Sermon on the Range with Fr. Bryce Lungren
(August 31st Sunday Homily)
Readings:
Reading 1 — Sirach 3:17-18, 20, 28-29
Psalm — Psalm 68:4-5, 6-7, 10-11
Reading 2 — Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-24a
Gospel — Luke 14:1, 7-14
Transcript:
There’s a pretty easy lesson of humility in today’s readings, especially our Gospel. Our Lord says today, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. Our Lord’s address to the Pharisee today and his little lesson here on inviting guests and where to take your place, things like that. It’s one of those that speaks for itself.
I can learn the lesson just from that. It’s very deep and rich. I can apply it to all sorts of situations. That notion of humility just kind of runs through it all. Humility, it’s both when you’re on top and when you’re down low. Humility is just the disposition that pervades wherever we’re at. In particular when we’re kind of riding high, you might say.
I think of that partially because of our first letter from the book of Sirach. It’s just a wisdom literature, it’s a lot to glean here. He says, my child, conduct your affairs with humility and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts. Humble yourself the more, the greater you are. That’s a challenging one. When I’m on top of my game, how do I humble myself then?
When things are going right in life. How do I approach humility then? It’s a little bit of a tougher ask, but a very good lesson to learn. I’m reminded of this dynamic, I’m thinking of the old spiritual adage that don’t let your highs get too high or your lows get too low. We wanna stay in the middle, that disposition of humility. Today maybe just looking at when I’m on top, how do I humble myself and not just let my excitement run wild?
This is key for all of us, but also even think of those who are in the limelight or those who have encountered fame or something. In fact, our Lord’s address today is to the leading Pharisees. He went to the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees. I don’t mind, if you encounter fame. That’s where you would have want to humble yourself all the more because the feeling of fame is a high that’s hard to sustain.
What goes up must come down and the higher you are the harder you fall. It’s hard to sustain that disposition way up here. That’s why a lot of you know famous people in whatever regard like turn to drugs, alcohol, things of that sort just to try to sustain the high. You can’t.
So how do I lower my excitement in those good times. It goes for if you’re way on high in fame, but also just when I’m in a real deep place of consolation. The old saying in seminary is, when in consolation, clean the bathroom. Humble yourself so that you don’t just crash and burn. We don’t want this extreme stuff and want to ride in the middle. That’s humility.
Again, don’t let your lows get too low. I get that nobody wants to be there but a key to that is don’t let your highs get too high. Let’s just work with that. I am reminded of a friend that was kind of notorious of this. She was coming off a conversion, a kind of a deep conversion and so she’d be way up here, flying high with the Lord and then all of sudden bam down low and kind of trying to help her work through that.
One day I saw her approaching. I could see she was way up here. I was just like, idle down, sister. She’s like, well how? That’s hard. How do you? The sun’s out, the birds sing. How do I tone it down? I was thinking in that moment, and was like, well, I get it. I get the struggle. What’s that look like?
I thought of a wood stove. There’s a damper on the wood stove. When things are going good, I’m excited. I’m in consolation with the Lord. Don’t let all that heat just go out the chimney, dampen it. Then it keeps it inside and then it cooks the logs and the heat radiates. Then it takes a deeper effect on my life. So what does that actually looks like? I don’t know, but that’s the image, dampen the fire. Doesn’t make it go out, it just makes it go deeper and it invades my bones and it pervades to other people.
That’s a disposition and time of consolation. Don’t let it run wild, dampen it. I think of a good example. There are all the rodeo stars. I like to watch rodeos. A few years back, this guy won the world. The interview after his last ride, announcer says, you just won the world. What do you think? What do you have to say? He’s like, I drew a good horse. That’s what he said.
Like ice running through his veins. That’s it. That’s the dampened disposition. It doesn’t mean we walk around with our head down low. We’re called to be the best we can be in whatever we’re doing, but we don’t want to let that Grace of God, that fire of the Holy Spirit just go out the chimneys. We want to dampen that disposition in good times.
When tough times come, I’m already even kilter. That’s humility, that’s the disposition. If you don’t wanna fall too low, don’t let yourself get too high. There’s wisdom in that. Definitely wisdom in our Lord’s example of wisdom, or humility, he shows us that all the time. Jesus, who was God, did not let equality with God, something to be grasped at, rather he humbled himself, taking the form of a slave, says Philippians. We can learn a lot from our Lord. That disposition for all of us, that image, don’t let our highs get too high or our lows get too low.
