read to you today.  . . . For each one of us to embrace this treasure, which Christ has given us; . . . for each one of us to embrace the treasure of our humility and the mercy of our restitution . . . is the sacred peace which surpasses understanding. 

    . . . But then, just as Jesus ben Sirach says that sins against God have a public consequence, . . . so Jesus the Christ says that the peace of God has a public application as well.  And so,

[Jesus] said also [Saint Luke tells us];  . . . [Jesus] said also . . . ‘When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid.  But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.  You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.’

Jesus the Christ affirms what Jesus ben Sirach suggests:  . . . for each one of us to publicly live in the presence of God, honoring Him with our thoughts and with our words and with our actions, and inviting everyone around us to allow the Cross to humble them so that the Church’s Bridegroom might bring them into God’s presence as well, . . . well, . . . the nations will be the better for it.  . . . They might even begin to know peace, . . . because “pride was not created for men”, . . . and the Cross keeps it out of our reach.