Love and Unicorns

Did you know that tens of thousands of small businesses are funded by investors every year? The startup company invites people who have the money and the interest to invest into a promising idea. If the company gets started then they continue to wine and dine more investors into seeing the worth of their company. The company then works hard to produce a product that then gets the interest of consumers. A goal of some of these startups, especially those in the tech industry is to achieve what is called Unicorn status. How many of you know what a unicorn company is? Hopefully by now you know I don’t mean a company that makes products related to unicorns. A unicorn company is a private company, that has a net worth of over $1 billion dollars. Based on my research there are 1,106 unicorn companies. Since there are good number of unicorn companies they have now divided them up to also include decacorns that are worth $10 billion and hectocorns worth $100 billion. A startup company that was founded by former Meta (Facebook) employees were able to secure funding and were instantly valued at over $1 billion dollars making them an instant unicorn company. While the number of unicorn companies being over 1,100 may seem like a lot, it is still something that many companies strive for because they want that status and honor that comes with being a unicorn company. It may bring in more clients or investors to continue to drive them up the status of the consumer market.

Of course that idea of status and worth doesn’t just exist in the name of a business. We see how that plays out in our world between different groups of people. I remember a pastor telling me that they served a congregation in a town where there were definitely those who were a part of the in-crowd and those who were on the outskirts. As someone who had moved to the town and not grown up there, he heard and even saw the evidence of this happening, while at the same time getting the very clear sense that he was not a part of that crowd and had he wanted to be, he would not be a part of that group. The simple fact that he was not a part of that group of people hindered his ability to do ministry in that place. So we see this idea of status, worth, inclusion is played out at all kinds of levels in our world today and it is very clearly played out in Jesus time as well.

I know we’ve talked about this before but it’s worth saying again that the greater society in Jesus’ time was based on associating yourself with people of status and trying to get people of greater status and honor to notice you. So luncheons and dinner parties were important to hold so that you could connect yourself to another person of importance and hope that by inviting them they would invite you to their home and you could meet the people there that could help you rise in status and honor even more. It was all about who you knew and how you could use them to get you into a better position and someone lower than you would then want to befriend or impress you so that they could move up higher by being associated with you.

This is the background to what Jesus sees when he walks into this sabbath meal and sees all these people picking their seats hoping that they have moved themselves into a good position so that they can network without having the host asking them to move down a little to make room for someone else. Can you imagine what Jesus would have been looking at as he saw these people sizing each other up in terms of honor and status and carefully choose the places to sit? And as Jesus does watch this, I can see him shake his head and then begin to tell this parable. And since this is a parable we have to think about the teaching lesson it offers beyond the obvious correction of this idea of the importance of status.

I began to think about all the types of meals I have been invited to over the years, and there is one that really is nothing like any other I have ever experienced. In my first call I went on a mission trip with the youth to a place outside of New Orleans to help the cleanup after hurricane Katrina. We had been assigned to clean up an area that was out in the middle of nowhere. The reason for that is that the house had been swept miles from the town and we were there to get rid of what was left. One of the deputies to the governor took interest in our group and one day he decided we needed a break and to see how the gulf was recovering. He also invited us to have an authentic and fresh seafood dinner with him. So we went shopping at a few areas, not a single store mind you. Then he took us to where he was living. He was living in a friends trailer and their barn that housed the trailer. You see his home had been destroyed by Katrina and had still 2 years later not been built. He then set up sawhorses and plywood sheets and stapled them together to hold them steady and he cooked this entire youth group dinner and had us help him along the way. The meal was cooked on a grill and propane burners. He then rolled out butcher paper and we stapled that to the makeshift table and he served the meal either in the pots they were cooked or with the crab he just tossed them on the table for us all to grab as we wanted.

The only thing he knew about us was that we were a group of people who had come to clean up from a hurricane. We were strangers to him and he invited us into a home that he didn’t even really have and gave us an extravagant meal, not a fancy meal, but an extravagant one to strangers. This is what Jesus is talking about. That is what the kingdom of God is like. That is what the parable is about. Having a meal with people you have never met before. Treating them as honored guests knowing that in a few days you’ll never see them again. We were all in our work clothes, dusty and dirty, eating off a makeshift dinner table and yet every single one of us felt so incredibly blessed to have been invited into that holy and sacred space for that meal.

Jesus is trying to teach us to care for one another regardless of status or station or the ability to give back to someone who has given to us. This story is Jesus trying to teach us that we should not exalt and focus on ourselves and our ability to start a unicorn company or get higher up in the social ladder of society, but to know and live out the idea that in God’s eyes we are all made equal. That in the kingdom of God we are all the same. It doesn’t matter how rich or poor your are. It doesn’t matter if you know the Queen of England personally or have an autographed ball from Babe Ruth, or Michael Jordan. It doesn’t matter if you have four homes in four different continents. What matters is how we treat each other and how we care for one another. For when it comes to God’s banquet, everyone is invited. Rich or poor, socially adept and the social pariahs, those who are considered normal and those who are not, it does not matter to God. It doesn’t matter what race or gender you are or who you love, God invites each and every one of us here to the most important banquet of all, the meal where we celebrate God’s son and what he did for us. For in that meal there is no head or foot to the table. There is no status other than the one name that matters most: child of God. So children, come to the table knowing that in God’s eyes you are loved, you are forgiven and you are fully a part of kingdom of God. Amen.