DATE: September 8, 2013
SCRIPTURE: Luke 14:1-14
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
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So what is the point? Here we have Jesus, that radical, healing-preaching-life-disrupting/life-transforming rabbi suddenly giving advice about social etiquette, like some first century Martha Stewart. It’s a bit out of character, don’t you think? So what’s Jesus up to?
To figure it out, I consulted my kids. There’s a TV show on the Disney Channel called A.N.T. Farm. Anybody know it? So, I’ve never seen it myself, but Ian has. And earlier this week, he told me about this episode: The show is set in a high school. One of the characters, Fletcher, decides that he wants to sit at the cool table at lunch, with all the cool kids. He marches over to the table and asks to join them. The guy at the head of that table – probably the most cool kid – says, “Sure. Let me show you around!” He walks Fletcher past the table, introducing each student: “This is Abbey. This is her seat. This is Spencer. This is his seat… This is Natalie and this is her seat…” Finally he arrives at an empty seat and says to Fletcher: And THIS is your seat. When Fletcher looks around, he realizes that the cool kid has walked him all the way back to the other side of the lunch room, far away from the cool table.
Yeah… We’ve all bumped into them, right? Those “rules”, spoken or unspoken, that dictate where we belong: on one side of the lunch room or the other; with the Jocks or in the theater crowd; at the red table or the green; in the front of the bus, or at the back; in the board room or the front office; in this neighborhood or not… Whether we belong, and with whom, it is – maybe always has been, one of our most urgent, most tender, questions.
It’s the question that erupted into a tragedy the night that George Zimmerman encountered Trayvon Martin walking through the neighborhood: Whether Trayvon belonged there. As it turned out, Trayvon did. He was visiting his father, but George was convinced that the boy in the hoody was up to no good, had no reason to be in that neighborhood. He just looked out of place. So George went after him. They got in a fight, and George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin.
What did George Zimmerman see, I wonder? What does any of us see, that leads us to draw those lines – in our neighborhoods and in our lives; on what basis does anyone sort the deck of place cards and set them at the table? We do it, consciously and unconsciously, every day: draw boundaries based on what a person is wearing, how tall (or short) she is, how he talks, or who they hang out with; we draw conclusions (often without realizing it) about who belongs at the head of the table, who at the foot, and where exactly we fit (where we belong) – or we suffer the decisions made by someone else (as in: “You belong at the back of the bus…”).
Enter Jesus, who is all about tearing down those boundaries, shuffling the nametags and re-writing the seating chart. (When you think about it: it’s surprising that he got any dinner invitations at all!) There they were, just sitting down to a formal meal on the Sabbath. Everything would have been carefully planned, including the seating, with the cool kids (the politically and religiously well-positioned, wealthy guests) seated near the host, and the least important guests (the ones who wore last year’s fashions, laughed too loud and told the off-color jokes) seated at the far end. As they lounged on cushions (maybe like these pillows!), passed the wine and ate chunks of fresh-baked challah bread, Jesus called them out(as he so often did), turned their self-satisfied soiree into a lesson in kingdom etiquette.
“Hold up,” he said. “Don’t be so eager to sit at the top. You should try a different seat, maybe one further down. What? You think those folks look shifty? Well… sit there anyway. You may be surprised by what you find.” Because the thing is, we miss stuff, when we stick to the seating chart, when we only hang with those we already know or trust or admire. Sometimes what we miss can lead to tragedy and heartbreak (like mistaking a teenage boy on his way home for a hoodlum looking for trouble); sometimes, what we miss is the chance to experience something heart-healing — like joy or friendship, laughter or beauty.
Have you ever seen Susan Boyle’s audition on the TV Show, Britain’s Got Talent? [Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPZh4AnWyk ] It was during the 2009 season. Susan Boyle marched out onto the stage, one hand clutching a mic, other hand on her hip: 47 and never been kissed (she said); socially a bit awkward, a country bumpkin from a tiny village somewhere in England. She told the judges that she’d like to be a famous singer, and they all but rolled their eyes. The audience, thousands of onlookers, tittered. Then the music began, Susan raised the microphone and took a breath: “I dreamed a dream in time gone by when hope was high and life worth living…” — from Les Miserables. The crowd erupted into applause as her voice — her stunning, perfect voice filled the hall. They’d all been certain that she didn’t belong on that stage — or any stage. She just looked out of place. Then she sang, and you know what? That scene has been replayed on YouTube over 130 million timessince her live performance.
Which just goes to show how little we can know, really, about our prospective dinner companions, until we sit down next to them and listen. And how deeply we may be moved, once we do.
This is the truth of it, I think, the point Jesus was trying to convey: not just that we should be humble, but that we should open, open to the gifts, the beauty, the blessings that await us at the other end of the table.
We know something about those blessings at Saugatuck Congregational Church. Know what it’s like to change seats, to rearrange the table — sometimes by choice, sometimes because of circumstances beyond our control — call them holy intrusions. So we worship at Temple Israel, hosted by our Jewish sisters and brothers; or on the beach, where we break bread with partner churches and all get sand between our toes. We serve meals at the Gillespie Center and throw a Thanksgiving feast; we welcome new folks to Saugatuck Church, move over to make room in the pew…and each time the chairs are shuffled, every time the table is rearranged, we make new friends, encounter new gifts, find ourselves blessed.
Remember the episode from the A.N.T. Farm I mentioned? Here’s how it ends: Fletcher’s very creative friend steps up and makes his own cool table, complete with colored lights and a live band playing nearby! The table fills up, until nearly everyone in the lunch room is gathered around. Everyone except that cool kid. Then somebody waves him over: “Want to join us? There’s room for more!” There’s always room for more. (Who knew Disney could get it so right?)
That’s Kingdom Etiquette; and it’s what God calls us all to do: rewrite the “rules,” throw our own banquet and spread the news: Everyone has a place at this table. Longtime member or first time guest? Welcome! PhD in Biblical studies or not sure you’ve ever opened that book? Welcome. Call yourself Congregational, Spiritual-but-not-religious, seeking or skeptical? Welcome. Gay, straight, brown, black, white; lover of Celtic ballads, soaring organ, Van Halen or Snow Patrol? Come on in! This is your seat, and yours, and yours, and yours. Here we all belong, not because of what we can do, or what we wear or who we know, but because God, whose love encircles us all, has invited us to come.
This Church that we are, and this church that we are building, aspires to be a “Community of Christ Welcoming All People.” That’s what our vision statement says. It is a powerful claim, and it calls us to do important work: to set more places, pull up even more chairs…
Not because God will reward us for our good deeds, but because when we hang out together, rub elbows, all of us, from all our different places, we encounter wonder and joy, laughter and beauty, hope and healing… and right here, the very face of Christ. That’s what I think Jesus meant when he said, “You will be repaid…” That’s the point. Christ is in our midst. Within us. Between us. Hosting. Healing. Making us whole. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Scripture Texts
Luke 14:1–14 (NRSV translation)
On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely…
7When 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; 9and 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. 10But 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. 11For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” 12He 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 sisters or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. 13But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”