I have really wrestled with our gospel text this week. Whether you have been a host or the guest at a function, I expect this text reads at first as if it were advice from Emily Post giving etiquette tips for hosting or attending a dinner party. I remember a colleague joked that these verses make the case for place cards at any social event.
But I am convinced that Scripture is more than a rule book or a set of instructions. Scripture is not a mere collection of morality tales or advice.
Scripture is a living Word, where God is always the actor.
The scene we enter with Jesus is a dinner party. Jesus has been invited by one of the religious leaders to come to the Sabbath dinner at his home.
You may remember that last week we heard a Sabbath story, too. When Jesus healed a woman who had been bent over for eighteen years, one of the religious leaders who witnessed the miracle scolded him for healing on the Sabbath.
It turns out that on this Sabbath, there’s a healing, too, that takes place in the verses our reading skips. Only this time, instead of berating Jesus, the onlookers are silent. No words of protest, shame or judgment are spoken to Jesus or the man he heals.
Luke tells us that the other guests at the dinner party
were watching Jesus closely. We are left to wonder:
Were they watching to see what his manners were
like?
Or were they watching to see if they could trick
him or trap him?
Or is it possible they were curious and so they
were leaning in, watching to see what he would say or teach next?
We don’t know but we shouldn’t assume that everyone there was antagonistic.
And evidently, Jesus was watching them, too, because watching how they chose their seats compelled him to tell them the parable, or story, that follows. Jesus boldly addresses the host and his guests.
Imagine being invited into someone else’s home and then changing the invitation list or correcting the guests’ behavior. It feels presumptuous at best.
But
maybe that’s the point.
Swiss theologian Karl Barth once said that “Faith in God's revelation has nothing to do with an ideology which glorifies the status quo.”[i]
(pause)
In biblical times, at dinners like this one there would have been a central table and guests would have reclined in seats around it. Everyone would have known their place in the pecking order and if you presumed to take prime place then you could be asked to move down or farther from the center when a more honored guest arrived.
The story that Jesus tells illustrates a different kind of banquet and a different way of being together.
The banquet that Jesus describes isn’t about
reciprocity or repayment.
Instead of seeing life as a series of transactions
where you do something in order to earn a particular benefit or to win the
favor of another person,
this banquet is first
a place of generosity, where we leave seats
open for those who haven’t arrived.
It is a place of humility where we don’t
think more of ourselves than others.
It is a place of kindness where we welcome those who typically would be excluded.
At this banquet we are all guests and
God is the host.
God extends the invitation to us all and removes all the barriers for us to come and participate.
When we gather around the bread and wine,
we participate in God’s banquet for us all.
Whether we are poor in spirit,
or we don’t know how we will pay our bills;
whether we are paralyzed by pain and physical
disability,
or by anxiety and depression;
whether we physically cannot move,
or we are immobilized by fear;
whether our eyesight is failing,
or we simply cannot see beyond our narrow view of
the world,
God says to each one of us, I see you and love you and you are welcome at my table.
Lutheran pastor Delmer Chilton tells the story of going to a Holy Week breakfast at a big downtown church. It was a Chrism Mass where the clergy had been called together to renew their ordination vows and to eat together.
Pastor Delmer describes how they drove in early, mostly from the suburban and rural outskirts, wearing their best Lutheran finery, black suits and black shirts and white collars and silver crosses. They vested in the chapel and filed into choir stalls in the chancel where the bishop preached and prayed and gave them communion and they prayed and received the elements with humble hands if not totally humble hearts.
After worship, they moved to the small dining room where they consumed a generous brunch of eggs and bacon and biscuits and cheese grits and sausage balls and fresh fruit and, and, and. . . .
They sat at oak tables covered with linen table cloths and ate off good china with silverware that appeared to have a significant amount of real silver in it. And they had a wonderful time together.
When it was time for Pastor Delmer to leave, he got turned around and lost, but eventually he went down a corridor and found himself in the street on the opposite side of the church from where he had expected and wanted to be.
The morning sun was shining brightly and it took him a moment to figure out where he was, and when he came to himself, he looked down the sidewalk in the direction he wanted to go and saw a long line of folks huddled on the dewy grass, trying to stay warm and dry while waiting for the food kitchen housed in the church’s basement to open.
Pastor Delmer writes that he felt very conspicuous walking along beside that row of folk, dressed in his best suit, carrying his white robe, a silver cross around his neck.
He spoke to a few folks as he walked past them to the corner. As he came to the street and turned to the left, he glanced back and then he looked up and to his right. And what he saw stopped him dead in his tracks. From where he stood, he could see in the floor to ceiling, wall-to-wall windows of the small dining room. He could see the assembled holy people of the area Lutheran churches, smiling and talking; warm, dry, and well-fed. By simply shifting his eyes he could see a significant number of the area’s homeless population, cold, hungry, silent and appearing as alone in a group as they were by themselves.
And he wondered, “On
this Tuesday in Holy Week, in this city, at this hour; which group would Jesus
be eating with; the clergy or the homeless?”
He says that, really, he
wondered, “Which group should I be eating with?”
Or better yet, “Shouldn’t all of us be down here eating with all of them?”[ii]
Our gospel is a Word worth struggling with. Participating in the heavenly feast or banquet isn’t just about Holy Communion. It is about sharing life together with God, with each other and with our neighbors. And, like Pastor Delmer, we should wonder about the people who aren’t at the table with us.
When we look at who’s missing, we may be surprised. It may be the person whose grief keeps them from returning to the pew where they worshiped with their spouse for years; or the person who feels like they have failed God or made a mistake they think is too big to be forgiven. It may be the person who has suffered a tragedy and feels abandoned by God. But it may also be people who are working on Sunday mornings or don’t have transportation or don’t know whether their identity, appearance, clothes or language will mean they are not welcomed.
Jesus tells us again and again that it’s God’s
invitation and table and all are welcome here. Come, eat and drink and know God’s
abundant forgiveness and love for you.
Let us pray…
Good and gracious God,
We give thanks for your boundless love.
We give you thanks for your Son Jesus who
challenges us to see the world and our neighbors as you see them.
Give us confidence that your invitation to the
banquet includes everyone
and by your Spirit, help us respond with
generosity, humility and kindness.
We pray in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
Amen.
[i] William D. Blake. An
Almanac of the Christian Church.
[ii] Chilton, Delmer. The Gospel According
to Aunt Mildred: Stories of Family and Faith (p. 69). Brasstown Publishing.
Kindle Edition.
