“The Way Down Is the Way Up”
Luke 14:1, 7-14
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
8/28/16
In his book Falling
Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, Richard Rohr explores a
truth as old as humankind itself, but a truth that much of humankind tries with
all its might to deny. “The way up is the way down,” says Rohr. “Or, if you
prefer, the way down is the way up.”1
“It is not
that suffering or failure might
happen,” he says, “or that it will only happen to you if you are bad…or…unfortunate…or
that you can somehow by cleverness or righteousness avoid it. No, it will happen, and to you! Losing,
failing, falling, sin, and the suffering that comes from [it are] necessary and
even good part[s] of the human journey.”2
The biblical
story serves as one long illustration of this truth. Think of Adam, Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, Esau, Joseph, the Hebrews in Egypt, Moses, David, John the
Baptist, Peter, the rich young man, Paul, even Jesus. Indeed, scripture not
only confirms that the way down is the
way up, it offers this dependable reality as a kind of metaphor for God.
In his book Let Your Life Speak,
the Quaker mystic and teacher Parker J. Palmer candidly shares his experience with
depression. He speaks of finding the strength to face what he calls the
“figure” that had hounded, tormented, and almost killed him. Much like one can
turn to confront and receive a blessing from some monster in a dream, Palmer
turned and asked the figure, “What do you want?”
And the figure said, “I want you to embrace this descent into hell as a
journey toward selfhood – and a journey toward God.”3
Palmer began learn
that the way to God begins not by going “up” as he’d been taught to assume, but
by turning downward. Taking the risk of going “underground,” as Palmer says,
gives us the opportunity to learn that wholeness comes as the gift not of being
“set apart or special or superior but [as the gift of a] mix of good and evil,
darkness and light.”4
This downward rise includes the
experience of being humbled. “For some of us,” says Palmer, “the path to
humility…goes through humiliation, where we are brought low…stripped of
pretenses and defenses. [Humiliation] allows us to grow from the ground up.”
Palmer equates this groundedness with
what theologian Paul Tillich meant when referring to God as the “Ground of
Being.”5 Tillich describes God as groundedness, rootedness, as the
very Invitation to connection with the source and destination of all creation.
To lose connection with the ground, the earth, and the creatures who share
dependence upon it is to lose connection with God.
Have you ever
dreamed you were flying? Those are wonderful dreams – to feel lifted up,
weightless, soaring above the earth. What occasionally happens in those dreams,
though? We come crashing back down, don’t we? Dreams of flight usually warn us
of a heart, mind, and soul caught in the throes of dangerous inflation –
feelings of superiority, arrogance, invulnerability. Flight dreams indicate
that a person is becoming disconnected from the earth, from the communities on
the ground, and thus from God. The unnerving fall serves as God’s gracious
gravity bringing us back to earth, humbling us back to awareness, not of our unworthiness but of our no better-no worse standing in relation
to the rest of creation. To ignore this invitation sets us up for an
all-too-public humbling when the host says, “You. Get up, and give this person
your place.”
The two
parables in today’s reading may seem antithetical to what Jesus normally
teaches. They appear to encourage a very shallow, self-serving humility, like a
candidate trying to manipulate votes out of a demographic he or she has openly criticized
or mocked. But I think these two parables have more in common with the parable
of the heartless judge whom the woman must hound until justice is done. In that
parable Jesus teaches that prayer is a discipline, a relationship that requires
attention and intention. The more we pray, the more we feel connected to the Reality
to whom we pray. Likewise, the more we do
justice, the more just we become.
Jesus is teaching humility to the
Pharisees the same way. It takes practice to accept and then to participate gratefully
in the reality that groundedness in God means living in active and empathetic
solidarity with the mentally, spiritually, physically, emotionally, and morally
broken of the earth.
Remember, the Pharisees don’t get excluded
from the banquet. Indeed, Jesus accepts their hospitality, and at the same
time, he asks these high-flying dreamers to make room for those whom they have
learned to consider “beneath” them.
When grounded
in the Ground of Being, the way down is the
way up. Living that truth requires more than the occasional sprint at
JAMA’s Food Pantry, Loaves and Fishes, or Family Promise. It’s a lifelong
marathon of discipleship. Each day the effort begins anew by deliberately turning
one’s heart toward humility. I think that’s why Jesus sounds like he’s
encouraging the Pharisees to be humble for selfish benefit. He knows that the
more one practices humility, the more humble one truly becomes – and the more
humble, the more hospitable.
So, too, the more one practices
kindness, the kinder one becomes – and the kinder, the more compassionate.
The more one practices gratitude,
the more grateful one becomes – and the more grateful, the more generous.
The more one practices
resurrection, the more alive and new one becomes – and the more alive and new,
the more fearlessly loving.
The more we
practice all these virtues, the more like Jesus we become. And the more like
Jesus we become, each according to our own gifts, the more we become the unique
human beings God created us to be.
Living as
though the way up is the way up, the
Pharisees have become disconnected from their neighbors, their true selves, and
from God. Through these odd parables, Jesus teaches them that pride and prejudice
among leaders creates a fractured and hostile community.
‘You’re better than this,’ he says.
‘And to enjoy the gifts of your true nature, you’ll have to learn to humble
yourselves, even if you don’t really mean it at first.’
Poet Rainer Maria Rilke expresses
this beautifully:
How surely gravity’s
law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the strongest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the strongest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.
Each thing-
each stone, blossom, child –
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we belong to
for some empty freedom.
each stone, blossom, child –
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we belong to
for some empty freedom.
If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.
Instead we entangle
ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.
So, like children, we
begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God’s heart;
they have never left him.
to learn from the things,
because they are in God’s heart;
they have never left him.
This is what the
things teach us:
to fall,
patiently trusting our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.6
to fall,
patiently trusting our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.6
1Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for
the Two Halves of Life, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2011. p. xviii.
2Ibid. p. xx.
3Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening
for the Voice of Vocation, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2000. p. 69.
4Ibid. pp. 69-70.
5Ibid. pp.69-70
6Originally publish by Rainer Maria Rilke in his book Rilke’s
Book of Hours: Love Letters to God. Copied from: https://consciousmovements.com/how-surely-gravitys-law/
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