Grounded in faith
Commentary
There is a great deal of moral exhortation in the lessons for today, with a strong focus on the difference that a grounding in faith makes for a community's life in the world. The first lesson is negative, lamenting the loss of this grounding by those who once knew better. The second lesson makes for a startling contrast. For those who do possess the confidence of faith, who know the Lord is with them (Hebrews 13:6), the possibilities seem endless -- the lesson spills over with enthusiasm detailing the manifold implications of faith for the individual, the community, and society at large. The Gospel lesson, then, offers a couple of practical lessons for how Christians who are secure in faith will demonstrate this in the church and how the church that is truly secure in its faith will demonstrate this in the world.
Jeremiah 2:4-13
Jeremiah the youth (1:6) is coming on strong -- if, indeed, this is one of his early prophecies. It is quite a protest song that he sings, about his nation on the eve of destruction. But these are not just his words -- they are the words of God placed in his mouth (1:9). That God would speak such things through a child may be the ultimate symbol of Israel's humiliation.
The oracle begins, as so often they do, with recalling the exodus. God led the people not only out of Egypt, but also through a land of deserts and pits, where no one lives. The symbolic function of this wilderness journey is clear. Israel's long history with God has been like that trek: How many pits have been avoided! How often they have entered drought and darkness and yet come through all right. And God brought them to a plentiful land. God has given us a good life, the prophet is saying, to drop the poetry and historical metaphor. But how have we responded?
Now, the accusations. The first one is intriguing for its contemporary ring: they defiled the land, polluted it. Not only have they failed to be grateful for what God gave them, they have failed to use it as God desired. But, perhaps what was worse, when things were not going well, no one seemed to notice that God had withdrawn the divine blessing. Not even the priests bothered to ask, "Where is the Lord?" The prophets relied on Baal for inspiration. The lawgivers no longer knew God, and the rulers, too, were lost in their transgressions. At some point during this downward slide, Jeremiah says, God was lost, and no one even noticed.
Whether they realized it or not, the people had made a trade. Now Jeremiah explains it in terms they might understand. It was as though they had a fountain of living water -- and let us stop right there to consider how precious such a thing was (and still is) in the Middle East ... an inexhaustible wellspring coming up from underground -- wars are fought over them ... it was as though they had such a fountain and then traded it for some cisterns of water! Cisterns, of course, contain only stagnant water -- and once you drink the water that is in them, it's gone. Now that would be a stupid trade, but Jeremiah continues. It is as though Israel has made this remarkably stupid trade only to discover too late that the cisterns are cracked! They don't hold any water at all and they never will. The analogy works because Jeremiah thinks Israel has traded away a relationship with the one true God for a relationship with a very inferior god, and in time will figure out that this inferior god is not a god at all.
But, when -- the young protester wants to know -- when will anyone start to ask, "Where is the Lord?" You don't miss your water, the old saying goes, till your well runs dry. Perhaps people do not miss their God either, until the gods they think they have come up empty.
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
As with Paul's epistles, the letter to the Hebrews closes with a section form critics call "paraenesis." The scary word basically just means "advice." What is presented here exemplifies what some refer to as "shotgun paraenesis" -- a bunch of one-liners just strung together, addressing a variety of topics.
For the preacher, this can be daunting: practically every verse presents itself as a sterling text, but which do you choose? And is there any way to incorporate them all? Probably not, unless you want to keep the people all day. I know, we taught you at seminary to deal with whole pericopes, not to pull single verses out of context. But with shotgun paraenesis, the rules can be bent a bit. If there is an overriding thought, in fact, it is that God is present in every aspect of our lives.
Let's go with that for a moment. The text begins with an exhortation to mutual love -- this refers to life within the community of faith. Christians are to love each other. But the next verse speaks of showing hospitality to "strangers." This, I think, means non-Christians (not traveling missionaries), for another Christian would not be called a stranger. It is the more surprising, then, that God's angels sometimes assume this guise. Then, we are encouraged to remember people who are in prison (justly or unjustly), especially those who are mistreated. In three verses, we have moved from life within the church to treatment of unbelievers who come into our lives in various ways to regard for those who by their circumstances will never come into our lives at all unless we should take the initiative to go to them. The life of faith reaches outward to all.
And it reaches inward, too. The next two verses get personal -- very personal. The Bible actually claims that Christianity should have an effect on the sex lives and economic habits of individual believers. There are perhaps no two matters that people in our culture (and in our congregations) think belong to that realm of "nobody's business but my own." T'aint so, the Bible says. Your business is God's business.
There's more. Eventually the text leads us back to community life, exhorting us to remember our leaders and offer continually "the sacrifice of praise." God is pleased with confession (v. 15) and deeds (v. 16) that demonstrate our devotion.
All in all, these few verses take in the most private matters of our individual lives, matters related to living in community with other Christians, and matters related to working for justice in a hurting world. They take in worship of God, love of saints, respect for leaders, and service to the needy. At the center is the verse I haven't mentioned yet -- the affirmation that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (v. 8). These are the words that inspire the sort of confidence and commitment that is assumed for all the exhortations. It is because we are grounded in Christ that we can open every aspect of our hearts and lives to the work of God.
Luke 14:1, 7-14
It is sometimes noted rather humorously that in Luke's Gospel Jesus seems to be "always eating." On just about every page, he's either going to a meal, at a meal, or coming from a meal. In fact, Luke mentions nineteen meals that Jesus attends, thirteen of which are not found in any of the other three Gospels. Furthermore, in his teaching, Jesus frequently likens the kingdom of God to a banquet or uses other food motifs. It seems no wonder that, in this Gospel, his enemies call him a "glutton and a drunkard" (7:34) and criticize him for eating with tax-collectors and sinners (5:30; 15:1-2). Basically, he's got two problems: he eats too much, and he eats with the wrong sort of people.
What's going on? I had a student a few years ago who suggested that maybe the author was dieting when he wrote this Gospel. More likely (I think), the apparent obsession with food derives from the context of early Christian worship. The first services took place at meals -- Luke refers to worship services in Acts as "the breaking of bread." I rather imagine that many of the stories now found in this Gospel were once told by Christians seated around tables. Stories about meals seemed especially appropriate for telling at meals. The setting of a meal became a symbol of a worshiping community. What happened at meals symbolized what could happen at church.
So, here, we have what at first appears to be a lesson in etiquette. Jesus comes off as some kind of first-century Emily Post, instructing his disciples in good manners. It seems unlikely that Jesus would actually have been overly concerned with whether his followers would be able to navigate successfully the social circles of their day and score status points by behaving properly at wedding banquets. The banquet symbolizes the kingdom of God and, in a more immediate sense, the church. The moral of the parable, then, is that people should not desire positions of honor within the church, but should desire only to serve, even if it means taking the lowliest position. Nothing too radical here, though we might do a better job of following it.
The next parable, though, takes on a rather startling sense when read in this light. The question "Whom do you invite to the banquet?" becomes "Whom do you invite to church?" The issue is, if a particular worshiping community wants to grow, who should it target for new membership? The answer Jesus gives is not people like themselves (relatives, friends, neighbors) and not people who have anything apparent to contribute. Rather, go after the people no other church seems to want, the ones who've got nothing to offer, the sort of people with whom you don't associate in your day-to-day lives. Do this, he says, and you will be blessed.
The very symbol of a banquet for the church is intriguing. It implies a celebration. Feasting has replaced fasting as the appropriate response to God's presence. Think about why Jesus was criticized and ask whether his followers still get criticized for the same things today. If we were more faithful to Christ, I think we would be maligned as the people in this cynical society whose celebrations are inappropriate and indiscriminate. Christians ought to be known as the ones who party too much -- and with the wrong sort of people!
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Jeremiah 2:4-13
This passage forms some of the earliest preaching of Jeremiah after his call in 626 B.C. and before the reform instituted by King Josiah of Judah in 621 B.C. The oracle is framed in terms of a court case, in which the Lord is the plaintiff, Judah is the accused, and the heavens serve as the jury (v. 12).
The main theme of the passage is given in verse 5. Judah "went after worthlessness," namely the fertility gods of Baal, "and became worthless." The poem is then divided into four stanzas (vv. 5-6, 7-8, 9-11, 12-13), and each of the last three stanzas or strophes ends with the same thought. In the second stanza, the false prophets "went after things that do not profit" (v. 8), that is, that are worthless. The end of the third stanza reads, "my people changed their glory," that is, their God, "for that which does not profit" (v. 11). And at the end of the fourth stanza, the people have hewed out for themselves cisterns "that can hold no water" (v. 13), in other words, cisterns that are worthless. The whole oracle, therefore, is concerned with the empty, useless worship and service of gods that are worthless.
The poem is a model of rhetorical skill, and when a theme is made so prominent in a poem, that should be the subject of the sermon on it. The preacher therefore will want to speak of our pursuit of worthless gods and goddesses -- not a difficult subject in our time.
As the Lord presents his case against Judah in this text, the people's forgetfulness and ingratitude for God's saving deeds toward them in the past are highlighted. The people have not sought the gracious God who delivered them from bondage in Egypt and led them for forty years through the terrors of the wilderness (v. 6). When the Lord brought them into the promised land, flowing with milk and honey, where Judah inherited abundant water supplies and grain and vines, fig trees and pomegranates, where olives grew on the trees, and from whose hills they could dig copper (Deuteronomy 8:7-10), the covenant people enjoyed all those gifts, but thanked the baals for them instead (cf. Hosea 2:8). Even the priests and prophets, who were supposed to teach the people the traditions about God's saving acts, turned to the worship of the fertility gods. And the rulers acquiesced in such idolatry (Jeremiah 2:7-8).
That a nation should change its gods, however, is unheard of among other nations, especially when the new gods are without benefit for the people (vv. 10-11). Judah's "glory" was the Lord who constantly worked mighty deeds in her life. But Judah exchanged that glory for worthless deities.
All of that presents pictures aptly suited to our society. This nation of ours, founded so largely by Protestants and Catholics, always has pointed in the past to God as the source of its blessings. And certainly the church can tell the long history of God's deeds on its behalf, beginning with the death and resurrection of Christ that freed us from bondage to sin and death. Through almost 2,000 years of church history, God has guided and sustained his church, raising up leaders in every generation, renewing its life when the church was failing, pouring out his forgiveness and love in countless benefits for individuals and congregations.
But now, what do we find? Very few in any congregation know the story of God's saving deeds preserved for us in the scriptures. Very few can name the Ten Commandments or state the basic doctrines of the Christian Church. Instead, many have made up their own right and wrong, their own beliefs, and yes, their own gods. And syncretism, re-imagining, idolatry, indifference, hedonism run rampant through a people that is supposed to be the body of Christ.
The Lord calls upon the jury in our text, namely upon the heavens, to be utterly shocked at the condition to which Judah has sunk. Then the sentence is announced in the court case. "Be utterly desolate," God says to the heavens, that is, "dry up the rain." Judah thinks Baal is in charge of the rain that gives the good life of fertility, but the Lord is really in charge. And as the judgment on his faithless people, God takes back his gifts of life (v. 12). "The wages of sin is death" in the Old Testament as well as the New (Romans 6:23).
The sin of the people of Judah is then summed up in the final verse. God is the only fountain of "living waters," the free-flowing stream of grace that can give life to a people. As Jesus tells the Samaritan woman in John 4:14, "Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." From the one God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, comes all life and good and eternity. Let us not exchange that everlasting fountain for worthless deities, broken cisterns in the desert, who have no measure of life-giving grace with which to provide us.
Lutheran Option, Proverbs 25:6-7
This Wisdom saying fits well with the Gospel reading from Luke 14:7-11, and indeed may have been in Jesus' mind when he told the Lukan parable. If you are invited to the banquet of a king, do not try to sit or stand close to his royal person in order to make yourself noticed and important. Someone a lot more important than you may also be there, and you will be asked to move to a lower station to make room for the other. You will therefore suffer humiliation and be shown up for the self-serving individual that you are.
In the Proverbs text, verses 2-8 form a collection of Wisdom teachings concerned with life in a royal court, and they are meant to give instruction about how to conduct oneself in such a setting. Proverbs, in the Old Testament, are collections gleaned from observation of natural and human life that give instructions about how things and persons normally behave and about how to live a wise and ordered life in relation to them.
By using this Wisdom saying in his teaching, however, Jesus gives it an entirely different purpose. Now it becomes a parable about the kingdom of God, and it deals with human pride. We see an example of such pride in the story of the disciples James and John, who ask to sit at the right hand of Jesus when he comes into his glory in the kingdom (Mark 10:35-37).
The Christian life is not concerned with self-exaltation and self-importance, however. Indeed, Christian discipleship involves letting our selves be crucified -- in Jesus' words, taking up our cross and following him to Golgotha. Discipleship involves giving up our own desires, our own will, our own plans and directions, and letting God in Christ replace them with his will and guidance and goals instead. As Paul writes, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). Christ has taken over Paul's life, and the Lord wishes to take over our lives as well. If we exalt ourselves and are concerned only with our own well-being, we shut out God. But if we humble ourselves and let God rule our days, he can use us in his good purpose.
Jeremiah 2:4-13
Jeremiah the youth (1:6) is coming on strong -- if, indeed, this is one of his early prophecies. It is quite a protest song that he sings, about his nation on the eve of destruction. But these are not just his words -- they are the words of God placed in his mouth (1:9). That God would speak such things through a child may be the ultimate symbol of Israel's humiliation.
The oracle begins, as so often they do, with recalling the exodus. God led the people not only out of Egypt, but also through a land of deserts and pits, where no one lives. The symbolic function of this wilderness journey is clear. Israel's long history with God has been like that trek: How many pits have been avoided! How often they have entered drought and darkness and yet come through all right. And God brought them to a plentiful land. God has given us a good life, the prophet is saying, to drop the poetry and historical metaphor. But how have we responded?
Now, the accusations. The first one is intriguing for its contemporary ring: they defiled the land, polluted it. Not only have they failed to be grateful for what God gave them, they have failed to use it as God desired. But, perhaps what was worse, when things were not going well, no one seemed to notice that God had withdrawn the divine blessing. Not even the priests bothered to ask, "Where is the Lord?" The prophets relied on Baal for inspiration. The lawgivers no longer knew God, and the rulers, too, were lost in their transgressions. At some point during this downward slide, Jeremiah says, God was lost, and no one even noticed.
Whether they realized it or not, the people had made a trade. Now Jeremiah explains it in terms they might understand. It was as though they had a fountain of living water -- and let us stop right there to consider how precious such a thing was (and still is) in the Middle East ... an inexhaustible wellspring coming up from underground -- wars are fought over them ... it was as though they had such a fountain and then traded it for some cisterns of water! Cisterns, of course, contain only stagnant water -- and once you drink the water that is in them, it's gone. Now that would be a stupid trade, but Jeremiah continues. It is as though Israel has made this remarkably stupid trade only to discover too late that the cisterns are cracked! They don't hold any water at all and they never will. The analogy works because Jeremiah thinks Israel has traded away a relationship with the one true God for a relationship with a very inferior god, and in time will figure out that this inferior god is not a god at all.
But, when -- the young protester wants to know -- when will anyone start to ask, "Where is the Lord?" You don't miss your water, the old saying goes, till your well runs dry. Perhaps people do not miss their God either, until the gods they think they have come up empty.
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
As with Paul's epistles, the letter to the Hebrews closes with a section form critics call "paraenesis." The scary word basically just means "advice." What is presented here exemplifies what some refer to as "shotgun paraenesis" -- a bunch of one-liners just strung together, addressing a variety of topics.
For the preacher, this can be daunting: practically every verse presents itself as a sterling text, but which do you choose? And is there any way to incorporate them all? Probably not, unless you want to keep the people all day. I know, we taught you at seminary to deal with whole pericopes, not to pull single verses out of context. But with shotgun paraenesis, the rules can be bent a bit. If there is an overriding thought, in fact, it is that God is present in every aspect of our lives.
Let's go with that for a moment. The text begins with an exhortation to mutual love -- this refers to life within the community of faith. Christians are to love each other. But the next verse speaks of showing hospitality to "strangers." This, I think, means non-Christians (not traveling missionaries), for another Christian would not be called a stranger. It is the more surprising, then, that God's angels sometimes assume this guise. Then, we are encouraged to remember people who are in prison (justly or unjustly), especially those who are mistreated. In three verses, we have moved from life within the church to treatment of unbelievers who come into our lives in various ways to regard for those who by their circumstances will never come into our lives at all unless we should take the initiative to go to them. The life of faith reaches outward to all.
And it reaches inward, too. The next two verses get personal -- very personal. The Bible actually claims that Christianity should have an effect on the sex lives and economic habits of individual believers. There are perhaps no two matters that people in our culture (and in our congregations) think belong to that realm of "nobody's business but my own." T'aint so, the Bible says. Your business is God's business.
There's more. Eventually the text leads us back to community life, exhorting us to remember our leaders and offer continually "the sacrifice of praise." God is pleased with confession (v. 15) and deeds (v. 16) that demonstrate our devotion.
All in all, these few verses take in the most private matters of our individual lives, matters related to living in community with other Christians, and matters related to working for justice in a hurting world. They take in worship of God, love of saints, respect for leaders, and service to the needy. At the center is the verse I haven't mentioned yet -- the affirmation that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (v. 8). These are the words that inspire the sort of confidence and commitment that is assumed for all the exhortations. It is because we are grounded in Christ that we can open every aspect of our hearts and lives to the work of God.
Luke 14:1, 7-14
It is sometimes noted rather humorously that in Luke's Gospel Jesus seems to be "always eating." On just about every page, he's either going to a meal, at a meal, or coming from a meal. In fact, Luke mentions nineteen meals that Jesus attends, thirteen of which are not found in any of the other three Gospels. Furthermore, in his teaching, Jesus frequently likens the kingdom of God to a banquet or uses other food motifs. It seems no wonder that, in this Gospel, his enemies call him a "glutton and a drunkard" (7:34) and criticize him for eating with tax-collectors and sinners (5:30; 15:1-2). Basically, he's got two problems: he eats too much, and he eats with the wrong sort of people.
What's going on? I had a student a few years ago who suggested that maybe the author was dieting when he wrote this Gospel. More likely (I think), the apparent obsession with food derives from the context of early Christian worship. The first services took place at meals -- Luke refers to worship services in Acts as "the breaking of bread." I rather imagine that many of the stories now found in this Gospel were once told by Christians seated around tables. Stories about meals seemed especially appropriate for telling at meals. The setting of a meal became a symbol of a worshiping community. What happened at meals symbolized what could happen at church.
So, here, we have what at first appears to be a lesson in etiquette. Jesus comes off as some kind of first-century Emily Post, instructing his disciples in good manners. It seems unlikely that Jesus would actually have been overly concerned with whether his followers would be able to navigate successfully the social circles of their day and score status points by behaving properly at wedding banquets. The banquet symbolizes the kingdom of God and, in a more immediate sense, the church. The moral of the parable, then, is that people should not desire positions of honor within the church, but should desire only to serve, even if it means taking the lowliest position. Nothing too radical here, though we might do a better job of following it.
The next parable, though, takes on a rather startling sense when read in this light. The question "Whom do you invite to the banquet?" becomes "Whom do you invite to church?" The issue is, if a particular worshiping community wants to grow, who should it target for new membership? The answer Jesus gives is not people like themselves (relatives, friends, neighbors) and not people who have anything apparent to contribute. Rather, go after the people no other church seems to want, the ones who've got nothing to offer, the sort of people with whom you don't associate in your day-to-day lives. Do this, he says, and you will be blessed.
The very symbol of a banquet for the church is intriguing. It implies a celebration. Feasting has replaced fasting as the appropriate response to God's presence. Think about why Jesus was criticized and ask whether his followers still get criticized for the same things today. If we were more faithful to Christ, I think we would be maligned as the people in this cynical society whose celebrations are inappropriate and indiscriminate. Christians ought to be known as the ones who party too much -- and with the wrong sort of people!
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Jeremiah 2:4-13
This passage forms some of the earliest preaching of Jeremiah after his call in 626 B.C. and before the reform instituted by King Josiah of Judah in 621 B.C. The oracle is framed in terms of a court case, in which the Lord is the plaintiff, Judah is the accused, and the heavens serve as the jury (v. 12).
The main theme of the passage is given in verse 5. Judah "went after worthlessness," namely the fertility gods of Baal, "and became worthless." The poem is then divided into four stanzas (vv. 5-6, 7-8, 9-11, 12-13), and each of the last three stanzas or strophes ends with the same thought. In the second stanza, the false prophets "went after things that do not profit" (v. 8), that is, that are worthless. The end of the third stanza reads, "my people changed their glory," that is, their God, "for that which does not profit" (v. 11). And at the end of the fourth stanza, the people have hewed out for themselves cisterns "that can hold no water" (v. 13), in other words, cisterns that are worthless. The whole oracle, therefore, is concerned with the empty, useless worship and service of gods that are worthless.
The poem is a model of rhetorical skill, and when a theme is made so prominent in a poem, that should be the subject of the sermon on it. The preacher therefore will want to speak of our pursuit of worthless gods and goddesses -- not a difficult subject in our time.
As the Lord presents his case against Judah in this text, the people's forgetfulness and ingratitude for God's saving deeds toward them in the past are highlighted. The people have not sought the gracious God who delivered them from bondage in Egypt and led them for forty years through the terrors of the wilderness (v. 6). When the Lord brought them into the promised land, flowing with milk and honey, where Judah inherited abundant water supplies and grain and vines, fig trees and pomegranates, where olives grew on the trees, and from whose hills they could dig copper (Deuteronomy 8:7-10), the covenant people enjoyed all those gifts, but thanked the baals for them instead (cf. Hosea 2:8). Even the priests and prophets, who were supposed to teach the people the traditions about God's saving acts, turned to the worship of the fertility gods. And the rulers acquiesced in such idolatry (Jeremiah 2:7-8).
That a nation should change its gods, however, is unheard of among other nations, especially when the new gods are without benefit for the people (vv. 10-11). Judah's "glory" was the Lord who constantly worked mighty deeds in her life. But Judah exchanged that glory for worthless deities.
All of that presents pictures aptly suited to our society. This nation of ours, founded so largely by Protestants and Catholics, always has pointed in the past to God as the source of its blessings. And certainly the church can tell the long history of God's deeds on its behalf, beginning with the death and resurrection of Christ that freed us from bondage to sin and death. Through almost 2,000 years of church history, God has guided and sustained his church, raising up leaders in every generation, renewing its life when the church was failing, pouring out his forgiveness and love in countless benefits for individuals and congregations.
But now, what do we find? Very few in any congregation know the story of God's saving deeds preserved for us in the scriptures. Very few can name the Ten Commandments or state the basic doctrines of the Christian Church. Instead, many have made up their own right and wrong, their own beliefs, and yes, their own gods. And syncretism, re-imagining, idolatry, indifference, hedonism run rampant through a people that is supposed to be the body of Christ.
The Lord calls upon the jury in our text, namely upon the heavens, to be utterly shocked at the condition to which Judah has sunk. Then the sentence is announced in the court case. "Be utterly desolate," God says to the heavens, that is, "dry up the rain." Judah thinks Baal is in charge of the rain that gives the good life of fertility, but the Lord is really in charge. And as the judgment on his faithless people, God takes back his gifts of life (v. 12). "The wages of sin is death" in the Old Testament as well as the New (Romans 6:23).
The sin of the people of Judah is then summed up in the final verse. God is the only fountain of "living waters," the free-flowing stream of grace that can give life to a people. As Jesus tells the Samaritan woman in John 4:14, "Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." From the one God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, comes all life and good and eternity. Let us not exchange that everlasting fountain for worthless deities, broken cisterns in the desert, who have no measure of life-giving grace with which to provide us.
Lutheran Option, Proverbs 25:6-7
This Wisdom saying fits well with the Gospel reading from Luke 14:7-11, and indeed may have been in Jesus' mind when he told the Lukan parable. If you are invited to the banquet of a king, do not try to sit or stand close to his royal person in order to make yourself noticed and important. Someone a lot more important than you may also be there, and you will be asked to move to a lower station to make room for the other. You will therefore suffer humiliation and be shown up for the self-serving individual that you are.
In the Proverbs text, verses 2-8 form a collection of Wisdom teachings concerned with life in a royal court, and they are meant to give instruction about how to conduct oneself in such a setting. Proverbs, in the Old Testament, are collections gleaned from observation of natural and human life that give instructions about how things and persons normally behave and about how to live a wise and ordered life in relation to them.
By using this Wisdom saying in his teaching, however, Jesus gives it an entirely different purpose. Now it becomes a parable about the kingdom of God, and it deals with human pride. We see an example of such pride in the story of the disciples James and John, who ask to sit at the right hand of Jesus when he comes into his glory in the kingdom (Mark 10:35-37).
The Christian life is not concerned with self-exaltation and self-importance, however. Indeed, Christian discipleship involves letting our selves be crucified -- in Jesus' words, taking up our cross and following him to Golgotha. Discipleship involves giving up our own desires, our own will, our own plans and directions, and letting God in Christ replace them with his will and guidance and goals instead. As Paul writes, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). Christ has taken over Paul's life, and the Lord wishes to take over our lives as well. If we exalt ourselves and are concerned only with our own well-being, we shut out God. But if we humble ourselves and let God rule our days, he can use us in his good purpose.
