The Copernican Revolution

The Copernican Revolution--August 6, 2018

"When [Jesus] noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. 'When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, 'Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place.  But when you are invited, go and sit down at 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 the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted'." [Luke 14:7-11]

A little over five hundred years ago, an insightful Polish astronomer dared to tell us all that we were not the center of the universe.  Humanity is still reeling from the shock.

You and I learned it in science class once upon a time, I'm sure.  His name was Nicolaus Copernicus, and his mathematical observation that the Earth was not the center of the cosmos, but in fact was one of several planets which orbited the Sun, was a revolution in thinking.  It was not simply a big deal for astronomers or scientists.  It had ripple effects on all of human thought.  After centuries of blindly assuming that we were at the center of everything, it was, well, humbling, to consider the possibility that we were not.  

More than humbling, really--it was threatening.  The idea that our planet wasn't the absolute, unmoving center of all reality seemed to undermine medieval theology (which had gone on record insisting that the earth was the center of the universe, despite a lack of real biblical support), and the religious powers of the day could not bear to consider the possibility that they were wrong. So they dug their heels in, insisted that their theological assumptions were unquestionable, and for a long time banned the teaching of heliocentrism (the sun, rather than the earth, as the center).  Bad news for Copernicus, Galileo, and others.

Now, some five centuries later, this all seems a rather embarrassing chapter in church history.  It reflects organized, institutional religion at its worst: a claim to exclusive possession of the truth when it really had only assumptions about what "the Bible says" on a subject, a refusal to consider new information, the use of power to intimidate and threaten voices of dissent, and an arrogance about our importance that turned out not to sit well with the facts.  Five hundred years later, it is still something we are not great at owning up to.  Embarrassing indeed.

But also instructive for us today as an episode from which we can learn.  For one, we have to deal with the fact that for a long, long time, the official policy of the Institutional Church and the Respectable Religious Crowd assumed they were reading their Bibles correctly and that the biblical writers had been teaching that the Earth was the center of the universe all along.  Funny how we have a way of taking our assumptions and looking for ways to read them back onto sources we deem authoritative in order to give our assumptions extra heft.  It's telling, really, that now with the hindsight of five centuries, Christians can now recognize the truth (one hopes, just about unanimously) that was  once seen as threatening and dangerous once. Even though the long-standing assumed interpretation of the Bible would have been incompatible with Copernicus' teaching, it turns out we had been reading things into the Scriptures based on our own assumptions, rather than on what the Scriptural writers were actually trying to say.  We like to assume still that this was just a mistake of previous eras or older generations, but of course, it is just as likely that we are currently guilty of doing the same but are unable or unwilling to see it.  That insight by itself is worth consideration.

But for a moment, let's take Copernicus' discovery and make it very, very personal.  Because in a sense, what Copernicus uncovered with respect to celestial bodies was already in line with what Jesus had been teaching fifteen centuries before Copernicus published his conclusions.  Jesus has been trying to get us to see that none of us is the center of the universe for two thousand years now, and we are still just as resistant to his teaching as the Church of Copernicus' day was to his  astronomical findings.  We want to put ourselves in the center--to assume that I am the most important figure in my social circles, and that everybody else really revolves around me.  But Jesus dares us at the table to take a good, hard, honest look at things, and to see honestly that none of us is the center of the universe.  And part of how Jesus teaches us to see it is to practice de-centering ourselves.

This is what makes Jesus' words here in Luke 14 so much more than a meager bit of etiquette advice.  When Jesus instructs us not to take the places of honor at a dinner party or wedding banquet, he isn't just offering helpful pointers for improving your social graces.  He is giving hands-on, practical instruction for a radical act of dethroning ourselves from the center of own lives.  And Jesus is making it clear that all of his teaching elsewhere about putting the needs of others first is not merely abstract academic theory or philosophical principle.  Jesus intends that we put others before ourselves quite literally, and he will not let us off the hook with a vague and generic exhortation to be unselfish.  Jesus shows us what it really looks like to recognize that none of us is the center of the universe, no matter what the voice of our own egos wants to say to the contrary.  If we are going to take Jesus seriously at all, it will mean more than just lip service to putting others first--it will mean a change of mindset that percolates down all the way to how we approach social settings, parties, and communal gatherings.  And what Jesus teaches here is no less radical than Copernicus' realization that the Earth was not the center of the universe.  Jesus' table instructions force us to consider--and to act on--the very real possibility that I am not the most important person in the room at any given moment.

It's always easier to deal with things like this in the abstract.  We can all nod our heads and mouth our "Yes" to the idea of not being arrogant, or not being self-centered, as long as Jesus never pokes to closely at our real lives and actual habits.  But Jesus sees through all of our fake attempts at looking humble; he insists that we initiate the act of de-centering ourselves.  When I consciously choose to put others first, I have begun the Copernican revolution in my own heart, too. I discover with clearer eyes what has always been true: I am not the center of everything.  And that turns out actually to be a good thing to see, because it allows me to see my relationship to everyone else--the true Center included--more honestly.  Much in the same way that astronomers realized that Copernicus' model made the math work out more correctly and clearly to explain the movements of the planets, our understanding of how we rightly relate to one another and to God is put into the right perspective when we consciously put others first.

That can happen in real time in moments like dinner parties, wedding receptions, grocery lines, the clawing and fighting over promotions at work, or anywhere.  But Jesus insists that it does need to happen, that dethroning of self, in real moments in our lives, or else we'll be all talk.  The idol that bears my own image needs to be pulled down in my own actual interactions with real people, or else I will still be trapped in the illusion that I am the center of the universe.  

"Me First," and its variation that fools nobody, "Me and My Group First," are the praise choruses for self-worship, which is just as much damned idolatry as the worship of a golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai.  At least the calf-worshippers are honest about what they are doing, anyway. No, Jesus says, not "Me First," nor "Me and My Group First." I am not the center, and I never was.  Thank God.

Today, then, let us practice the Copernican revolution of the heart in the lived moments of this day, and let us allow it to affect the way we see... everything.

Lord Jesus, help us, graciously and lovingly, to see what has always been the truth--that we are not the center of things, not even of our own lives, and to find our place held in orbit around your love and goodness.