OBSCURITY, HIDDENNESS AND HUMILITY
Here’s my longer sermon notes from this morning’s Metro Christian Centre service (dated 23rd February 2025), continuing our series exploring Jesus-shaped and Jesus-shaping habits.
You can also catch up with this via MCC’s YouTube channel (just give us time to get the video uploaded).
‘I’d rather be a hammer than a nail | Yes, I would | If I only could | I surely would’
— Simon and Garfunkel[i]
‘On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.’
― Michel de Montaigne[ii]
READ: LUKE 14:7-14 (NLT) / LUKE 14:7-14 (MSG)
METRES
I’ve got one of those watches that counts your steps.
Steph bought it for me a couple of Christmases ago. She noticed that whenever I returned from a swim session, I would struggle to add up the sets I’d done, trying to work out how far I’d swum. I would always end up forgetting parts of the session, so, to make life easier, Steph got me a watch that counts and records.
I didn’t think I needed it. I didn’t really want it, either. But I’ll be honest, it’s been an essential tool with my swimming and running.
However, there’s a flipside.
Since having this device, I’ve noticed that I get frustrated, discouraged, angry even, when my watch fails to correctly record the steps I’ve walked, or the lengths I’ve swum or the distance I’ve run.
For example, at one point last year, I’d forgotten to charge my watch before swimming and its battery died near the start of the session, only recording the first two hundred metres.
To say I was distraught would be an understatement. I was broken.
You may laugh—you’d be right to! Laughter should have been my response. But I wasn’t laughing. I remember saying to myself, ‘What was the point of all that effort if there’s no record of it!’
The famous philosophical question used to be, ‘If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?’
Today, the question is…
‘If you walk 10,000 steps without your watch (because you left it at home, or the battery died), have you actually walked 10,000 steps?’
You may have experienced this feeling of utter despair and asked similar questions. You can be honest; this is a safe space. But have you stopped to considered why this annoys us so much?
When I examine myself, the reason this frustrates me is because, stupidly and frankly arrogantly, having that recorded data gives me the means to prove myself before others. Prior to having the watch, I didn’t really care. I was racing myself only. With the watch, my running and swimming went from being exercise for its own sake, to a performance seeking validation and celebration.
I could say that pride crept in. But this isn’t true. Pride didn’t creep in, pride crept out.
The watch did not create this desire in me. The watch wasn’t maliciously manipulating my motivations, puppeteering a performance. Not by any means. The device merely brought these patterns, these ingrained rhythms, to the surface.
Admittedly, the example of my watch may not resonate with your experience.
So, let me ask the famous ‘falling tree’ question another way:
Is a good deed really done if it isn’t posted on social media?
Is an act of generosity worthwhile if it is not caught on camera, not shared on TikTok, and never goes viral?
If I take my wife out for a Valentine’s meal, but don’t share a picture of it on Instagram, am I really a romantic or a good husband?
If my Facebook posts don’t receive likes or comments, do I have any social standing or value? Do I exist if I don’t share my opinions on, comments about and reactions to current affairs online?
Can I really work for justice if I don’t reshare or retweet the latest hashtag, or add it to my ‘bio’?
If I’m a Bible teacher, yet I do not have a ministry named after myself, am I really doing the Lord’s work? Can I be a witness for Jesus without a YouTube channel or a bunch of subscribers to my TikTok reels?
Maybe you can relate to these? Again, the right response to these comical questions is laughter. Yet, they diagnose a problematic cultural pattern. They put their finger on something I’ve noticed and struggled with in my own life: a deep desire to parade my goodness.
The modern term for it is ‘virtue signalling’. But it’s hardly new. It’s an age-old struggle that Jesus addresses not only in the story we’ve just read, but in several other places, as we’ll come to see.
Even though virtue signalling isn’t new, its avenues of expression are, and social media, which is fundamentally appearance-based, performative, and driven by social validation, has, I feel, enabled an explosive epidemic of individuals seeking to be seen, heard, followed and ‘liked’.
I’m not against social media, so please don’t misapply what I am saying. It’s not evil. But, in giving us a platform, social media, like my watch, has revealed this inclination to parade ourselves.
Why is this?
Well, we could mention the dopamine hit we get when a notification lights our phones telling us that someone has ‘liked’ or commented on our latest post. Apparently, some studies say it is as addictive as recreational drug use. Caffeine used to be the first thing we reached for when waking up, now it’s our phones (more on this in a few weeks).
Some of us are so hooked on notifications that they take priority over the person we’re currently sat with and the place we are supposed to be present to.
I should mention, this is not just a challenge young people face. We often scapegoat the young, but adults of my own generation and older struggle with this much more than young people and more than we would care to admit.
However, beneath this dopamine addiction, if we’re honest and willing to examine the ground this sprouts from, we’d have to admit that our virtue signalling is actually an exposure of some of our deepest insecurities—our craving for approval, our fear of rejection, our revulsion to being last.
In our culture, a meaningful, curated and embellished, self-asserting self-expression is everything; lack of it is death. With all the cultural advice that is touted to us in magazines, best-selling books, online articles and the music charts, it feels as if we are all being given ‘just enough education to perform’ (to borrow the title of a Stereophonics’ album)
As such, we keep on parading, strutting our deeds. And it’s draining, tiring, demanding. The dopamine high we get from applause and social media likes fades quickly. So, we keep on curating an image of ourselves to share with the world. It’s exhausting to live a life of constant performance.
As writer and pastor, Rich Villodas, states, ‘To be known and seen is one of our deepest longings. But left to our own devices (pun intended), we get stuck in a never-ending cycle of performative spirituality, where we seek to get from others what can be given only by God.’[iii]
Admittedly, you may not have a social media account and may feel you’re immune to succumbing to such social showmanship. And to be fair, you may indeed be immune. In which case, you can boast about it later and prove me right.
But even without social media, the subtle and seductive impulse to have status, to have rank, fame, power, renown, authority and importance; to be celebrated, admired, to have followers; to be hailed not even as “great”, but simply “good”, can infect and affect us all.
We may not always recognise it, but, as Simon and Garfunkel sang it in 1970, we’d all rather be the hammer than the nail.
Like Jesus observed while at a dinner party, we are prone to squabble for the seats of honour, we are prone to do things that will invite people to repay us with applause.
In the nineteenth century, the philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, as he was distilling his ideas on the meaning and purpose of humanity, wrote these famous words: ‘What is good? Everything that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? Everything that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing… ‘[iv]
What is happiness? The feeling that my audience is growing; that my dominance is increasing; that my stature is admired; that my mastery of life is getting stronger; that my self is being asserted?
As Christians, we’re not immune to this. This epidemic is widespread in the church, too, and not just among leaders. There are far too many personality cults; far too many claiming to be experts; far too many elevating their name above Jesus’ and elevating themselves out of the physical, walking-alongside accountability of a tangible body of other believers. An unhealthy craving for power and sentiments of superiority are rotting our discipleship. [v]
I’m sorry to break this to you, but the Christian life is not about I getting greater. Rather, it is I becoming less.[vi] And, to be honest, that’s easier to say than practice.
The Dutch priest and writer, Henri Nouwen pointed out that the temptation is to let our needs for success, visibility and influence dominate our thoughts and actions. In turn, we go through life unhealthily competitive, bitter, angry, hopelessly restless, not at ease, seeking ‘the next big thing’ and basically unhappy because we are “ordinary” and made to feel that ordinary is a negative.[vii]
Nouwen goes onto write that, ‘It seems nearly impossible for us to believe that any good can come from powerlessness…’ or lack of visibility. ‘We cannot imagine that any good can come from giving up power or not even desiring it. The all-pervasive conviction in our society is that power [, influence and visibility are] good and that those possessing [those things] can only [rightly] desire more of [them].’[viii]
And yet, as Nouwen and many others have shown time and time again, the way Jesus taught and embodied leads in the opposite direction. That instead of seeking the high places, we take the lower positions. Instead of forcefully taking hold of life, we selflessly give ourselves away.[ix] Instead of grasping for position and asserting ourselves, we empty ourselves. That we follow Jesus on his ‘downward path’.
Such an idea rubs right against our instincts, I know.
To be clear, I’m not talking about being self-degrading or debasing. Jesus didn’t teach this. We were made in the image of God to bear the image of God. There’s no room for self-loathing, just like there’s no room for self-righteousness—both are self-infatuation.
Someone hit the mark when they described humility as not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less. As Paul would advise, let Christ live in and through you![x]
Neither am I suggesting we should be uncreative, unresourceful, or lazy under-achievers. God has uniquely gifted us all with specific abilities, inclinations, talents, and opportunities that we can use for the benefit of others, rather than merely for our own gain. You are a gifted individual, so be a faithful steward of what has been entrusted to you.
But, balance this with the reality that we each have our limits, too. More limits than talents, in fact. We’re not superhuman, just human. We are not all experts. Our limits are also a gift to ourselves and to others. This means none of us are the one-stop shop for everything to everybody. We need each other, we need the body of Christ in all it’s giftings.
Additionally, I’m not saying that aspirations and goals are wrong. There’s nothing sinful in wanting to act, play professional football, start your own business, or aspire to be a politician, etc. There’s nothing wrong in recognition or being acknowledged for a job well done, in and of itself.
But living for recognition, living for the accolades is foolish and dangerous.
We are not invited to be social media celebs, or to showy spirituality, not to visibility or to virtue-signalling, but to obscurity, hiddenness and humility—to be like yeast in a batch of dough.[xi]
It’s possible to have virtue without signalling to it.
It’s possible to be effective in our communities without drawing attention to ourselves.
HOLY UNAWARE
Jesus taught about this a lot.
In Luke 9:46-48, as Jesus is making his final journey to Jerusalem, his disciples squabble with each other over who is the greatest.[xii] In Matthew’s account of this argument (Matt. 18:1-4), they even ask Jesus to pick the best, like he’s a judge on Strictly.
The irony is, they are having this debate on the back of Jesus telling them that he is going to be crucified and, that if they want to follow him, then they need to put aside their selfish ambitions and shoulder their cross, too. Jesus has been calling them to partake in the self-denying way of the cross that he has chosen (Mark 8:31-9:1).
But they don’t get it.
So, instead of being the Craig Revel Horwood they desire, Jesus takes a little child and places the child amid the group, saying to them that they need to not only become like the child, but to welcome the child. Going further, Jesus even identifies himself with the child.
Jesus is not asking his disciples to become immature and childish. ‘In the first century Mediterranean world, the characteristic feature of children was not their innocence, but their lack of status.’[xiii]
By doing this, Jesus was showing that the Kingdom of God is not interested in rank or worldly measures of importance. And that’s good news! Because, in the Kingdom of God, those deemed as ‘weak’ in the world’s eyes stand shoulder-to-shoulder with those the world deems ‘strong’.
More than this, Jesus, in identifying with the child, makes this bold claim that this is what God is like. It’s the same scandalous statement as his crucifixion, that he has already talked about; the crucified Christ, the child with no status, represents God. God displays his greatness by not clinging to status.
God does not strut. Or, as Paul worded that when describing God (and not merely love in the abstract), ‘Love does not boast’[xiv]
Jesus makes his challenge even more explicit to his disciples, in Mark’s version of this story: ‘If you want to be first, seek to be the last. If you want to be the greatest, then become the servant of everyone.’ (Mark 9:33-37)
In other words, if you want to be someone, become a no-one! Become obscure.
Easy words to hear. Difficult words to follow.
But there’s more…
In Luke 11:42-46, like in Luke 14, Jesus is at meal and creates a stir by not ceremonially washing his hands—a stir that prompts a teaching opportunity. And so, Jesus warns the religious leaders, his fellow guests, about their silly posturing; that they are too obsessed with doing things simply to win the applause of people and to be ‘honoured’. Instead of grasping at status, they should be seeking to model what God is like, and what God wants, and they should seek to serve others, not out of a desire to virtue-signal, but out of a genuine concern for the justice and love of God.
In Matthew 6:1-6, right at the centre of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says the same thing when talking about those who pray loudly on street corners to draw attention themselves and those who make a big show of giving to those in need.
Jesus wasn’t against praying out loud, and neither was he against helping people and works of charity. But he is clearly taking aim at how wrong it is to turn prayer and charity into a publicity stunt.
The truth is, sometimes we behave like we are motivated by a love for God and humanity, when the reality is we love publicity.
Instead, Jesus invites us to do such things ‘by not letting our left hands know what our right hands our doing’ (Matt. 6:3). He invites us into a ‘Holy unawareness’.[xv]
Of course, you’d be right to ask, ‘but doesn’t Jesus say our good deeds should be seen, like a light on hill?’
Yes, he does say that earlier in the same sermon, in Matthew 5:14-16. But … we let those good deeds be seen so that people can give glory to God, not so we can glorify ourselves.
We are all indeed called to be light. But light doesn’t draw attention to itself, it literally throws itself over everything else, spotlighting something other than itself. A light that only illuminates itself, or that keeps it’s light under a basket, refusing to shine on something other than itself, is useless. It’s like salt that has lost its saltiness.
While we’re on salt… no one ever speaks of how wonderfully salty a meal is. Salt, like light, makes us appreciate and savour the ingredients of a dish by bringing their flavours to our attention, and not by bringing attention to itself. Salt that draws attention to itself is simple spat out.
Again, Jesus is teaching the same topsy-turvy paradox that is the Kingdom of God: If you want to be great, then serve; If you want to be seen, be invisible—make others visible.
To put that in social media terms, stop plastering your name and face everywhere.
As an aside, Jesus’s teaching on salt and light also reminds us that being hidden and entering into obscurity is not about retreating into the backside of the desert, tucked away from the world. We can only truly practice obscurity in the world.
The issue is not visibility. It’s self-promotion.
In his book The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard argues that one of the greatest fallacies of our faith, and actually one of the acts of unbelief, is the thought that our spiritual acts and virtues need to be advertised to be known. Instead, Willard advises, we should practice the sort of obscurity and hiddenness that places our public relations department entirely in the hands of God. We allow Him to decide when/if our deeds will be known.
There’s more…
In Luke 17:7-10, Jesus tells a parable, with a hard-hitting lesson:
“Suppose one of you has a servant who comes in from plowing the field or tending the sheep. Would you take his coat, set the table, and say, ‘Sit down and eat’? Wouldn’t you be more likely to say, ‘Prepare dinner; change your clothes and wait table for me until I’ve finished my coffee; then go to the kitchen and have your supper’? Does the servant get special thanks for doing what’s expected of him? It’s the same with you. When you’ve done everything expected of you, be matter-of-fact and say, ‘The work is done. What we were told to do, we did.’” (The Message)
With this story, Jesus isn’t trying to diminish us or enslave us. It’s a further call to humility, a reminder that it isn’t about us. We are not the centre of the universe. As Tom Wright puts it, ‘It doesn’t mean that we lack a proper sense of self-worth or self-love. It just means that we must constantly remind ourselves of the great truth: we can never put God in our debt.’[xvi]
True, this parable needs to be balanced with the remarkable parable in Luke 12:35-38, where Jesus speaks of serving those who are ready and waiting. But this certainly doesn’t dodge the challenge Jesus throws out in Luke 17. Rather, Jesus, in talking about his own example, sets the example.
Can we serve simply because we reflect the other-centred self-giving love of God, embodying the overwhelming, incalculable kindness that has been shown toward us?
Could we serve without the fanfare?
Maybe that’s a small step for each of us to take this week; to do something for somebody, without making a show of it, without holding it in their debt, without expecting applause?
NAME ABOVE ALL NAMES
Of course, Jesus didn’t only preach this. He lived it.
Jesus spent 30 years of his 33 years of earth in total obscurity. Even in his hometown, people thought of Jesus as merely the ‘son of a carpenter.’[xvii]
If you do the math, Jesus spent 91% of his life being an unknown.
Even in His three-year ministry, the remaining 9%, obscurity was central to his habits.
With His temptations in the wilderness, Jesus rejects all the influencer tactics and showmanship that many of us would use today to draw a crowd and to prove ourselves to the world at large.[xviii]
In the gospels, Jesus is constantly swarmed by admirers of his teaching and miracles, but he never capitalises on it. In modern terms, he doesn’t post selfies. In fact, on more than one occasion he tells people not to say anything at all.[xix]
Even when people want to make him a celebrity, Jesus holds back. In John 2:23-24, when people are convinced that He is the Messiah, Jesus doesn’t entrust himself to them. In John 6:15, when the people are ready to take him by force and make him king, He slips away and disappears up a mountain alone. In John 13, the disciples fail to dissuade Jesus from picking up a towel and washing their feet.
Even in his resurrection, Jesus prizes his obscurity. Rather than storming the world or turning up, in the middle of the night, beside the bed of those who crucified him (Boo!), Jesus simply finds his friends and tells them to share the news with all the world. On the road to Emmaus, he draws alongside two of his followers as an unrecognisable stranger.
As Rich Villodas points out, ‘what’s startling about God’s kingdom is that even though he is all-powerful, all-knowing, and everywhere-present, his presence and activity are often not centred in the corridors of power.’
Consider the opening of the third chapter in Luke:
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. (Luke 3:1–2)[xx]
Luke lists all the political and religious leaders, the high seats and powerhouses of the time, then surprisingly highlights how the word of God bypassed them and came to John in the wilderness.[xxi]
Before this, Luke has already made the shocking statement that God bypassed the palaces and temples, becoming incarnate and laid down in an animal’s feeding trough, in a lowly backwater village called Bethlehem.
As much of the New Testament shows, the central display of God’s power wasn’t some throne or high place, but a cross.
Paul sums this up in the Christ Hymn of Philippians 2: Jesus didn’t cling to his rights as God, but he made himself nothing. He emptied himself of all the perks, privileges, and rights he had as Lord of Creation, and became a servant. He didn’t assert himself but gave himself away. Humbling himself even further, he died a scorned and shameful death by crucifixion.
As Paul writes elsewhere, in the world’s eyes, this appears to be feeble and foolish (1 Cor 3). To Friedrich Nietzsche, this was weakness made manifest, not power. If Instagram existed back then, no one would have been sharing selfies with this scene. Dying on a cross, dying by Roman execution is the total opposite of virtue-signalling. And yet, Paul states, this weakness, this emptying of self, is stronger than all human strength and more effective than any human boast or accolade. The cross is the power of God at work to bring about salvation (Rom. 1:16)
As Paul sums it up in Philippians 2:9-10 (NLT), because of this humility, this emptying out of self for the sake of others,
‘God elevated [Jesus] to the place of highest honor
and gave him the name above all other names,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.’
All of this brings us back to Luke 14, and Jesus’ comments to those elbowing their way to the best seats.
As Luke notes in verse 7, Jesus, upon witnessing this mad rush for the chair nearest to the host, responds by telling a parable.[xxii]
That word, parable, should make us suspect there’s a double meaning to these words.
Jesus is giving more than a practical anecdote, more than warning us that ‘if you walk around acting high mighty, you’re likely to fall flat on your face.’
As with everywhere else where Jesus speaks of serving, he’s intimately tying that teaching to his life, his mission, his pattern. In this parable, Jesus is speaking of himself, not merely to the other guests: He will seek the lowest seat no one would intentionally seek—a cross. But the Host, God the Father, will exalt him to the seat next to his own and he will be honoured before everyone. In His death, Jesus, by breaking the power of sin and death, opens the invitation to the great heavenly banquet to those who cannot repay him. But in that day, at the marriage feast of Heaven and Earth, in our own resurrection, though we cannot repay him, it will be him we declare as Lord and Saviour.
Singing, as John writes in Revelation: ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered, to receive power and riches, and wisdom and strength, and honor and glory and blessing.’[xxiii]
It’s Jesus name that is above all other names, because, among other things, no one else as ever stooped so low and delved so deep into obscurity and humility for the sake of others.
His is the only name that matters.
Not mine.
Not yours.
Not the name of any church or ministry.
It’s His name, and His alone, that brings salvation, life and hope.
And it’s his example we are called to follow. As Paul tells the church he’s writing this to, ‘Don’t be selfish; don’t live to make a good impression on others… be interested in others… Have the same attitude as Jesus had.’ (Phil. 2:3-5).
In other words, step off the treadmill of endless posturing. You don’t have to perform—it’s exhausting, it’s killing you and, to be truthful, the people you are trying to impress are as equally fixated on being impressive. They are feigning interest to appear interesting.
Instead, step into the life Jesus gives, allow His life and His way of life lead you to shine the grace and goodness of God on those around you.
This week, seek to be a no-one, seek to serve, seek to be invisible.
If God elevates you, great. If not, even better. But let God’s light shine so that others may give glory to Him and Him alone.
‘Let me die to the desire
to choose my own way and select my own cross.
You do not want to make me a hero
but a servant who loves you.’
—Henri Nouwen[xxiv]
ENDNOTES AND REFERENCES:
[i] El cóndor pasa (If I Could), lyrics by Paul Simon, appears on the Simon and Garfunkel album, Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970)
[ii] Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), Essays (1580) , Book. 3, ch. 13
[iii] Rich Villodas, Our Culture Is Obsessed with Being Seen. But Jesus Calls Us to Be Hidden. – Christianity Today, extracted from his recent book, The Narrow Path: How the Subversive Way of Jesus Satisfies Our Souls (Hodder & Stoughton, 2024). I am deeply indebted to this article for the backdrop of this sermon/blog.
[iv] This well-known quote is near the opening of Friedrich Nietzsche’s late work, The Antichrist
[v] In 1 Peter 5:1-7, Peter writes to church leaders and elders reminding them to be ‘be shepherds’ of the flock of God. In other words, no gifting or ability gives us a platform away from or out of the flock. If this is true of leaders—who should set an example—than it’s true of us all. We are to stink of sheep, as my old pastor would say. Personally, I’m deeply wary of “ministries” named after individuals. I couldn’t think of anything more abhorrent than ‘Tristan Sherwin ministries.’ I’m called to be part of a body; a corporeal, face-to-face body, too, not some untouchable internet fan base. And, truth be told, I am in more need of this body than it is of me.
[vi] To echo John the Baptist, John 3:30.
[vii] As an aside, an excellent book championing the ‘ordinary’ is Michael Horton’s Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World (Zondervan, 2014).
[viii] Henri Nouwen, The Selfless Way of Christ: Downward Mobility and the Spiritual Life (Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd, London, 2019), pp. 61, 69
[ix] Mark 8:34-35
[x] Galatians 2:20
[xi] In Matthew 13:33, Jesus positively compares the Kingdom of God to yeast mixed into a batch of dough. It’s barely visible, and indistinguishable once mixed into the dough, and yet it transforms the bread, causing it to rise, without drawing attention to itself.
[xii] As Eugene Boring points out, ‘The discussion of relative rank within the group of disciples is not merely a matter of personal egos, but reflects the conventions of Hellenistic society in which status and honour were very important. It was taken for granted that people would be concerned about their rank on the social ladder. Likewise, rabbinic discussion and documents from the Qumran community indicate that discussion of relative rank in the kingdom of God was a matter of authentic piety.’ [M. Eugene Boring, Mark: A Commentary, The New Testament Library (Westminster John Knox Press, Kentucky, 2006), p.280]
[xiii] Ibid. p. 281
[xiv] 1 Corinthians 13:4
[xv] To use Rich Villodas term, Ibid III
[xvi] Tom Wright, Luke for Everyone (SPCK, London, 2012), p.204
[xvii] Matthew 13:56-57
[xviii] For more on this, see UPSIDE DOWN KINGDOM | CRUSTS, CIRCUSES AND COERCION
[xix] As examples: Matthew 9:30; 12:16; Mark 7:36-37.
[xx] Italics mine
[xxi] Ibid III
[xxii] Luke specifically uses the Greek word parabolē (parable) in verse 7.
[xxiii] Revelation 5:12 (NLT)
[xxiv] Henri Nouwen, Show Me The Way (Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd, London, 2001), closing prayer on p.69
TRISTAN SHERWIN 
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