12th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 17C

12th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 17C August 28, 2022 “Blame it all on my roots, I showed up in boots/And ruined your black-tie affair…” Whenever I hear the first line of Garth Brooks’ hit “I’ve got friends in low places,” I’m immediately transported to a summer in high school when I’d drive back and forth to basketball camp with a car-load of my teammates. Whoever was driving was obsessed with the song, and she would blast the song over and over again (which required rewinding the cassette tape to get back to the start every time). My teammates would belt the song our with gusto every time through; but I’ll confess that I never really understood the appeal; I actually thought it was a somewhat depressing song about humiliation set to a raucous chorus, but in the throes of the euphoria of teenaged freedom, I would often join in. Y’all know this song? It’s all about how the narrator shows up underdressed (and maybe uninvited?) to a fancy party that his ex is throwing; he recognizes that he comes from a different sort of social status as his ex, but he doesn’t let it bother him as he makes plans to blow off his humiliation and go party with his “friends in low places.” One music critic writes, "Friends in Low Places" was as effective as pop music ever gets: It's a depressing song that makes you feel better. Singing along with that song was like …laughing at a rich person and knowing that you were right ... Garth told stories about blue-collar people who felt good about what their bad life symbolized ...”i The genesis of the song is also interesting. One of the two songwriters was hosting a lunch at a restaurant, entertaining other songwriters, when he realized that he had left his money at home. He told his songwriting buddies, “Don’t worry. I have friends in low places. I know the cook." The songwriters realized what a good line it was and wrote the song from there.ii It’s interesting to me because it’s a song about how a person can take a humiliating experience and embrace it. In our gospel reading for today, Jesus is at a dinner party, and he tells a parable that is all about how a person can learn humility to avoid humiliating situations and also about how a humiliating situation can teach us about the unexpected ways that God shows up for us both when we are humiliated and when we embrace humility. On Wednesday at our weekly healing service, I asked the congregation to think about times when they had been humiliated and also asked them to think about ways that formed them toward humility. We re-discovered that a universally humiliating experience in our modern context is located in the games that we play as children at P.E. or recess; you know the ones: musical chairs, Red rover, the process of picking teams, and of course the ultimate humiliating experience that is known as dodge ball. But as we talked about these early humiliations, some people shared about how humiliations turned into opportunities for prayer and God’s healing response; they talked about how bumping up against other people from time to time serves as a reminder of who they are and how they wanted to live their life and their faith. They talked about how hard and how humiliating it is to ask for help, and they also talked about how it feels when they offer someone help and it is rejected. Friends, our readings for today offer us both good and challenging news. The good news is that God has given each one of us all good things for no good reason. None of us has earned anything that we have ever been given from God; God has given and continues to give because God loves—extravagantly, abundantly, unreasonably. When we get glimpses of that reality—whether it’s in our day to day lives or when we are kneeling at that altar with hands outstretched--it humbles us. And the challenging news in this passage is that God wants us to treat each other the same way; God invites us to do the same for others: giving to others only good things for no good reason, wanting the best for others regardless of how that may seem to affect us, and even working toward that reality. It may actually feel like a humiliation when others are lifted up; and if it does, then we need to pay attention to that, and become more curious because God may show up unexpectedly there, and because Jesus tells us, again and again, that that is what the Kingdom of God looks like. This week, on the Pray as You Go podcast, one of the prompts had to do with humility. I’ve been pondering it all week. “The gift of humility is an excellent foundation for recognizing the unexpected God. It means my ego, my concerns, don’t get in the way. Do you find yourself drawn to this kind of humility?”iii The true answer is that actually, I don’t find myself drawn to that kind of humility. It like my ego and my concerns, thank you very much. And that has shown me, this week, that this is what I need to be praying for, as frightening as that is for me. This week, I invite you to reflect on humility and humiliation. Can you think of a time when you were humiliated that moved you toward embracing a deeper call to humility or to deepen your trust in God? Or perhaps, can you think of a time when God lifted up the lowly and that felt threatening or unsettling to you? Look more closely at your own discomfort and see what God might be revealing to you in that? Or perhaps you need to spend some time with the awareness that God wants to give you only good things, loving you abundantly, extravagantly, un-earnedly. And God calls you to do the same for others. i. From the Wikipedia entry on the song. From an essay by Chuck Closterman: Klosterman, Chuck (2009). Eating the Dinosaur. New York, NY: Scribner. p. 107. ISBN 978-1-4165-4421-0. ii. Ibid. Collins, Ace (1996). The Stories Behind Country Music's All-Time Greatest 100 Songs. New York: Boulevard. p. 276. ISBN 1-57297-072-3. iii. https://pray-as-you-go.org/player/2022-08-28