Pride is a debilitating spiritual sickness. It makes us only able to see through one lens, through that of the self, “me, myself, and I.” This kind of attitude impacts not only others around; it impacts even global warming. This stems from a lust for control over the world’s resources in pursuit of profit. Pride of the conglomerates instigate an attitude of “I can take control of the earth and the ocean and all in it.” The result is swollen bank accounts for a small number of people while an environmental catastrophe for the whole of God’s creation.

I opted to reflect on pride and self-centredness in relation to environment because we observe the season of creation from 1 September.

For at least two centuries, humanity has elevated itself above God’s creation. We hear the cry of the ski field employees and operators as there is not enough snow. It is obviously due to global warming that we have more rain and less snow. More floods and less ice forming.

Pride that conflates one’s greed is disastrous to the whole of God’s creation. There is no scientific or medicinal fix for it. It is a debilitating spiritual sickness. This sickness needs to be healed for the world to be a better place.

James Gustave Speth, Lawyer and former Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme offers a sobering insight: “I used to think that top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.”

I think, the solution scientists don’t have is there in Jesus’ teachings. First, the simple question to those who go after more is, if the persons’ life is taken out, what happens to all that the person collected at the cost of damages to God’s creation. Secondly, when will the human mind decide what I have is enough.

A person’s dignity is not in what that one has, but on what that one is.

The gospel call is humility and hospitality. These two are essential ingredients in addressing the devastation of God’s creation and human life. Jesus being invited to a dinner in a noble person’s house, instructs those who gathered to move from self-absorption to other-centredness. Jesus who fed the multitudes in the wilderness, now calls for a radical shift with their hospitality.

Jesus teaches two lessons to his disciples and the guests vying for the best seats. First, to find the lower seat when invited.

The second teaching is even more radical. “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you.”

What Jesus said in front of all the invited guests, must have been an embarrassment to the one who invited him to the dinner. It is polite for anyone in an invited gathering not to criticise the host in the presence of others, though some may go out and pour out their displeasure. But saying it to the face is something humiliating. What Jesus said was a humiliating comment. Jesus announces a radical shift in their action. It was not only to the host, but to all who gathered in the banquet.

The reading from Hebrews today echoes Jesus’ call to humility and hospitality. The passage calls the Christian community to be a living sacrifice of praise, revealed in lives of mutual love, hospitality, and care especially for the usually excluded.

Our worth will be made known when our God comes and finds us. God in Christ invites us to follow Christ to have a better life for self and others. We are to gather all in a heavenly banquet where we’ll recognize our fellow guests from the outcasts and the undesired. Not because it would help our image or move us up on the social ladder or even puff up our pride by being thanked or recognized for doing something good.

Such actions may be dismissed as wasteful, naïve, or foolish—but they embody the way of Jesus. That is what we precisely do when we gather around the communion table to receive the bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ. It is not only a participation in such a banquet, but also a healing of debilitating sicknesses like pride, selfishness, and greed.

God nourishes us with food and drink; in response, those who gather at Christ’s table are called to nourish one another, showing humility and hospitality.

And so, we sing not just with our lips, but with our lives. Our song and our prayer are,

We sing a love that seeks another’s good,
that longs to serve
and not to count the cost,
a love that, yielding,
finds itself made new:
come, caring love,
live in our hearts today.