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A Place at the Table

I. Introduction

• There is a practice at special dinners and banquets of assigning places for people to sit – there are protocols that hosts and hostesses must observe when they make the seating assignments – they must take into consideration business relationships, family relationships, personal relationships – they must consider socio-economic status – they may not to think of the ages of the guests
• Such dinners usually have places of higher honor for particularly important guests – and, as I understand it, there is generally more honor in being closer to the head table, or to the hosts of the dinner
• The occasions for such formal dinners are few these days – sometimes wedding dinners have assigned seating – I am sure that official government functions have assigned seating
• There may be any number of reasons for assigning places at a table – seating assignments remove the possibility of disagreements about who is sitting with whom – more cynically, perhaps, they can also be an avenue for hosts to express pleasure or displeasure with particular guests according to where and with whom the hosts place the guests
• Ultimately, of course, the seating arrangements ensure that every guest has a place at the table, so that everyone can participate in the meal
• None of this is particularly new – Jane Austen’s characters, or at least the women, seem to worry endlessly about seating arrangements at parties – and today’s Gospel reading also expresses something about the places of guests at the table

II. Jesus Goes to Dinner

• This Lukan text is one of the few times in the Gospels where we see Jesus on good terms with the Pharisees – the Gospel writers were eager to portray the Jews, and especially the Jewish religious and political leaders, in a bad light – for the Evangelists, this was part of the process of differentiating the Christians from the Jews – it really is unfortunate because of the tension the Gospels have helped to create between the two related religious traditions – would that there were more of this type of story in the Gospels
• One of the particularly negative ideas that has come to us through the centuries, an idea that is not accurate, is that all the Jews opposed Jesus and his teachings – there are a few instances in the Gospels, however, that belie this idea – not all the Jews opposed Jesus, not even all the leaders of the Jews opposed him – we have, for example, the story of Nicodemus from John’s Gospel – Nicodemus was not just a Pharisee, he was also a member of the Sanhedrin, which was the governing Jewish religious body in Jerusalem  – in spite of his high status among the Jews of Jerusalem, Nicodemus not only came to accept Jesus’ teachings, but even helped Joseph of Arimethea prepare Jesus’ body for burial following the crucifixion – not every Jewish leader opposed Jesus
• Here in Luke’s Gospel, we have another one of the stories of connection between Jesus and the Pharisees – the story is not necessarily positive, but neither is it especially negative – on a Sabbath, Jesus goes to the home of a leader of the Pharisees to share a meal with him and with his other guests – the Evangelist does not tell us why Jesus is there – does he know the leader of the Pharisees? – is the man already a follower of Jesus? – has he heard Jesus teach somewhere, perhaps in the local synagogue? – we do know that the Pharisees are watching Jesus – they are trying to ensure that his teaching is acceptable, that he does not do anything untoward on the Sabbath – and, in fact, while the Pharisees watch him, he heals a man with dropsy, which is a swelling that occurs due to the accumulation of fluid in tissue – as he did in Luke 13.15f., Jesus uses an example of an exception to the Sabbath laws that allowed the owner of an animal, or the parent of a child, to rescue the animal or child if one happens to fall into a well, even on the Sabbath – as in the earlier passage, the Pharisees have no reply to make to Jesus
• As Jesus watches the other guests arriving, he notes they choose places of honor for themselves, which leads him to tell them a parable – people who take places of honor for themselves run the risk of embarrassment and disgrace before the entire party if the host comes in and seats someone else in that place – rather than taking places of honor for themselves, they should take places of less honor, so that when the host comes, he can call them up to the places of honor – this leads to the conclusion, often echoed in the Gospels, that the ones who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted
• Jesus also addresses the leader of the Pharisees directly – he tells the leader that when he hosts a banquet he should not invite his friends and family – that is to say, he should not invite people whom he calculates will be able to reciprocate – instead, he should invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, people who will not be able to reciprocate – the point is that calculations of repayment should not even be in the mind of the host – he should be thinking about matters of justice and mercy – he should be thinking about the fact that there are people all around him who cannot adequately provide for themselves – he should be concerned with conditions that create poverty and need – he should care about the ways in which society ostracizes people who cannot easily care for themselves
• What Jesus is trying to tell both the leader of the Pharisees and his guests is that what matters is not the honor we appropriate for ourselves, nor making sure that when we invite someone to dinner there is at least the possibility that we will receive an invitation in return – what matters is the honor we receive from God – what matters is there is a place at God’s table for everyone, even, or especially, the ones who are on the margins of society, the ones who have no means to repay an invitation

III. A Place at the Table

• The Gospels are all about redefining the world in God’s terms – we see so many times in the Gospels that Jesus is setting the world on its ear – the first shall be last, the last shall be first – where our treasure is, there our hearts will be also – if we would save our lives, we lose them, but if we give our lives away for the Good News, then we will find them – all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, but those who humble themselves will be exalted – do not invite guests to dinner who can repay you with an invitation, but invite those who cannot repay you at all
• The natural place for us to look for the evidence of this redefinition of our world is in the Lord’s Supper – I considered actually moving our observance of the Lord’s Supper from next week to this week, or simply adding the rite to our service this week, because this text points so wonderfully to it
• When we observe the Lord’s Supper, I always preface it by stating that this is not our table to govern – we do not have the right or the ability or the power to look into the lives of others to determine how they stand with God – we cannot look at their bodies and know the condition of their spirits and souls – as God says to the prophet Samuel, mortals look at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart of a person (I Samuel 16.7) – so I say each month that we serve the table – we are the table waiters, not the hosts – we invite all who love God and God’s people, all who claim kinship with Jesus Messiah are welcome at this table
• In truth, all people are welcome at God’s table, of which this is but a dim reflection – all are welcome at God’s table because only God makes us worthy to share in the feast – the apostle Paul warns the churches at Corinth to avoid eating and drinking at the love feast in an unworthy manner, counseling that all who partake should first examine themselves (I Corinthians 11.27f.) – what that self-examination tells us, what it should tell us, is that we are unworthy to share in the rite – our own sinfulness, our own weakness, our own shortcomings, all should demonstrate clearly our own unworthiness – only when we see how unworthy we are can God make us worthy – another one of those ways in which the Good News upends our understanding of our world and of who we are
• Our work, which does not make us worthy to share in God’s feast, is to be servants of the host, inviting everyone to come share in the bounty – we must beware that we are not inviting only folks who look like us, or who act like us, or who hold the exact same ideas we hold – God’s invitation reaches further than that – God’s invitation goes out to everyone, everywhere – and we dare not renege on the invitations – if God says all are welcome, we must welcome all – we can do no less – the Good News allows nothing less

IV. Conclusion

• I may have told you this sometime before, but I once heard a preacher say something that he attributed to Mother Teresa of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta in English) – maybe she said it, maybe she did not – I do not know – what the preacher said was that someone had asked Mother Teresa how she was able to do all that she did – her response was that she simply looked about for someone as unworthy of her love as she was of God’s love, and then love that person
• Regardless of the provenance of the statement, it captures the meaning within today’s Gospel text
• So go out into the world and love someone who does not deserve your love – go and remember that the ones who exalt themselves will be humbled and the ones who humble themselves, God will exalt – go and remember that everyone has a place at the table