Stories tThat Teach

Luke 14:1, 7-14

I know an organization that calls itself Open Table. Basically, they invite those who are food deprived to meals at a church. They began the ministry serving a meal each day at noon. How did a church get into the business of catering? Listen to today’s gospel:

Luke 14:1,7-14

Luke 14:7–14 NRSV

7 When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; 9 and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. 11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” 12 He said also to the one who had invited him, “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. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

“One Sabbath, when Jesus went to share a meal in the home of one of the leaders of the Pharisees, they were watching him…” (14:1). In a way, that’s what we do on most Sundays.

We come to church and in the reading of the scripture and the preaching we watch Jesus in action, we listen to his words and try to learn more about Jesus.

But at this Sabbath meal at the Pharisee’s house, people are not only watching Jesus, Jesus is watching them, watching what the guests say and do at the dinner table.

Probably it’s easier to think of ourselves watching Jesus than to think of Jesus watching us. At any rate, what does Jesus see when he watches the guests at the Pharisee’s house?

He sees the guests jockey for the best seats at table.

Which is only human, I guess.

I once heard of a man who said that he was changing jobs because he figured that his days with his present company were numbered.

He feared that the boss had it in for him and that he was soon to be dismissed.

“How did you figure that out?” I asked, surprised.

“I went to the annual company holiday dinner and picked up my name tag at the welcome table. “Your table seating number is on the lower right of your name tag,”

said the person who gave it to me.

“I looked and my heart sank. Twenty-one! I’m all the way back at table twenty-one! Oh no. That’s a hundred miles from the head table, table number one. Not even table ten. I’m toast! I began looking for a new job the next day.”

Noting the guests scurrying for seats at the head table, Jesus urges a topsy-turvy etiquette.

“When you go to these dinner parties, don’t scramble up to the best seats.

You’ll look like a fool when your host arrives, and says, ‘You aren’t supposed to be sitting up at the head table! Go down to table number twenty-two!’

Then the host calls out, “You, at table twenty-two, yep you looking so self-effacing and humble, come on up to the head table.”

Jesus’ advice for seating at banquets: Always take the least prestigious places so that, when your host gets there the host will say, “Move up!” and will say to those on top, “Move down!”

And then prickly guest

Jesus turns to his host and says,

“And when you give a dinner, don’t invite your friends and cronies. They will of course try to pay you back. Tit for tat. Instead, when you give a banquet, invite the poor, crippled, lame, and blind. And you will be blessed because they can’t repay you” (14:13-14).

In saying this to both guests and hosts, Jesus turns upside down our most cherished values and widely practiced social ethics.

Luke doesn’t say, but I do wonder how Jesus’ attacks were taken that night at the banquet table.

I bet that there are some of you who may be negatively reacting to Jesus’ table etiquette.

Let me not put words in your mouth, I push back, as both a guest and host.

I’ve worked hard, studied hard, sacrificed, paid high tuition to get a good job, to be financially independent, to provide for my family, to achieve some financial security, that is, to get a good seat at the table. 

In order to do well in life, that is, to be upwardly mobile, one must develop a network of family and friends.

I regularly connect with them and even from time to time entertain them.

Now to be told by Jesus that we’ve got the wrong idea, that in his kingdom our rules are not God’s rules, well, it’s quite a jolt.

We are here in church because, in one way or another, Jesus has invited us to his table. A highlight of Sunday worship for us is when we celebrate the Eucharist and we all come forth to share in the bread and wine, the body and the blood of Christ.

As a matter of fact, we talked about how all have a place at the table.

Who’s a Christian?

Somebody whom Christ has invited to his table, somebody who got the invitation and came forward.

Sometimes, when a pastor invites folks to come to the Lord’s Table, the pastor will say something like, “I remind you that this is not our table. This is the Lord’s Table. And they invite all to come.”

One of the highlights of Sunday worship for me as a pastor is when I get to stand in front and watch you come forward to the Lord’s Table.

You come with open, receptive hands, expectantly, joyfully, as if to receive a gift. Christians are those who know that Christ invites them to his table.

But please note that’s not really the main concern of this Sunday’s gospel. Jesus is not inviting people to his table, he’s the guest at a Pharisee’s table.

Pharisees were pious, well-informed, Bible-believing laypeople who sought to apply God’s law, Torah, to every aspect of their lives.

But in the gospels, they are often presented as critics of Jesus.

That makes all the more remarkable that in spite of any questions about or disagreements with Jesus, this unnamed Pharisee has invited Jesus to his table for a fine dinner with a number of guests.

And there at the table, Jesus takes over, making the Pharisee’s table his.

Noting how some of his fellow guests jockey for positions at the head of the banquet table, Jesus tells them that those who climb up to the top will be brought low and those at the back of the line will be brought up to the front.

I wonder how the guests took Jesus’ mocking of them?

Then Jesus turns on his host, the Pharisee, telling him that when he gives one of these banquets, he shouldn’t invited his friends and cronies, who will thereby be indebted to him.

He is to invite the disabled, the marginalized, and the outcast who have no means of repaying the invitation. Jesus ends his attack upon the guests and the host by saying, “All who lift themselves up will be brought low, and those who make themselves low will be lifted up”

Note that Jesus doesn’t invite anyone to his table, doesn’t say here (as he said elsewhere) “Come to me,” or “Here’s food to satisfy your hungers,” or “Take, eat” or “Drink from this all of you.”

Rather, Jesus gives instructions first to the guests and then to the host. He teaches. Preaches.

At some tables, we are guests, recipient of the host’s invitation.

Jesus tells us, don’t try to be at the head table, taken the less honorable seat. Why? Because now that I’m here, the tables are being turned upside down.

Remember the song that Mary sang before Jesus was born? Yes, that famous song Mary sang after she realized she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit. That famous song known as the Magnificat.

Mother Mary said that her son would put down the mighty and the rich and lift up the lowly and the poor. She sang that at the beginning of Luke’s gospel.

Now you are seeing that happening right here at the Pharisee’s table.

Jesus is telling the guests, humble yourselves, don’t think to highly of yourselves, lower yourselves in service to those in need—because that’s exactly what I do.

Sometimes we are the host.

We draw up a guest list of those we would like to have share our table.

Often they are people who are our best friends.

Why would we go to all this trouble for strangers?

Many times they are people who have invited us to their tables.

We will say things like, (“Honey, we really have got to invite the Jones. They have had us to their place twice now so we’ve got to reciprocate or well seem rude.”)

Jesus tells his Pharisee host, “Don’t invite your friends and cronies.

Invite those who do not have the means to repay your hospitality. Invite the outcast, the down and out, the hungry, and the disabled.”

But isn’t that the difficult part of these instructions given by Jesus?

Sometimes, and I can only speak for myself. It’s not easy to engage in conversation with a stranger.

For me I worry about whether or not I come across as awkward.

I worry about not saying the wrong thing.

I worry about not putting my foot in my mouth.

It’s just easier to talk with the people that you have a relationship with.

And that is ok.

But Jesus in this text is extending an invitation to gather with those we don’t know. To engage those whom we have no relationship with.

It would be worth your time on a Sunday to be told that God in Jesus Christ invites you to his table.

God shows us sinners incredible hospitality.

Come, the feast is set by Christ, the table is waiting for you.

But this Sunday Jesus says to those of us around his table, guests of his extravagant generosity, “Here’s who you should invite to your table, the ones that few people want at their table, those who, because of their physical or economic conditions, are excluded from bountiful tables.”

Why can’t Jesus be happy with those who have said yes to his gracious invitation? Why doesn’t he just enjoy those of us who are here this day to share his bread and wine?

That’s Jesus, not content until everyone, particularly the poor, the low, and the downtrodden is at his party.

And why can’t he just let us enjoy his meal together, we here at his table, gathered with those with whom we are best friends and most comfortable?

Why does he attack our limited notions of a good guest list?

Why won’t he just let us focus upon those who are here rather than push us to go out and invite those who are not here?

Take a moment and think about somebody who is lowly, someone whom life has pressed down, a person who is unlikely to be invited to sit in a prominent seat at the world’s banquet.

Is Jesus looking across his table at you and saying, “And when you make Eucharist, er uh, give a meal, why don’t you invite them?”

Take another moment and ask, “In what ways could our congregation be more obedient to Jesus and invite “the poor, crippled, lame, and blind” in our time and place?

I think it was the great preacher, Fred Craddock, who said (maybe his was thinking of this Sunday’s gospel) “A church is not best known for how many hungry people it feeds during the week but by how many hungry people kneel with them at the Lord’s Table on Sunday.” Who is absent who should be at the Lord’s Table with us?

Blessings upon you for risking a meal and dinner table conversation with Jesus. Sometimes, it’s not always comfortable to be at his table, but what a bountiful table it is.

Let’s do what Jesus tells us, go out and invite someone for whom he has prepared a seat of honor to join Jesus and us at this bountiful banquet.

There was a church that had fallen on hard times. Their membership had dwindled. They had attempted to attract new people to church, particularly new young families. But with little response.

Then their young pastor challenged them.

“Don’t invite your neighbors or relatives to come with you to church. Invite someone whom you don’t know that well. Invite someone who is having a rough time right now. Don’t say to them, ‘I want you to come to church with me and meet some people whom I think you will like.’ Say to them, ‘We need you to help make us the church that Jesus intends us to be.’ Say to them, ‘Your presence among us could make us a better group of followers of Jesus.’”

Then the pastor added, “Isn’t there someone of your acquaintance who has just lost someone they love?

How about someone who has lost her job and is anxious about her future?

Or do you know someone who has been hurt by someone else?

Invite them. Tell them that we don’t want them to go through their difficulties alone.

Tell them that we want to hear their story and we want to walk with them and bear some of their burdens. Fortunately for us, there are a lot of hurting folks out there and there’s a lot of loneliness in our town.”

In other words, invite the maimed, the blind, the sick, and the lame, folks who have nowhere else to go, folks for whom a warm, friendly invitation from someone they hardly know would be received as a gift from God.

And their church grew.

Someone said….“We had been trying to reach people who already had too much to do and too little time, people who were over programmed and very busy. The key was to look for people who have nothing better to do on a Sunday morning than to be with us and to be with Jesus.”

What would the Messiah do when God’s kingdom is come and the reign of God is known in its fullness?

The prophet Isaiah says that the Messiah would invite all the hungry and needy to a great feast in which there would be overflowing milk, honey, and wine which all could eat without having to pay for it. “All of you who are thirsty, come to the water! Whoever has no money, come, buy food and eat! Without money, at no cost, buy wine and milk! (Isaiah 55:1)

Every time Jesus shared in a meal with his followers or with the hungry multitudes, each time he passed around the bread and the wine he was signaling that Isaiah’s promised messianic banquet is now. The kingdom of God has come on earth as in heaven.

Every time the church gathers and share in the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, it’s our announcement that the kingdom of God is breaking out here and now.

In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus says it’s our job to be sure that everybody, particularly the lowly, the forgotten, and the excluded, gets the invitation to the Lord’s Table.

It’s one thing to believe that Jesus Christ responds to human need.

It’s quite another thing to believe that Jesus Christ meets human need through the actions of human beings like us. We the baptized, who have been invited to his table, are, in this Sunday’s gospel, commissioned to invite others to his table. Jesus loving people through the actions of people like us. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.