Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

September 2, 2007

Jeremiah 2:4-13

Psalm 81:1, 10-6

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

Luke 14:1, 7-14

           Our Gospel lesson today is all too familiar.  Once again, we find Jesus at the home of a Pharisee who has invited him to dinner.   And once again, we find Jesus to be a most uncharitable guest.  You have to wonder why Jesus gets invited to dinner at all.  I mean, would you invite someone to dinner who makes it his purpose to tell you what you are doing wrong, and what you should do to correct it?  You might invite anyone like Jesus once, but you probably would not invite him back again.

              So why do Pharisees keep inviting Jesus to dinner.  And not just any Pharisees.   These Pharisees are well known and well regarded in their communities.  Along with being important religious leaders, they have acquired enough wealth and status to give very nice dinner parties, and they know the right people to invite.  But given Jesus’ reputation for the effective put down at such festive occasions, it is hard to know why anyone would want him around to spoil their fun, no less to disrupt their social protocols.   It’s hard to think that Jesus was invited because he would be the life of the party; in fact, Pharisees had to know that he might be the death of it.  Because every time we find Jesus at the home of a Pharisee, he uses the opportunity to be critical of either the host or the guests, or both, so that he might teach us about the kingdom of God; a kingdom which was not often reflected in such gatherings.

              So why did the Pharisees continue to invite Jesus to their wonderfully extravagant dinners, knowing full well that they would likely fall victim to his criticism, and even worse, condescended to by his teaching.  One reason is obvious in every encounter Jesus has with the Pharisees throughout scripture; they are always trying to set a trap for Jesus.  They want to trip him up; even make a fool of him so that they can discredit him and his teaching.  When Pharisees invite Jesus to dinner, scripture always tells us that they are watching him closely, waiting for him to make a mistake.  What the Pharisees don’t seem to realize, however, is that Jesus is also watching them.  He is closely observing both the host and the guests.  And Jesus is always prepared to tell them how their attitudes and behaviors fall short of what God hopes and expects of us if we are to live into his kingdom in this world.  Sometimes Jesus is very direct in pointing out the differences between dinner at a Pharisee’s house, and dinner at God’s house.  But today he shows us in a parable what a banquet at God’s table would look like.  

              First of all, at a banquet hosted by God, the guests would not be jockeying for a seat closest to the host, or to other dignitaries in the hope of achieving some kind of vicarious honor by being in close proximity to them.  Have you ever witnessed this kind of jockeying and grasping for recognition at important social events?  I have.  It isn’t pretty.  I have seen people discreetly exchange name cards at table settings.  I have witnessed wealthy people pay for special seating privileges.  I have waited for long periods of time to greet a host or a dignitary because of a few people who insist on monopolizing that person’s time and space.  These are only three of the many ways people grasp at achieving honor, or special recognition at an important event.  But this will get you nowhere at a dinner hosted by God.

              Jesus’ message to such manipulative and monopolizing guests is clear.  Those who receive a place of honor in God’s kingdom are those who show themselves to be humble, especially those who are made humble by their life-circumstances.  At a dinner hosted by God humility is what brings honor.  At God’s banquet table no one can achieve honor, or buy honor, or steal honor by being in close proximity to it.  Honor can only be given by one who meets the criterion for bestowing it, and honor can only be received by one who meets the criterion for receiving it.  Jesus tells us that the single criterion for receiving and for bestowing honor is humility.   Jesus observes at the Pharisee’s dinner party that both the guests and the host lack the humility to receive the honor they so desperately desire. And their host lacks the humility he needs have the honor he believes is due him.

              So Jesus has a message for the host, as well.  Jesus challenges the honor and humility of his host by the list of guests he has invited.  Jesus tells his host that it is easy to invite people to dinner whom you know will return the favor; those who have the means and the desire to do so.  But what honor is there in a host who will only invite people to dinner for personal gain or glory.  And where is the humility in a host who will only share a meal with people who he is sure can return the favor.  We have all encountered people who have a “what’s in it for me” attitude.  But such an attitude only makes for transactional relationships between people.  Jesus wants us to know that whether we are on the receiving end of a transaction feeling obligated to the payback, or on the giving end of a transaction expecting payback, there is no such thing as a gift freely given or a gift gratefully received.  There is only obligation and payback.  People who treat relationships as transactions never know the joy in giving something away for the sake of giving it, and they never experience the satisfaction which comes with a simple “thank you” for a gift received.  Dinner parties like the one in our gospel lesson today are mere social transactions, and the simple truth about transactions between people is that they do not make for caring and nurturing relationships.

              In God’s kingdom, however, banquets are relational.  They are not only a means by which people are fed; they are a way to bring people together to form relationships and to grow in them.  And if we don’t know anything else about God the one thing we can be sure of is God made us for relationship, and he is always inviting us into relationship well beyond the limitations of our own guest lists.  Unlike the list of guests invited to the Pharisee’s dinner, God’s list of guests is all inclusive.  Rich and poor, young and old, healthy and infirm.  People who are like us, and people who are not like us; especially people who have nothing to offer us in return for a place at the table.  Except, perhaps, a simple thank you for a gift freely given.  And in God’s kingdom a humble “thank you” is honor enough.  But we honor God most when we humbly accept his invitation to join him at his table with the many and diverse people we find there.  People who expand our minds to receive them; people who open our hearts to accept them, not for what they have and what they can give, but for who they are.   People who take us out of our transaction modes of relating to each other, into forming real relationships which honors the presence of the other without qualification.

              So, where can we find the places where God’s banquet is being served to all who accept his invitation.  What does the God’s kingdom look like in the midst of such a dinner party?  One place we are likely to find God’s banquet being served is at soup kitchens and in homeless shelters.  Another place we are likely to find God’s banquet being served is at the home we go to each year to celebrate Thanksgiving.  In fact, Thanksgiving may be the only time in the course of a year where great numbers of people honor God by giving him thanks, and humbly asking for his blessing.  We can always find God’s banquet being served at any dinner we host or any dinner we attend where the gift of food and hospitality are freely given for the purpose of bring people together for quality time to deepen relationship.  And, of course, people who attend church regularly can find God’s banquet is being served at every Eucharist.  A banquet we prepare ourselves for in the humility of confession so that we can give God the honor due his name in thanksgiving for redeeming us from all that would keep us from good and right relationship with him and with each other.  The  banquet God prepares for us is the bread of life and the cup of salvation.  It is a banquet to which all of God’s human creatures are invited, without reservation or qualification, and God’s purpose for inviting us to his table is to be in communion with all people, everywhere in the world, who come to his table this day.   

           Unfortunately, there are so many who will not be at this banquet this morning.  Perhaps it is because they are not aware of God’s invitation to them.  But that is not God’s fault; it is ours.  We are the only people God has to host his banquet.  We are the only people who can be God’s hosts on this earth.  The only people who can offer his banquet in hospitality and friendship to the world.  And I believe this is what Jesus is calling us to be and to do in our Gospel lesson this morning.  He is calling us to host God’s banquet in God’s home, his Church.  God has already made the guest list available to us; it is up to us to make the invitation to the people who might not even know we exist, and to people who do.  We must invite everyone to the dinner which has been prepared for all of us.  And when God’s invited guests come to join us at this table, we must show them the honor of God’s hospitality.  God’s hospitality begins with begins with a welcome and extends to a genuine interest in the person God has placed in our midst so that we might come to know each other in ways which invite us into relationship.  It seems to me that churches that do not have a vital ministry of hospitality run the risk of not being the Church.  They are merely a club or organization with restricted membership and transactional relationships; people who pay their dues, follow the rules of membership and receive all its perks. 

              Saint Benedict, a monk of the early Middle Ages understood what it meant to be God’s host to the world.  He founded a monastic order whose monks lived by a set of rules which are called the Rule of Benedict.  Benedict’s rule of hospitality takes Jesus’ message of humility, hospitality and inclusiveness in today’s gospel very seriously.  Benedict’s monks resided in a place they called a monastery, and Benedict believed that a monastery could only be a monastery when it had guests.  So Benedict wrote his rule of hospitality, and unlike the host in our gospel lesson today, his invitation list had no limits:  “All guests” he said, “will be welcome,” “and they will be welcomed as Christ” would be welcomed. But for Benedict welcome always included hospitality toward the guest.  He went on to say, “if a monastery regularly exercises enough hospitality so as to attract guests, it is a monastery.  If it doesn’t, it is not.”  It seems to me that this might be a good description for a church:  If a church regularly exercises enough hospitality so as to attract guests, then it is a church; if it doesn’t, then it isn’t. 

              In today’s gospel account Jesus tells us what we need to do to be that Church.  St. Benedict makes a rule to show us how.  Another saint of the church, Teresa of Avila, tells us why we must.  She writes: “You are God’s hands.  Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours; yours are the eyes through which he is to go about doing good; yours are the hands with which he is to bless [his people], now.”

              Now, at God’s invitation let us prepare for the banquet God has prepared for us at his table.