Character

Friday September 3rd, Luke 14: 8 "When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. 9 If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, 'Give this man your seat.' Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. 10 But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, 'Friend, move up to a better place.' Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." The way to build character is to practice the opposite, to practice humility. Humility is associating with the least, lost and lonely and helping them overcome the injustice that put them the place of being the least the lost and the lonely. Sometimes you will not be invited up, those are the better times, it is a recognition of your successful association with the least, lost and lonely. In the end, God notices, and that is enough. As a pastor, I enjoy doing weddings. I enjoy wedding receptions. I usually take the table farthest from the head table and usually stay there. But it is at wedding receptions that I have my best theological conversations, this being the place where the un-churched have been forced to come to church.