A Different Kind of Feast
Sept. 1, 2019 | St. Mark’s
Gospel – Luke 14:1, 7-14
Let’s set the scene. We’re at a dinner party hosted by a prominent religious leader in the community. Friends and family and other influential people are in attendance. So is Jesus.
As everyone gathers around the table, Jesus watches his fellow guests and notes how they are vying for the places of honor. He shares a few thoughts.
Look with me at verse 8:
“When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests.”
Imagine the other guests in this moment. What’s the look on their faces?
This is really awkward, isn’t it? Who talks like this at dinner parties? For real. And how do you respond?
Obviously, Jesus is meaning to play the teacher, and he’s doing that with a purpose. But what is he saying? What’s his point? Is this some new social etiquette for wedding banquets? Or maybe practical instruction on the finer points of honor and shame?
It could be that in a way. But I think there’s more going on.
Jesus hints at a deeper spiritual problem right at the heart of everyday life.
Scan down to verse 11 with me:
“For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
This is how Jesus concludes his little sermon—with a kind proverb or wise saying. Notice how he widens the frame beyond the situation at hand.
“All those who exalt themselves …”
Let’s slow it down.
“All those who exalt themselves …”
Here’s the problem. Not just for dinner parties, but all of life.
We’ve seen it from the beginning.
Under that forbidden tree in Eden.
Within that spiraling tower at Babel.
On all the high places of Israel.
Did you catch it in our other readings?
Jeremiah warns about the problem. The psalmist sings about it.
From the beginning, Israel had reason to trust God with everything and to rely on him as their source of life and strength
He had brought them out of Egypt, led them through the wilderness, and ushered them into a land of overflowing abundance.
But they turned aside and made their own way. They exalted themselves and in time forgot to ask about God at all.
This is very much like the dinner guests at this party with Jesus.
Competing for the best places, they behave as if they have no one to trust except themselves.
This is why they clamor for the best places in their own strength for their own gain.
Jesus calls out this behavior, which is kind of shocking and super uncomfortable. He’s dared to point at the elephant in the room, the thing everyone does but no one talks about.
But he’s not just pointing the finger. He’s also helping his fellow guests to imagine an entirely different approach: the downward way of radical trust and humility.
On the surface, this comes out as practical instruction, as if he is offering advice on table manners. But he is saying so much more with the turn to verse 11.
You don’t need to be first, he says. Stop playing these games of power and privilege.
Do you hear it?
OK now listen for the more, just below the surface:
Try to remember, you are not your own. You have not been left to your own devices. God is the source of your strength and life—in all circumstances. So wait for him. Walk humbly. Take a step down and make space for others. And trust God to see you through, in your losing as much as your winning.
Of course, we don’t find this on the page. This is me trying to work out all the implications. So much is going on in this moment. So much hinted at in just a few words. And it probably left the party-goers a bit stunned.
But Jesus isn’t done.
He also has words for the host of the party.
Look with me at verse 12:
“When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
OK, this is even more uncomfortable. This isn’t about some hypothetical wedding banquet. Now we’re talking about an actual luncheon or dinner—precisely like the one at hand.
What in the world is going on here?
Imagine you are the host in this situation. What would you be thinking?
If I’m honest, I think I’d be shocked and confused and maybe a bit offended. I’d also have lots of questions.
What are you saying, Jesus? That friends and family are a bad thing? That we’re not allowed to hang out with people we like and we feel comfortable with? That our dinner parties should always include the poor and needy?
Mmm …This is what Jesus’ teaching does. It not only gives instruction but also provokes questions. Sometimes troubling questions.
I’m guessing that the problem isn’t simply family or friendship, though we shouldn’t soften this too much. We want to get what Jesus is saying.
There’s something more pervasive at work here, something that affects all our relationships.
It’s the tendency to gather in ways that are self-serving and exclusionary.
Imagine the party-goers, mingling with the people they know or want to know, exchanging this for that while guarding against them. Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. Quid pro quo. We know about that right?
Of course, this sort of thing can happen among family and friends. It likely does all too often, if we could see it. But think of other relationships—among colleagues at work or peers at school … the way we band together at the expense of the poor and powerless …
So there’s this dual problem that Jesus is addressing in our Gospel reading today:
A prideful way of guesting and a greedy way of hosting.
Jeremiah would have pared it down to two stark and simple terms: idolatry and injustice.
Can we see this? … I don’t know.
I’ve been thinking about this all week.
The Pharisees are in real danger here.
And not just because they’re prideful and self-serving.
The trouble is this: They can barely imagine themselves in a negative light.
Remember what they were doing with Jesus at the outset of our reading. They were watching his every move, sizing him up, putting him in his place.
The Pharisees were the reformers of their day. The official discerners. They wanted to get things right and to make things better. So much so that they had developed a whole system of extra rules and regulations to keep God’s people on the straight and narrow.
Think of it: in the very moment these religious leaders have presented themselves as morally upright and spiritually discerning, they are behaving in profoundly self-serving ways, lifting themselves up and guarding their own interests to the detriment of others.
And they can’t see it.
This is the tragic thing.
They can’t see it at all.
They think of themselves as enlightened and virtuous but they’re fumbling in the dark.
That’s kind of scary if you think about it.
That we would come to rest in a moment like this, perfectly self-assured yet completely self-deceived.
What would that be but a kind of hell, locked from the inside?
——————–
Thankfully this isn’t where the Gospel leaves us.
Jesus keeps pressing in with his companions and drawing them out …
Who is this guy at the table?
Really, who is he?
Again, let’s imagine our way into this scene.
On the surface, Jesus comes across as a kind of teacher and prophet. We can see that.
But there’s so much more.
If we could take in the larger story in ever-widening circles, we’d see that Jesus does far more than instruct and critique.
He also models the same trust and humility and self-giving love that he’s urging.
Even more, he embodies it in his very person.
Remember that passage in Philippians 2. We explored it earlier in the summer. Let me read it again, only this time in connection with our gospel reading.
“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Gathered at the table with his host and fellow guests, Jesus isn’t sharing advice or policing bad behavior.
He’s inviting his dinner companions to see God at work in a new way, to encounter him in person, right in their midst.
Try to get this with me:
Jesus is the one who takes the very lowest position that all others might be lifted up with him.
Even these people, in a moment like this.
And he invites his companions to join with him and to take part in this vulnerable, self-giving love, assuring them that it leads to life rather than death—for themselves and for others.
This is the good news. For them and for us.
And we don’t want to miss it this morning. Man, it’s so easy to miss.
Of course, we have our tendencies to put ourselves first and to carry on relationships in self-serving ways. We know this. In our families and friendships, at home and at school, in the workplace and community …
And this can easily escape our notice, often when we think we’re doing just fine.
But for all this, one thing remains true: God’s redeeming love goes all the way down, to the lowest place. There’s no escaping it. Certainly not for the poor and powerless. But even for people like us.
It’s September. We’re on the cusp of a new season.
Before we forge ahead, let’s stop to get our bearings.
Behind me is a different kind of table set by a different kind of host.
In a few moments, we will come down this aisle and gather around that table with open hands.
Right now, let’s turn to Jesus and find our rest in him, leaving off our anxious striving.
We have not been abandoned. We are not alone, left to fumble in the dark.
God is with us, and he is for us. Jesus has humbled himself to the lowest place that we might rise with him to new life in the strength of the Spirit.
Hear him calling out this morning:
“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
This is his word for us.
So let’s come to his table ready to receive with open hearts.
“Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. You that have no money, come buy and eat!”
“Taste and see that the Lord is good.”
Amen.