15th
Sunday after Pentecost; Yr. C, September 1, 2013
Sirach 10:12-18; Psalm 112; Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16; Luke 14:1,
7-14
Sermon
preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church
Every other year, Nancy, Hannah and
I travel to Pittsburgh to be with my family at Christmas. On one of the evenings when we’re there, we
usually have a big family meal. I have
six brothers and sisters. When we were
growing up, nine of us just barely fit at the dining room table. We each had our own seat. Mine was right next to my mother. My younger brother sat at the end opposite my
father, and my older sister across the table.
God forbid anyone take your seat.
It was yours, and if you weren’t there you were missed. As we got older, we fit even more snuggly
around that table. Then, some of us got
married and had children and little hands needed help at the table. Now at Christmas we’re trying to fit close to
twenty people at that same table that barely fit nine. Let’s just say, it’s a little tight.
So we set up a card table at the end
of the dining room table to make it longer.
It extends into the living room like a long buffet table with a small
dip where the card table meets the wooden dining room table. When the nieces and nephews were young, the
card table was designated the “kid’s table”.
But invariably, it needed to hold more than the kids or chaos would
break out. Sometimes my youngest brother
would end up there, probably because two of the kids were his own. He’d sit at the end of the table, dolling out
mashed potatoes and cutting up turkey for the little ones. In fun, he would always loudly protest that he
never got to sit at the “big” table. “When
do I get to move up to the “big” table”, he’d whine. We’d all laugh at him because he is a funny
guy, but none of us were too quick to let him off the hook.
Stories about Jesus often take place
around food. Today’s gospel is no
exception. Jesus is at a sabbath meal in
the home of one of the Pharisees. He’s
watching as people are taking their seats and choosing the places of honor for
themselves. It’s like they’re picking
their places at the “big” table before all the seats are taken, before they get
stuck with those who are less worthy than them.
After watching for a while Jesus tells a story. It’s a story about honor and shame. Shame was something to be avoided at all
costs.
Jesus told them that when they come
to table at someone else’s home, they should take the lowest place. Be humble.
If your host sees you sitting there and feels you should be moved up, he
will come and invite you to a higher place.
In front of everyone you will be honored. But if you come in and take the highest
places, then you risk being asked to move down for someone else. Then your disgrace will be on display for
everyone to see. It’s a dog eat dog
world out there, Jesus is telling them.
Don’t open yourself to disgrace. That place is chosen by your host.
We might suppose that that’s what
the whole story has to say to us, that it’s all about pride, but it’s also
about power. It’s about who has the
power to tell us what we’re worth. But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He goes on to address the host.
He tells the host that he should
invite the poor, the lame and the crippled.
Invite the ones who cannot pay you back.
Jesus and the guests are well aware that these meals are carefully
planned. Those invited are friends of
similar status, or higher. The whole
intent is to be invited in return so that profitable marriages can be arranged
and influential positions can be attained.
The meal isn’t one hosted out of love and companionship. It’s all about honor. Jesus has risked dishonoring his host by
criticizing the very system that is operating in his home and society. Jesus is telling them all to put that aside,
to share the table freely … especially with those who they believe cannot
possibly do them any good.
There’s no worse an investment that a
person could make in Jesus’ time. If you
invited the lame, the poor and the crippled you were going to lose … lose face
… lose position … lose opportunity.
You’d be telling everyone you knew that you considered yourself no
better off than a beggar. That’s one of
the reasons that Jesus was so controversial.
He DID hang out with the outcast, the sick, the poor and the
desperate. Those WERE the people he
sought out … because he never would have met them in the home of a Pharisee, or
a successful merchant, or a landowner, or an artisan. The lame, the poor and the crippled were
considered useless people by the world, but not by Jesus. The world thought of them as burdens to
others and to society. No one associated
with them by choice, except Jesus. They never
had a seat at the table.
Imagine if those undesirables had been invited to the Pharisee’s
home. Where would Jesus suggest the host
sit them? Would he invite them to a
kids’ table? Would he relegate them to a
table set at the side? Or would Jesus
see them coming through the door and usher them to a place of honor? I think he wouldn’t, because that would still
be to bow to the old system of honor and shame.
I think Jesus would prefer something more like a round table, like King
Arthur had. A table that had no head,
that let everyone see the other faces around the table, that welcomed each
person in. Even so, I wonder if we’d
interpret sitting on the left or the right hand of the host as a place of
honor? Why are we are so concerned about our “place” at the table? Because it’s really about power.
The harsh reality is that we’re all
welcome at God’s table. Each and every
one of us is made worthy by Christ to sit on the right or the left hand of
him. Each and every seat at that table
is as good as the next. There is none
better than another. Jesus really isn’t
concerned about setting up a hierarchy among us. Jesus is more concerned about our status with
God. He wants us to be in right
relationship with God, but to do that we have to be in right relationship with
one another. We have to do more than invite
everyone to the table. We have to let
them sit at the “big” table. We have to
share our power. I don’t know about you,
but I struggle with that.
There’s a gentleman from the
neighborhood who has been very helpful in the Seeds of Faith Garden this
summer. He’s already dreaming about
plans for next year. He has some
experience with landscaping and I do need someone to take over the garden if it
is going to continue. I really do want
the gardeners themselves to take ownership of it. I’d love to have someone from the neighborhood
take charge. At least I think I do. Then I wonder if I have enough faith to share
that power? What if he doesn’t do things
the way I would?
The Foodlink Mobile pantry has
exploded in numbers over the last three or four months. In the two hours we’re there, we’ve had over
two hundred people come to pick up food in July and August. We’ve had volunteers from the neighborhood
helping out for months now, and things can get a little crazy. I need help figuring out a new plan, and some
of the neighbors have been faithful volunteers.
They’ve been in the line and at the tables. They’ve seen both sides of the situation in a
way I haven’t. Last week I asked for
their help. I asked them to help us
figure out how to make things go more smoothly.
They all seemed excited about weighing in, but do I trust them enough to
share that power? Do they really know
enough to be helpful?
Debbie and Karen have talked to some
of the Sunday supper guests about being part of an advisory board, a group that
would offer suggestions about the suppers and give feedback to help improve the
program. One has been helping as a
volunteer for a number of months already.
The group hasn’t gotten together yet, but I think they still plan to
start meeting before the end of the year.
Do we have enough faith to give them a taste of real power in the
program? Does what they think really
matter to us?
Partnership is about sharing power. If we welcome people to our tables, whether
it’s the communion table, the hospitality table or a ministry table … that
welcome means nothing if we don’t hold open the opportunity for them to share
power and to share their knowledge and expereince. Theodore Jennings, an evangelical theologian
writes, “Breaking down the barriers between the givers and the receivers of aid,
between those who have and those who have not, is an essential expression of
the solidarity that liberates the privileged from their blindness and the
marginalized from their invisibility.”[1] Do we really want to be liberated from our
blindness? Can we even admit that it’s
there?
I hope we can, because
these volunteers are our neighbors. They
are the ones who will grow our church and add spice to our mission. They have as much right to be here as we
do. They have a vested interest in the
neighborhood. They keep us real. They keep us connected. They hold our feet to the fire. They call us into leaps of faith. My guess is that that sharing will happen in small
steps as our relationship with our neighbors grows, but we need it to
happen.
Now that many of my
nieces and nephews are grown, and some have spouses of their own, we can’t
really call the card table the kids’ table anymore ... because now we all use
it. In a way, I guess that whole thing
is the “big” table now. That’s the table
God sets for us, one where we all feast together, one where no one is
invisible, one where all are welcome, one where your place doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you’re there. That kind of relationship begins at the table
we share each week, and it is expanded as we carry that into our lives and into
the community because we do not do this work alone … we do it together.
Amen.
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