Coming to God’s Table: Embracing Humility and Grace
Jeremy Miller
The Table of God’s Grace
This week’s readings circle around one theme: God’s invitation to a life shaped by humility, faithfulness, and trust in His grace. From Jeremiah’s rebuke to Jesus’s parable of the feast in Luke, the picture is clear; God offers living water, a seat at His table, and a community transformed by His love.
Broken Cisterns and Living Water (Jeremiah 2:4–13)
Jeremiah mourns that God’s people have turned from the fountain of living waters to carve out cracked cisterns that hold nothing. It’s a vivid image of our own hearts: drawn to idols that cannot satisfy. We exchange the abundance of God for substitutes that leave us empty. Yet the point of the passage is not just condemnation, it’s the persistence of God’s grace. The fountain is still there, waiting to be received.
The Wisdom of Humility (Proverbs 25:6–7)
Proverbs offers a straightforward lesson: don’t exalt yourself in the king’s presence; it is better to be called up than cast down. But this isn’t just a social strategy, it is a spiritual truth. In God’s kingdom, it is always He who lifts up. The proud eventually collapse under their own weight, while the humble are raised by grace.
Interestingly, modern psychology has given a name to something Proverbs anticipated millennia ago: the Dunning–Kruger effect. The more deeply you understand a subject, the more cautious you become in claiming expertise. Conversely, the less you know, the more likely you are to boast. Proverbs foresaw this dynamic long before it had a name: those who clamor for the highest seat reveal their ignorance, while those content with the lowest place often prove wisest in the end.
The Feast of the Kingdom (Luke 14:1, 7–14)
Jesus takes this wisdom and expands it into a parable of the kingdom. Don’t scramble for the places of honor—take the lowest seat, and let the host invite you higher. More than that, when you give a banquet, don’t invite those who can repay you. Invite the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. In other words, give without calculation, and welcome those the world overlooks.
Here Jesus doesn’t just teach etiquette; He reveals the nature of His own mission. Christ Himself took the lowest place, humiliating and humbling Himself to serve the unworthy. And His table is open not to the powerful or the self-important, but to the needy, the overlooked, the ones who cannot repay. The community that gathers around Him is meant to look the same, marked by generosity, hospitality, and the freedom that comes from not needing repayment.
A Life Shaped by Christ (Hebrews 13:1–8, 15–16)
Hebrews grounds all of this in practical instructions: show hospitality, care for prisoners, honor marriage, stay free from greed, do good, and share what you have. These are not arbitrary moral rules but the natural fruit of a life rooted in Christ. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever”—the one who humbled Himself, poured Himself out, and still gives living water. Anchored in His unchanging promises, our lives take their shape from His.
Living at the Table
Taken together, the readings pose a searching question: whose table are you sitting at? We can build our own cisterns and scramble for places of honor, or we can receive the invitation of Christ. When we insist on building our own table and arranging the seats ourselves, it becomes slavery. We are chained to our pride, bound to comparison, and captive to the fear of being displaced. What looks like freedom is in truth a form of bondage.
But at Christ’s table, the chains are broken. Pride is set aside, generosity flows without calculation, and the poor and powerless are welcomed without condition. The Christian life begins and ends here, at the feast of grace, where the One who humbled Himself for us is both host and food, and where He alone lifts us into true freedom.
Questions for Reflection:
- What “broken cisterns” am I drinking from—things I look to for satisfaction that always leave me empty?
- Do I find myself scrambling for recognition and honor, instead of trusting God to lift me up?
- Who in my life have I avoided welcoming because they can’t “repay” me?
- Am I building my own table of pride and comparison—or am I actually sitting at Christ’s table of grace?
- If Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, what would it look like to finally let His promises shape the way I live right now?
Scripture References
Jeremiah 2:4–13 (ESV)
4 Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the clans of the house of Israel. 5 Thus says the Lord:
“What wrong did your fathers find in me
that they went far from me,
and went after worthlessness, and became worthless?
6 They did not say, ‘Where is the Lord
who brought us up from the land of Egypt,
who led us in the wilderness,
in a land of deserts and pits,
in a land of drought and deep darkness,
in a land that none passes through,
where no man dwells?’
7 And I brought you into a plentiful land
to enjoy its fruits and its good things.
But when you came in, you defiled my land
and made my heritage an abomination.
8 The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’
Those who handle the law did not know me;
the shepherds transgressed against me;
the prophets prophesied by Baal
and went after things that do not profit.
9 “Therefore I still contend with you,
declares the Lord,
and with your children’s children I will contend.
10 For cross to the coasts of Cyprus and see,
or send to Kedar and examine with care;
see if there has been such a thing.
11 Has a nation changed its gods,
even though they are no gods?
But my people have changed their glory
for that which does not profit.
12 Be appalled, O heavens, at this;
be shocked, be utterly desolate,
declares the Lord,
13 for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.
Luke 14:1–14 (ESV)
Healing of a Man on the Sabbath
14 One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. 2 And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. 3 And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” 4 But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. 5 And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” 6 And they could not reply to these things.
The Parable of the Wedding Feast
7 Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, 9 and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
The Parable of the Great Banquet
12 He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
Hebrews 13:1–16 (ESV)
Sacrifices Pleasing to God
13 Let brotherly love continue. 2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. 3 Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. 4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. 5 Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 6 So we can confidently say,
“The Lord is my helper;
I will not fear;
what can man do to me?”
7 Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. 9 Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. 10 We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. 11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. 13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. 14 For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. 15 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. 16 Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
