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One of the most important themes of today’s Gospel passage is humility. We shouldn’t seek the place of honor or other things which are too high for us. But we might ask, “Why not?” Maybe someone will think, “All things considered, someone has to take the place of honor. Why not me?” And, in fact, the real problem is not in sitting in the place of honor. The real problem is something quite different. In the book of Genesis, the first sin, that of Adam and Eve, is the sin of pride. Let’s look at the text.
Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate (Gen 3:1-6).
So, according to the serpent, by eating the fruit, Adam and Eve could become like God. This surely would be a way of taking the place of honor, since God is first among all things. We can find another example a few chapters later, in the story of the tower of Babel. In this story, the men say: “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves” (Gen 11:4). But the Lord responds, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech” (Gen 11:6). The text continues: “The Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth” (Gen 11:9). In this story, the men wanted to build a great human city. They wanted a tower “with its top in the heavens”. They wanted to become a great and famous people: “Let us make a name for ourselves.” In this way, these people wanted to take the place of honor. Just as Adam and Eve had a desire to become like God, this desire to become a great people was not pleasing to God and, as a consequence, he confused their language, so that they could not build the city, just as our first parents were driven out of paradise, so that they could not become immortal.
From these things, it seems that God wants to hold us back, so to speak, to prevent us from occupying the place of honor, impeding us from becoming like him. So then we ask ourselves: is God really so jealous? And in fact, the truth is very different from this! God actually wants us to become like him, which is why we read in 2 Peter:
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet 1:3-4).
Thus, it is possible to participate in the divine nature, and this means to become like God. And just like the people with the tower of Babel wanted a great city and a great name, God gives us a great city, that is, the heavenly city which is the Church, and a great name, according to the Scriptures a name greater than every name, that is to say the very name of Jesus Christ, which we use when we call ourselves “Christians”.
Therefore, fundamentally, the problem is not one of occupying the place of honor. The problem is seizing a place by our own power, instead of receiving our place from God. Even in the Gospel parable, the problem was not the fact of occupying the place of honor, but instead taking the place without having received it from the one who invited you. The sin of Adam and Eve was not the desire to become like God, but the desire to realize this similarity by their own power, instead of receiving it as a gift from God. In the end, humility consists in recognizing the Truth. Everything that I have is a gift from God, and everything that I can do comes from God. Thus Jesus said: “For apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). If we recognize that every good thing comes from God, and if we therefore place our trust back in God in this way, it doesn’t matter if we’re in the place of honor or if we’re in the lowest place. What matters is that we are in the place which God has given us, and that we search to do his will in that place. And this is humility.