There is a theory in sociological study of religions that the people who support and nurture the growth of new religous movements are the top 5%. People with enough time and resources to learn and explore when the handed down ways don’t seem to feel effective anymore - think Eat Pray Love. Folks living with back-breaking conditions don’t go looking for nirvana. The gospels suggest this same phenomenon - that it was the well-to-do that supported Jesus’ mission and kept inviting him to visit, feast, teach.
I also have to wonder why Jesus keeps accepting these invitations to the parties of the elite. One would think that it is hardly his comfort zone. Today’s episode comes to us in the Gospel of Luke when Jesus is headed toward Jerusalem. That beautiful city that is supposed to be a beacon of our salvation, but time and again slays the truth-tellers and prophets. The city of David polishes its image on the outside and revels in sin and degradation on the inside. Jesus’ vulnerability is only increasing with each step up to Zion. Did he think there was something he could possibly say at these parties - something so movingly truthful, something that he could say in the presence of the powerful that would turn the tide write a new ending?
There has been a tendency to imply that Jesus’ divinity made him perfect and suave. I don’t know about that. I would expect a fully human and fully divine Jesus to be well, awkward, out of place. For all the curious among each snobbish crowd, there had to have also been strange looks and overheard insulting whispers. Some people don’t notice that stuff, but research suggests, that most people do.
You might notice if you look closely at the readings insert that the gospel lesson skips a couple of verses. Jesus comes to dinner, something happens, and then most of what we heard. What was jumped over was another healing. One so tremendously similar to last Sunday’s lesson, that I can excuse the lectionary deciders, this time.
When imagining the scene it is natural for us to imagine tables and chairs, but that isn’t the case in most ancient homes, not even a host in the top 5%. Imagine rugs and cushions and low tables. There were certainly more esteemed seats, usually closer to the host, perhaps even on a higher platform. This is not a plated supper either, so if the host and esteemed guests are served first, then that means that those who are served last may get the bottom of the barrel nibbles.
We pay attention differently to the people in the box seats, glance at the folks in first class. Egalitarianism and libertarianism haven’t done away with the human tribal tendencies toward valuing pecking orders.
When I imagine this episode I imagine Jesus sitting along the side of the room. If I were in a similar situation, that is where I would want to be. Able to watch the people, notice who they are and how they interact. Today I imagine the holy voice of our Jeremiah lesson weaving through his mind as he watches the party. Love and disappointment. People jostling for higher seats like we are not all people who are just trying to find our way though the wilderness.
What idols of self-importance and perfectionism people have set up for themselves instead of setting heart and soul toward the ways of the one Lord God of the universe. Can you even see and hear yourselves - you are making your own enemies, and sometimes that enemy is you?
Today at this sabbath dinner, at some point, Jesus leaves the sidelines and addresses the whole party. Jesus uses both logic and appeals to the ego and tells us to leave things - like the esteem we have become convinced is our salvation - to leave all that fragile detritus at the door. The only way to the peace and assurance we seek is through losing the pointless trivia we focus on and following Jesus all the way to the cross.
Jesus, with the sacred storyteller of Luke - are telling a parable about living together within a parable about death and resurrection. That bit about moving up a seat - the word is the same as what is used in the resurrection accounts. That word about being the lowest - in the Greek the word is the same as the word for the last things - the final things - the eschaton. Not just the heavenly union with God part, but the judgment part. Judgement isn’t an in or out thing, it is a I love you and was heartbroken by your behavior thing.
In this lesson we are invited to look from the edges of our lives and the edges of history with the long loving look of God at our “dinner party”. What Jesus is offering us in this parable of a parable at a probably awkward, but beloved, dinner party. What Jesus is inviting us into is that what we are offered in his life and death and resurrection is the big exclamation of ‘Who gives a crud !’ to all our party pecking orders.
If Jesus was at the edge of the dinner party that is your life - what would he notice? Is his teaching easy to hear or hard to hear today? We cannot lie or cheat or maneuver our way into the top seat. This will only sink us further into sin and darkness. Our relationship with God and each other and our children’s children - all of whom are at this party with us, is one of the most crucial topics these days, one that we cannot just navel-gaze at.
Fidelity to God and to the future of creation demands we drop our pretenses and attempts to sweep our sinfulness under the carpet. There were some who left that dinner party offended, God loves them, and waits with eager longing for their humility. There were some who left that dinner party feeling intrigued, God loves them and is luring them toward liberation. There were some who left that dinner party feeling the blessing of peaceful satisfaction and resurrected life, God loves them and sends them to share the same for the last, the least and the lost. As the venerable Robert Earl Keen croons - the road goes on forever - and the party never ends.
Sept 1, 2019
Grace Episcopal Church
Pemberton, New Jersey
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