Follow Jesus Christ

Once Jesus was invited to a formal dinner. He was popular with the people — sometimes even wealthy Pharisees and high-ranking officials invited him into their homes, though in doing so they partly risked their position or reputation. At the beginning of the meal everyone witnessed an important guest’s unsuccessful attempt to take the place of greatest honor — to the right or left of the host, as was customary then. It was an awkward and even somewhat amusing situation, depending on your point of view.

During the gathering Jesus taught a lesson to many of the guests at the table, saying: “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited; the one who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place.’ Then you will be embarrassed and have to take the lowest place. Instead, when you are invited, go and sit at the lowest place, so that when the host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

From a psychological point of view, deliberate self-humiliation or a refusal to elevate oneself socially is an ambiguous phenomenon. It cannot automatically be labeled either a virtue or a pathology: the decisive factors are the inner motive and the psychological structure from which the behavior grows. A person should not deny his own value. Jesus himself sat in a place of honor that day and did not deny honor. Essentially he proposed surrendering the high seat as a free choice in favor of an inner hauteur.

A person may deliberately debase himself to avoid competition, to escape the anxiety of being judged, to avoid envy or aggression, or to evade responsibility. Often self-humiliation is accompanied by the thought, “Better to be lower — it’s safer.” Or, conversely, there may be a hidden ambition that is suppressed. Or the person may believe he has no right to respect or recognition. These are varieties of adaptive defenses; they are not forms of freedom. People are often unconsciously slaves to their secret passions and thoughts. From the standpoint of evolutionary and social psychology, hierarchies are inevitable. Attempts to get completely outside them are often illusions. But it is possible to change the source of self-worth: not “higher–lower,” but “deeper–more superficial.”

Psychologically, humility is the absence of narcissistic inflation. The humble person does not feel the need to prove himself, but neither does he hide. A person with suppressed motives constantly feels “smaller.” To be or to seem “smaller” is a continual unconscious source of anxiety for such people. They become angry at rivals; they assume they will automatically be deprived of recognition if someone else is noticed. That is certainly a mistake. The person who strives for “first place” is actually insecure about his own worth, needs the mirror of society, and lives by constant comparison. A pawn trying to reach the last rank and become a more powerful piece on the chessboard is a good image for this.

Jesus did not teach people to suppress their dignity, to hate themselves, to renounce authority (if they possess it), or to take on a role of utter degradation. Yes, he taught intentionally to take the lowest place, but with the expectation of the first place after public recognition. From a psychological perspective this is the stance of a person with an inner center, a stable self who does not need aggressive confirmation of status. The rule “whoever exalts himself will be humbled” is not a threat or a moral slogan. It is a law. A person who builds his self on exaltation becomes dependent on recognition, fears loss of status, is forced to constantly prove himself, and becomes hard, defensive, and aggressive. In the end he loses contact with himself and becomes a caricature of his role, internally “humiliated,” even if he has certain talents and appears “high” outwardly. He is not in his true place and only pretends to be significant.

Jesus proposed forgetting about social position and hierarchy and shifting the focus to inner value and integrity. Jesus himself did not seek power, yet he did not refuse authority when it arose naturally. All people play their parts in the drama called “life.” A pawn dreaming of becoming a queen rarely asks why the game is being played at all. Sometimes the problem is not that the pawn wants to become a queen, but that she thinks that only then will she finally be seen. In truth, all the pieces on the board are significant and noticeable from the start. And they are moved by a Higher Mind.

Church tradition often reads Jesus’ words as “don’t you dare be above others.” Jesus, it seems, taught that “you don’t need to be above” in the human hierarchy. In fact, the highest position before God is attained through service to others. Is this element of Christ’s teaching important for the salvation of the soul or not? If one considers Christianity in terms of redemption as the apostles understood it, the place one takes at a feast cannot determine the salvation of the soul. Many like to recall salvation by faith and Paul’s words: “Who will separate us from the love of God? Neither height nor depth, nothing can do that.” That is true, yet we ourselves can cut ourselves off from wisdom and the right path.

From Jesus’ teaching, salvation is spiritual growth, and an inordinate demand for first place simply blocks that growth. It signals unresolved inner conflicts: dependence on comparing oneself to others, envy, anger, instability, egocentrism. How can one enter and live in the Kingdom of God with such qualities? Each case of self-exaltation is unique and has a billion details, but the essence of Jesus’ words is one: that path does not lead where it needs to. Jesus’ advice to renounce self-exaltation does not itself open eternal life, but it removes a psychological obstacle without which eternal life is impossible. It does not matter whether you are a pawn or a queen on the board; what matters is eternal life after the game is over.