Sunday, September 1, 2013

Sermon for Sunday, September 1, 2013

Sermon for Sunday, September 1, 2013
Pentecost +15 

Luke 14:1, 7-14

PREACHER: Pastor Carrie B. Smith 

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

School has begun, and with a new school year comes an important annual ritual: finding your place at the table in the school lunchroom. It’s been a long time since I was in middle school, but I remember well the worry about which lunch period I would get in my schedule, which friends would have the same lunch, and most importantly, which table would welcome me. I remember the butterflies in my stomach as I stood tightly gripping that plastic tray of food, surveying the lunchroom for a friendly face. And then, blessed relief, as a classmate waved me over to a seat saved just for me! (nod if you remember, too!)

I think most of us would agree we’re glad those days are behind us (and to those of you who are still navigating the lunchroom wilderness—we’ve got your back! It gets better! If you’re sitting next to a young person this morning, please turn to him or her and tell them “It gets better!)

It does get better, but lunchroom politics can be seen as a microcosm of the larger world, in which we humans are constantly jockeying for better positions in the office, in society, and in life in general.
In Jesus’ day, these strategic moves played out not in the lunchroom but at the dinner table, where hosts invited guests based on their ability to repay the favor. If I, a Pharisee, invited you to my dinner party and seated you next to someone with a measure of power and influence, I would expect you to return the invitation next week, honoring me with a seat of equal importance and opportunity for furthering my agenda. It was a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” sort of system, where every invitation, every seating chart, and every dinner conversation had inherent meaning that was just understood by everyone else.

This sort of highly organized and formal system of mealtime etiquette may be a bit hard for us to understand, given our super-casual American way of dining. Not only have we given up on the seating charts and the cloth napkins, we often don’t sit at a table at all, but instead eat our meals standing around the kitchen counter or racing off to the next band practice, the evening meeting, or the second job that keeps food in the fridge in the first place.

Dinnertime may not be the political stage it was in the time of Jesus, but be not fooled into thinking we don’t have similar elaborate structures of honor and privilege in place today. Just as in 1st Century Palestine, our culture has its own rules we often can’t articulate, but which order our lives and especially our relationships with each other. We know, instinctively, who belongs—and who doesn’t—in any given situation. We know who gets to sit at the head of the table and who sits in the kitchen. We know where the best schools are, which hospital has the best reputation, and where the people in our neighborhood shop for groceries, clothes, and cars. In fact, we know more about this system of honor, privilege and social status than we want to admit.

I learned that lesson in a deeply personal, and deeply embarrassing, way as a young college student.
It was junior year, and I was excited to be moving in with two friends.  

Freshman year was in the dorm of course, and then I spent sophomore year in a tiny apartment with three Mormon girls (there’s a story for another day!) But this move was momentous. Julie and Andrea, two fellow music majors, would be sharing a house with me for the year. We felt like real adults!

The 1940’s-era rental we found was adorable, at least by college standards. There was a large living room for hanging out with friends, and plenty of space for the piano (we were music majors, remember?) And there were three bedrooms. At least—sort of.

There was one large master and another normal sized bedroom, with a shared bathroom in between. And then there was a third tiny room in the back, a later addition, which had a curtain in place of a door and was accessible only through the kitchen. It was probably never intended as a bedroom, but the landlord could charge more money by renting it as a three-bedroom house to cheap college students.

No, it wasn’t ideal, but we loved the house, and signed on the lease. As we prepared to move in, the inevitable discussion about who would get which room began. Round and round we went, arguing as only college age girls can. No one wanted to live off the kitchen in the curtained room, for obvious reasons. Finally, in an effort to end the argument, I made what seemed to my 19 year old self a perfectly valid point:
“Julie should get the master bedroom, because she has the big water bed. I’ll take the middle-sized room in front, and Andrea should take the back room. After all, it’s way better than what she’s used to.”

That’s right—I actually argued that our friend Andrea, who had grown up in New Mexico on a chili farm, in a house with one bedroom for the entire family, should obviously get the tiny, added-on, curtained, poorly insulated, non-bedroom, because of the three of us, she was used to it. She was accustomed to such humble surroundings. We shouldn’t be expected to give up our comfort, when she wouldn’t even notice! Why upset the apple cart? Why change the natural order of things? To my mind, I belonged in the front room just as much as Andrea belonged in the back of the house.


In the end, that’s exactly what happened. The argument pretty much ended there. But I will never forget the look on our friend Andrea’s face. It was a look that said, “Yeah, I get it. I know my place. I know how this system works.” It wasn’t the first time she had been given the last place at the table.

Jesus knew how the system worked, too. He knew the guests at the Pharisee’s dinner party would elbow each other out of the way in their efforts to get into the seats of honor. He knew the host had invited all the right people. He knew there were hungry people just outside the door. And he also knew this dinner party was about more than food–it was about catching him in a mistake, maybe healing or talking to the hired help again. As usual, however, no matter what was on the menu, Jesus served up a healthy portion of learning for those gathered around the table.

First, he spoke to the guests, saying:

"When someone invites you to dinner, don't take the place of honor. Somebody more important than you might have been invited by the host. Then he'll come and call out in front of everybody, 'You're in the wrong place. The place of honor belongs to this man.' Red-faced, you'll have to make your way to the very last table, the only place left.  "When you're invited to dinner, go and sit at the last place. Then when the host comes he may very well say, 'Friend, come up to the front.' That will give the dinner guests something to talk about! What I'm saying is, If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face. But if you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself." 

Then, turning to the host, he said:

"The next time you put on a dinner, don't just invite your friends and family and rich neighbors, the kind of people who will return the favor. Invite some people who never get invited out, the misfits from the wrong side of the tracks. You'll be - and experience - a blessing. They won't be able to return the favor, but the favor will be returned - oh, how it will be returned! - at the resurrection of God's people."

At first, this little sermonette from Jesus seems like helpful advice on how to play the game: Sit just a few chairs down, and you’ll look great when the host asks you to move up! To my 19 year old self, this may have sounded like: “Don’t take the master bedroom. But that medium-sized room in front should be fine!”
But hear Jesus’ words again. He says: “Sit at the lowest place. Take the very last table. Better yet, sit in the kitchen, with the servants!” That’s not exactly a strategy for success. And when Jesus tells the esteemed host to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind to the next soiree, the point is made clear: Jesus isn’t giving helpful hints for winning the game, he’s undermining the game altogether. He’s crashing the system. He’s throwing out the place cards and the seating arrangements, doing away with the palm-greasing and the hobnobbing, and is showing the dinner guests a new way. Jesus’ words open up for the listeners the possibility of a completely new paradigm, a system in which the humble will be exalted and the exalted humbled; where the first will be last and the last will be first. He presents for them a topsy-turvy world in
which the powerful are brought down from their thrones, the lowly are lifted up, the hungry are filled with good things and the rich are sent away empty. This is a vision of a life lived with the knowledge that the only judgment that matters is God’s and the only honor that counts is that which comes from seeking first the kingdom and all its righteousness.

In just a few words, Jesus transforms the dinner table into the stage for the radical reversal that is the hallmark of the kingdom of God.

This is the sort of transformative power we experience right here at this table, every time we gather for communion as the whole people of God. In spite of appearances, and putting the ushers and the elaborate communion choreography aside, there are no seating arrangements or dinner protocols at the Lord’s table. It’s very simple: Here is bread, here is wine. Christ is with us. All are welcome! Rich and poor, black and white, gay and straight, band members and football stars, the well-connected and the nobodies, all come to the table with hands outstretched, ready to receive the gift of grace in the bread and wine. Every seat is a seat of honor.

But, my sisters and brothers, the radical reversal Jesus introduces here goes beyond this table. Here we catch a glimpse of the heavenly banquet, but it is in the cross that we see the full picture. Jesus Christ our brother, Son of the Most High God, took the lowliest place of all—that of a criminal, executed in plain sight—and in doing so lifted up the lowly people everywhere. Through the cross of Christ, the transformation is complete. All things are made new! Sins are forgiven and sinners become disciples. Privilege and power become opportunities for service and humility. Prejudice and discrimination become things of history. 

Because of the cross, there is no more fighting for the head table, for Jesus himself sits at the right hand of God. And, thanks be to God, because of the cross of Christ, there is no more back of the bus, no bottom of the heap, and no back bedrooms, for all have been lifted up with him.
Let the people say Amen!










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