Pentecost 15C
Sept. 1, 2013
Luke 14:1, 7-14
Grace to you and peace from God our
Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
As
Michael and I have been working on setting up our house, several small projects
have come up. One required us to go to a fabric store for a few items. We were
fine at first, working together, but then I gave Michael a job and went to take
care of something else. He confessed later that this had made him very
uncomfortable, and he figured out why: “I don’t know the etiquette in fabric stores,”
he said. “I’m not sure how things work – like whether I’m supposed to return
the ribbon after she cuts it or if the employee does that – and it makes me
really uncomfortable.”
Who
has not been there? Not necessarily in a fabric store – I know many of you are
quite comfortable in that particular setting! But somewhere? I remember the
very first time I went to a party in college, like, a party party, a scene that wasn’t my scene then, nor did it
ever become comfortable for me. I had no idea how to act. The coolest kids
seemed to be very relaxed, funny, and boisterous. Should I do the same? Should
I just laugh at whatever they are doing, even though I think it’s stupid?
Should I do one funny thing to solidify my status as a Really Fun Person, and
then hope for the best? Should I just stand in the corner, try to look relaxed,
and hope somebody comes and talks to me? Am I even wearing the right clothes?
Is it extremely lame if I just leave early and go home and watch a movie?
No
doubt you can think of similar experiences in your own life, times when you
felt like you were in the wrong place, didn’t know how to act, and weren’t sure
of your status, and perhaps, subsequently, tried to establish a status for
yourself. It’s human nature, after all, to establish a pecking order. Having
that order helps us to understand life, to know what is expected of us, and to
function in a somewhat organized fashion. Which is all well and good, until you
find yourself in a situation where everyone else seems to know exactly what’s
expected, but you are completely at a loss.
This
desperate search for social order is not unlike our Gospel lesson today. Jesus’
advice is astute for those in the first century as it is for us in the
twenty-first century, whether you are just about to start school again, or
going to work, or just spending time with friends. We understand it because he
addresses this very human desire to establish an order to social interactions.
This is a pretty nice party he is at – a dinner at the home of a respected
religious leader. Surely everyone wants to establish their importance, maybe
legitimize their presence there. Perhaps they are networking, getting “in” with
the right people, so that when favors need to be asked or delivered, the
connection has been made. In the first century especially, establishing your
place in society was essential for survival. Jesus looks around at the
self-ordering going on and offers this advice: don’t assume you are higher than
you are. Start low and wait to be invited up, rather than risk being booted
down in front of everyone – social suicide!
It’s
good advice… but it is also hard to swallow – because what if you start low and
you don’t get invited up. Then
everyone looks at you and thinks, “Oh she thinks she belongs down there, so I
guess she does.” We are taught from a young age to have confidence in
ourselves, to believe in ourselves, and be the best we can be. How is this
accomplished by seeing yourself worthy only of the lowest seat?
Well,
there’s a difference between lack of self worth and the humility that Jesus is
advocating. When you lack self worth, you don’t see what is good in yourself.
When you are humble, you know there is good in you, but you don’t need to boast
it. When you lack self worth, you don’t see yourself as worthy of love. When
you are humble, you know that you are loved, just the way you are. When you
lack self worth, you need to make up for it by compensating wherever you can –
like assuming the highest seat, in hopes that others will look at you there,
and believe you are good, and then maybe you can believe you are good, too.
When you are humble, you are satisfied with who you are, no matter where you
sit.
Humility sounds so good, but it is so difficult,
because it requires vulnerability. It requires you to let yourself and others
see you for exactly who you are, and trust that you will be loved and accepted
anyway.
I experienced this in my first few days at Yale. They
joke that those first couple months, everyone is waiting to be tapped on the shoulder
and told, “We made a mistake – you don’t belong here after all.” I definitely
saw this fear in my classmates and in myself. The first social gathering I
attended, before classes had even started, it seemed every conversation I had
was with someone trying to prove that they were smart enough to be at Yale. At
first I tried to do the same, until I got into a conversation with one guy
about the research he had done on the linguistics of glossolalia, and I finally
couldn’t fake it anymore and swallowed my pride and just said, “I have no idea
what you’re talking about.” It took him by surprise, I think, for someone at
Yale to admit to not knowing something (especially something so significant to
faith and life as the linguistics of glossolalia). For a moment, I considered
going to my dorm and packing my bags, because clearly I had just proven my
ignorance and disqualified myself from being a Yale student. But to my
surprise, I actually felt quite liberated! “The secret is out,” I thought. “I
am not as smart as some other people here. But someone thought I belonged here,
and so I’m gonna stay and learn what glossolalia is!” (It is, for the record,
speaking in tongues.)
And that is what the sort of humility that
Jesus calls for can be – liberating. But first, it can be terrifying. Because
suddenly we can’t rely on our accomplishments, or our brains, or our good
looks, or our upbringing, or our clothes, or our car, or our friends, or our
talents to establish our place in the social order. In God’s kingdom, you see,
there is no social order. And that is what Jesus gets to in the next bit of
advice, that he gives to the host. “When you give a party,” he says, “do
not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors.
You invite them, and in all likelihood, they’ll invite you in return, and you
would be repaid, and this human-constructed social ordering will just continue.
Instead, when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and
the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.”
You see, he
turns all social interactions on their heads, liberating us from those
expectations, yes, but also leaving us without a firm grasp of how to
understand and function in this new, godly order, this Kingdom of God. We are
so used to functioning in a society in which you do your part, and we may help
each other out to be nice, but if you don’t pull your own weight, too, then
forget it. We’d like to be repaid in some way for our kindness, or at least
appreciated. But to reach out to someone who can in no way pay you back? Or
even someone who could pay you back, but won’t? What is the purpose of that?
But that is
not the way our faith works. Jesus did not die on the cross so that we would be
indebted to him, or so that we would learn to then pull our own weight in the
future. Jesus died to forgive our sins simply because he loves us, and wants us
to know that no matter who we are or what we bring to the table, or what seat
we sit in, or how we feel at parties or in fabric stores or anywhere, we are
worthy of God’s love. And we are left at the foot of the cross with nothing to offer
in return but our thanks and praise for a God who would freely give us this
grace, who wants to be in relationship with us and with all people.
And so,
Christ invites us to His table: invites those of us who are crippled in spirit,
or lame in our walk of faith, or poor in love and charity, or blind and in need
of light. God invites all of us, humbled and unable to repay, but each of us,
by the grace of God, inspired and enabled to give praise and thanks.
Let us pray:
Gracious God, you invite us, the crippled, poor, blind and lame, to your table, and tell us we are
worthy of love. Give us the strength and the courage to do the same, reaching
out to the world with your gospel and hearts for service, without asking or
expecting anything in return. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. Amen.
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