It is not often that the Lectionary assigns a reading from Proverbs, but that is exactly the case on this 12th Sunday after Pentecost in the Year of Luke. The precise reference is Proverbs 25:6-7, two verses. They fit very nicely with the passage from Luke 14 where Jesus gives similar advice, but of course, their context is completely different. It will be the preacher's task to bring these wise sayings into the modern context.
(The following questions have been developed to lift up the way the Word works in the text, a central concern of Law and Gospel preachers. They are not meant to be exhaustive, but are best used with other fine sets of questions available to exegetes. More on this method and on Law and Gospel preaching in general can be found in my book Afflicting the Comfortable, Comforting the Afflicted, available from wipfandstock.com or amazon.)
1. How does the Word function in the text? A sentence which begins with a prohibition can either be interpreted as a Call to Obedience or Law. In the former case, the Word is functioning to invite us to live in a certain way in response to God's grace. In the latter, the Word is functioning to show us our need for repentance, our need for a Savior.
2. How is the Word not functioning in the text? There is no word of Gospel here, no place where the Word functions to proclaim God's work of grace.
3. With whom are you identifying in the text? We are clearly those addressed here.
4. What Law/Gospel couplet is suggested by this text? Since the Word does not function here as Gospel, we will need to invent a few couplets which might speak to this text. Some suggestions: shamed/honored; put down/raised up.
5. Exegetical work: Commentators seem to agree that Proverbs 25 is generally instruction intended for young men who are being trained for positions of political leadership, persons who may well find themselves in the royal court. James Limburg, in his Working Preacher commentary, lifts up this fact and also gives examples of persons in the OT who failed to live by this advice: residents of Babel (Genesis 11), Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 4), and Haman (Esther 6). Luther has an extended commentary on the virtue of humility in his commentary on the Magnificat. Here are a few examples: "They, therefore, do [Mary] an injustice who hold that she gloried, not indeed, in her virginity, but in her humility. She gloried neither in the one nor in the other, but only in the gracious regard of God. Hence the stress lies not on the word 'low estate,' but on the word 'regarded.' For not her humility but God's regard is to be praised. When a prince takes a poor beggar by the hand, it is not the beggar's lowliness but the prince's grace and goodness that is to be commended." (Luther's Works, Vol. 21, pg. 314). "True humility, therefore, never knows that it is humble, as I have said; for if it knew this, it would turn proud from contemplation of so fine a virtue. But it clings with all its heart and mind and senses to lowly things, sets them continually before its eyes, and ponders them in its thoughts. And because it sets them before its eyes, it cannot see itself nor become aware of itself, much less of lofty things." (Ibid., pg. 315).
Blessings on your proclamation!
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