Luke 14:1, 7-14
September 1, 2013
“When you
are invited to a banquet… go and take the lowest place.”
This might
be the only bit of scripture almost everyone takes literally. Even we liberals.
Obviously, this explains why in every church I have ever attended, the seats in
the back fill up first. Only in church. If this were a Broadway show or a
Springsteen concert (Taylor Swift concert for you youngsters), or even a school
concert, it would fill from the front!
Come on up
higher!
No? OK, stay where you are. I know
I’m no Taylor Swift.
Mostly when
we come to church, we are on our best behavior. Our best guest behavior anyway. You know that the roles of guest and host
are very different. The host’s role is to make everyone feel at home, and the
guest’s role is never to get caught acting as if you were at home. The host’s
role is to offer food and drink, and the guest’s role is to accept what is
offered. The host’s role is to initiate conversation; the guest’s role is to
respond. The host makes introductions; the guest waits to be introduced to
someone who is unfamiliar. Worship is God’s party, and when we arrive we all
tend to act as if we are guests. Which is to be expected, but it needs to
change.
We have to
remember this one thing about Jesus: he was always turning everything upside
down. In the beginning of Luke’s gospel, Jesus’ mother Mary sang about lifting
up the lowly and bringing down the mighty; filling the poor with good things
and sending the rich away empty. And Jesus scandalized the religious know-it-alls
by calling them blind guides and giving sight to those who were blind, even on
the Sabbath, when no one was supposed to work, not even healers.
By taking a
simple meal of bread and wine, making it a sign of his presence, and giving it
to the church, Jesus makes us co-hosts with him, and entrusts to us the duties
of host. So whenever we come to church we need to remember that Jesus is busy
elsewhere, but he has appointed us to be his body while he is away. That means
it’s our job to make everyone else feel welcome, to introduce ourselves to
anyone who is unfamiliar to us, and to make sure everyone has a place at the
table. For this is the joyful feast of the people of God. This is a family meal
of the simplest fare, and it is also a holy feast of the richest kind.
This dinner
party that is Holy Communion was a memorial meal even before Jesus showed up on
the scene. It had long been a reminder of God’s saving power. It was the
Passover meal which Jesus shared with his disciples. The feast of Passover
commemorates God’s saving work. In the Passover meal we remember that we were
once slaves in Egypt, where we were treated shamefully. We cried out to God in
our distress and God delivered us from slavery with a mighty hand and an
outstretched arm, and led us through the wilderness to a good and broad land, a
land flowing with milk and honey. This Passover meal is to make us feel as if
we personally had been delivered from slavery, and to remind us that our God is
the God who rescues the poor and oppressed. It is a reminder to us to consider
what side we are on—there’s a Labor Day plug for you (click on the song lyrics
for a video clip of the song). “Which
side are you on, boys, which side are you on?” God’s side, or the bosses’?
God’s side, or the slavers’? God’s side, or the oppressors’? The meal has redemptive
and transforming power, and practical, political implications.
It was the
unleavened bread, the bread of suffering that Jesus broke and called his body.
It was the cup of Salvation, the promise of God’s return in the person of a
Messiah, that Jesus called the new covenant in his blood. Whenever we eat this
meal, we eat not only in the presence of Jesus, but also in the presence of
Moses, and Miriam, and the Judges and the Prophets, and people of faith in ages
past.
When we
celebrate communion we break bread with the unnamed disciples whom Jesus met on
the road to Emmaus. We break bread with third-century Christians hiding in the
catacombs under the streets of Rome. We break bread with saints and martyrs. We
break bread with Bonheoffer and King and Biko imprisoned in Germany, Alabama
and South Africa, and with all who have suffered for righteousness’ sake. We
break bread with Christians living all around the world now, and we share a
oneness with all of life.
We also share this feast with
saints who haven’t even been born yet. This feast of paradise is eternal in
both directions, past and future. When we share this bread and this cup, the
walls come down and we become one great cloud of witnesses. This is a foretaste
of what is to come, when all creation shares the feast of paradise in the
presence of God and we all sing, Holy, holy, holy.
This is the party. This is the
banquet where Christ is the host and we are all the guests. Not one of us has
earned a place here, not by believing rightly or doing justly. This is what
grace is all about—a place for everyone, an open table. All are welcome.
Believe it or not.
This may disappoint you if you
thought this meal was like dinner at the club. You might be tempted to refuse
membership in a club that has no privileges. Like Groucho. “I refuse to be a
member of any club that would have me as a member.”
This meal is definitely not dinner
at the club. This meal is about dissolving boundaries, not establishing
boundaries. No bouncers need apply.
Like any good dinner party, it’s
not about the food, well, it’s not just about the food, it’s about the bonds
that are formed around the table. It is about the shared experience of the
meal. The touch a hand as you pass the plate is as important as the bread on
the plate. The shared movement of raising our cups together is as important as
the juice that fills each cup.
This is God’s dinner party. We are
the guests and we are also the hosts, co-hosts with the risen Christ, for we
are the body of Christ, the church. And Christ has commanded us this: My table
must be filled. Go out to the highways and the hedges and compel them to come
in. There are hungry people waiting for the bread that satisfies, and the wine
that saves, and the love that lasts for eternal life. Remember this. Forget
sitting in the back! Remember this: “My table must be filled.”
