The publication, OUR DAILY BREAD, several years ago included a story about a plainly dressed man who entered a church service in the Netherlands. He took a seat near the front.
Shortly thereafter, a woman walked down the aisle, saw the stranger in the place she always sat, and curtly asked him to leave. Quietly, the man stood up and moved to a section reserved for the poor.
After the assembly, a friend of the woman asked her if she knew the man whom she had ordered out of her seat. "No," she replied.
Her friend then informed her, "The man you ordered out of your seat was King Oscar of Sweden! He is here visiting the Queen."
I don’t know if this story is fact or legend. I do like the lesson it conveys. When the saints assemble, humility is an admirable trait for any Christian to carry. Pride and selfishness are not.
In Luke chapter fourteen, we read the following:
7 When Jesus noticed how the guests sought out the best seats at the table, he told them a parable. 8 “When someone invites you to a wedding celebration, don’t take your seat in the place of honor. Someone more highly regarded than you could have been invited by your host. 9 The host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give your seat to this other person.’ Embarrassed, you will take your seat in the least important place. 10 Instead, when you receive an invitation, go and sit in the least important place. When your host approaches you, he will say, ‘Friend, move up here to a better seat.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. 11 All who lift themselves up will be brought low, and those who make themselves low will be lifted up.”
12 Then Jesus said to the person who had invited him, “When you host a lunch or dinner, don’t invite your friends, your brothers and sisters, your relatives, or rich neighbors. If you do, they will invite you in return and that will be your reward. 13 Instead, when you give a banquet, invite the poor, crippled, lame, and blind. 14 And you will be blessed because they can’t repay you. Instead, you will be repaid when the just are resurrected” (Luke 14:7-14.) CEB
I personally think that, in the United States, the hardest challenge churches face is crossing the economic divide. As much adversity as we face in reconciling the races—and there is a lot of work still to be done—I feel reconciling the economic groups is an even more daunting task.
I have seen more people fellowship together from different races than I have different economic groups. I have definitely observed more meaningful friendships from between people of different races.
I am not sure why people from different economic classes have difficulty meshing. I have some ideas, though. One factor is culture. The impoverished have a culture. The lower class lives in a culture. Clearly, one can find in the U. S. a middle-class culture—the list goes on. Crossing cultural divides can be difficult.
Another issue can be education. Typically, education is tied to economic class. Too often, educated people don’t want to know what an uneducated person is thinking—and vice-versa.
Real commitment and real imagination must be deployed to discover common elements between folks who have different educational backgrounds. And humility must be practiced for a person to prove willing to learn from another person out of a different economic group.
None of this is new. Many of the same elements were present in Luke 14 when Jesus addressed religious leaders. Some of these dynamics were also present when James challenged the Christians in James chapter two to show no partiality to the rich.
Jesus’ repeated call to deny self lays the foundation here. For a church to consist of rich, poor, and middle class, members will essentially have to make an effort to practice self-denying love.
Whether you are rich or poor, going in the other direction can prove difficult. When I was young, single, in graduate school, and struggling to make ends meet, I cut corners wherever I could. I hung out with a single’s group much more successful than I was. Every Sunday, they wanted to go out to eat after church. I couldn’t afford that, but I wanted their fellowship. So I would go and make excuses to avoid eating—a small taste of what it feels like to be on the lower rung of the economic ladder.
Most of the time, I have been the one blessed economically. Often, in situations of seeking to relate to the poor, I have found myself moved by their selfless acts.
One Sunday, shortly after Judy and I had our first child, we had an opportunity to assemble for worship in the home of some friends. We lived in a foreign country, and these friends were extraordinarily poor.
The parents had many children and lived, as I recall, in a two-room house. Their house was located across a creek; Judy will never forget me carrying our baby across that creek--balancing myself on a single log.
The mother had suffered severely from tooth decay, and already had lost some of her teeth. The couple had little furniture and no chairs. Entering the house, the mother offered Judy one of her prize possessions—an old barrel. She knew Judy was struggling having so recently given birth, and she wanted to offer Judy her best to sit upon.
It took all of Judy’s self-discipline to refrain from weeping; she was so-touched by this action of grace. We have never forgotten the gesture.
The parents had many children and lived, as I recall, in a two-room house. Their house was located across a creek; Judy will never forget me carrying our baby across that creek--balancing myself on a single log.
The mother had suffered severely from tooth decay, and already had lost some of her teeth. The couple had little furniture and no chairs. Entering the house, the mother offered Judy one of her prize possessions—an old barrel. She knew Judy was struggling having so recently given birth, and she wanted to offer Judy her best to sit upon.
It took all of Judy’s self-discipline to refrain from weeping; she was so-touched by this action of grace. We have never forgotten the gesture.
The by-product of the pursuit of relationship and community with those from other ends of the economic spectrum is that these attitudes and practices—in time—contribute to the work of God, which in turn help form us into the image of His Son.
If this is important to us, living out the teachings of Luke 14 should prove a blessing.
Five Things I Think I Think (with a nod to Peter King for this idea)
1. Judy and I saw SOMEWHERE IN TIME the other night with our too oldest daughters. That movie always had a soft spot in my heart. Not my girls. They hated the ending.
2. I am finally discovering the treasure trove of TV shows available on instant view in NETFLIX.
3. I complete our pulpit look at the book of Revelation in a couple of weeks. Never have I dreaded preaching a book of scripture so much. Never have I been so rewarded from preaching a book of scripture. I am so gratified with what I have learned from Revelation.
4. Why do I have an uneasy feeling about Egypt, Libya, and the Middle East?
5. Just when a void appeared after football season, along comes March Madness.
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