Proper 17C 2007 Luke 14:1,7-14

The gospel reminds us of one of the stories last Sunday, the one in which the woman wanted her church to be isolated from the realities of the world outside. She wanted only beauty and serenity and comfort for her worship. And she wanted heaven to be the same but even more so.

No doubt the leader of the Pharisees who had invited Jesus to Sabbath dinner wanted the same thing for his dinner party. I imagine that Sabbath dinner in the Palestine of Jesus’ day was analogous to the Sunday dinners that we remember from our youth. Maybe it’s like that in many places, where brunch out hasn’t replaced it. Those Sunday dinners were often a time when families and friends gathered around the table and the cook of the house always tried to make it special. It usually involved chicken in some form or another, rice and gravy, green beans, fresh baked biscuits or corn bread, and a homemade dessert. And, of course, gallons of sweet iced tea. There was plenty of everything. Afterward the adults would sit around and talk for a while and the children went outside to play. It was a time of strengthening bonds within families and friendship circles.

Occasionally outsiders were invited in. Sometimes they became part of the Sunday dinner circle, but not often. Sunday dinners tended to be exclusive rather than inclusive, Only those who fit into or added to the circle’s comfort zone were included permanently. The occasional outsider, the different person at the table, tended to reinforce the comfort zone by the uncertainty of his or her presence. Usually the dinner circle was unconscious of its attitude and behavior.

Those Sunday dinners and their social circles were often the mechanism by which someone who was likely to become a permanent member could be introduced to its members and its folkways. How many of us remember bringing an intended spouse home for dinner? The outsider, the newcomer, soon to be an insider if all went well, may well have felt like a specimen under the microscope. Some never made it into the comfort zone of the dinner circle.

Jesus was not interested in the comfort zone of the group gathered around the table that day in Palestine almost two thousand years ago. He too was under the microscope – Saint Luke tells us that they were watching him closely. He would not have been invited again for Sunday dinner down home. In fact he might well have been invited outside and asked to leave. It certainly would have been uncomfortable for the dinner circle.

After all, what host wants to be lectured on table manners in their own house? But that isn’t the point Jesus was making. He was trying to shake the Pharisee leader and his friends out of their smug arrogance and certitude. Jesus wanted the dinner guests to realize who was the true host and what it was all about.

Consider this: When God is throwing a party, you never know who will be there or whom you will sit next to. The financier will be seated next to the panhandler he always passed on his way to work. The store owner will be next to the person he just fired, and the doctor will be put next to the woman who just sued him for malpractice. Rush Limbaugh may be beside the unwed mother on welfare. Pat Robertson and Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria might have to sit with a gay man between them and lesbian women on their other sides.

All the "right" people will be there -- that is everyone who responded to God's invitation. They will have nothing at all in common except that they answered our Lord’s call to come to the table. And seated next to the host -- Jesus -- in the places of honor are not the dignitaries, the celebrities, the distinguished people of position and prominence, but rather the poor, the hurting, the outcast -- people who have distinguished themselves only by their need. And all of us would be outside their comfort zone.

It will be like no other dinner party we have ever been to. And we would be foolish not to RSVP, Yes Lord, I am coming. (1)

AMEN



1. Martin Copenhaver, “How to throw a party”, Library of Distinctive Sermons, vol. 2, Multnomah Press, p. 48, (adapted.)