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
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!
