"And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them,
When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him;
And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room.
But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.
For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."
Luke 14:7-11
I like this parable, and have been thinking about it a little lately, and trying to figure out how it relates to corporate America. :) I don't think I have a complete answer yet, but I think it applies to anything where our pride gets in the way, which is pretty much everything. :) The world teaches us to scrabble and claw for position and prestige, but God teaches us differently. He teaches us to do good, and to humble ourselves, to place ourselves in the lowest positions, and work from there. And then, if God wants to pull us up to do something else or to serve him in a different way, then great... but if we learn to be happy, content, industrious, and helpful where we are, then everything else is just icing, becaue we already have everything we need.
Today, let's step back and choose to sit lower. Let's help and lift and serve and not be so concerned with our own position that we forget to notice the crazy cool awesomeness of everyone around us. Let's not assume that we are better and sit above anyone, but rather sit with the lowest and help them with everything we are, as Christ did. As we do, I think we will find that our perceptions of what is low and what is high are completely skewed, and we'll start to understand a little better the way that God sees, and embrace unity and love in a deeper way.
