SERMONS

Proper 17
September 2, 2007

By The Rev. Sylvia Czarnetzky

Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 10: 7-18
Psalm 112
Hebrews 13:1-8
Luke 14:1, 7-14

I knew a girl in college who eventually landed a job in the White House. She worked for the Chief of Protocol in the White House. That means, among other things, that she helped decide who got to sit where at White House State Dinners. (Willimon 40) The Chief of Protocol is the one who devises the seating plan for White House State Dinners. And you have to know who ranks above whom in the nuanced hierarchy of Washington, to do this properly. You also need keep track of political alliances and who’s not speaking to whom so that you don’t sit feuding politicians next to each other! Now one of the problems for you is this: pretty much everybody on the guest list wants the best seats at the dinner! Everybody wants to be close to the President or close to the guests of honor! Because where you sit at a White House State Dinner speaks volumes about where you rank in the world of Washington politics -- Where you sit in relation to the President or the honorees speaks volumes about your power and status. And since the Chief of Protocol decides who sits where at dinner, his job is pretty much a nightmare! And speaking of seating-plan nightmares, imagine being in charge of the seating plan for a big charity dinner!! I am reliably informed by those who’ve done so, that it is quite a tightrope walk! Again, pretty much everybody on the guest list wants the best seats at the dinner! You don’t want to put the noses of your faithful patrons out-of-joint, but the fact is that everybody can’t be at the head table! And you can bet that the people at the dinner will be paying close attention to who sits where, so to keep the peace, you have to be part juggler, part negotiator, and part magician!

I’ll tell you, if I were having a fancy dinner, there’s one person I definitely would NOT put in charge of the seating plan – Jesus. If Jesus were in charge of who sits where at dinner, he would turn everything upside down, giving the best seats to the humble and the meek, and seating the arrogant and powerful way, way in the very back of the hall! Come to think of it, Jesus would probably do more than just revise the seating plan -- Jesus would probably make us change the guest list, to invite “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind,” (Lk. 14:13) instead of the rich and powerful. And you’re not going to get much in the way of a return invitation from that bunch! (14:12-14)

In today’s gospel, Jesus was paying close attention to who sat where at the dinner he attended at the house of a leader of the Pharisees. By the way, Jesus wasn’t the only person paying close attention at the dinner. The people who invited Jesus to dinner on the Sabbath, were paying close attention to everything Jesus did and said. “[W]e should not be under any illusion about” why Jesus was invited to dinner that day: Their “intention was not to honour Jesus but to discredit him” in front of “people who could do him great harm if they chose. Luke puts this motive very subtly in five chilling words, ‘They were watching him closely.’” (O’Driscoll 126) So the other guests were watching Jesus closely, and Jesus was watching them closely, so everybody seemed to be watching everybody else at this Sabbath dinner.

Jesus was paying close attention to who sat where, and he “noticed how the guests chose the places of honor.” (Lk. 14:7) Apparently human nature in the ancient world was no different than human nature today –pretty much everybody wants the best seats at the dinner!! In Jesus’s day, dinner guests reclined on couches to eat, so you could tell a lot about a person’s social status by which couch he chose, and where that couch was in relation to “the head of the table…” (Weathers 180)

So after watching the dinner guests scramble for the best seats, Jesus tells them a parable about, well, dinner guests. (Johnson 226) When you are invited to a wedding banquet, Jesus says, don’t automatically take the best seat in the house – the place of honor -- because that seat may belong to someone more important than you, and wouldn’t it be embarrassing to be asked to move! It’s better, Jesus says, to “sit down at the lowest place,” so that when your host shows up, he may actually ask you to move to a better seat. (Lk. 14:8-10) This advice was not original to Jesus, by the way. Jesus is referring to the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament, which said it is better to let the host “invite you to an honored place, rather than choosing the best seat for [yourself].” (Pohl 16) But it does sound a little like Jesus is telling guests how to avoid social embarrassment at dinner parties!

But I think Jesus’s concern runs deeper than that. Jesus is concerned about the seats people chose, but he’s also concerned about what those choices told him about the attitudes of the persons choosing – attitudes Jesus was struggling to change. “It was an attitude deeply engrained in these people, affecting every facet of their lives, their religion,…their behaviour towards others, [and] their relationship to God…Jesus saw that for these people life centred [sic] around themselves, their sense of importance, their superiority to others,…that…their sense of superiority over other people was destroying their souls.” (O’Driscoll 126) When we are invited to the table, Jesus suggests we should err on the side of humility instead of arrogance. We should choose the poorer seat for ourselves. In the “divine economy” of God’s kingdom, humility is preferred over arrogance. (Pohl 16) But, let’s face it. In our world, arrogance often works better than humility. The squeaky wheel often gets the grease, and we see people around us demanding preferential treatment, and insisting on special privileges commensurate with rank, wealth and power. (Synthesis 1) Look at how our culture treats celebrities, if you have any doubts about that. Arrogance works better than humility, and nice guys finish last.

Maybe, though, our scramble for the best seats at the table is not simply a function of arrogance. Maybe our scramble for the best seats grows out of our fear of being overlooked -- we’re afraid that if we are in a seat where the host or the President can’t see us, then we’ll get lost in the shuffle. And we’ll be “stuck in the backwater forever.” People might think that we deserve a lousy seat. And we are very worried about what people think. (Pohl 16)

But whatever makes us scramble for the best seat in the house, Jesus offers us a different way to be. Jesus is talking about a different economy, where faithfulness and grace are more important than where you sit and who sees you there.

Jesus is saying to us that, if we want to eat and drink at his table, we need to think hard about what’s important. (Willimon 39) Jesus says to us, I know that the culture around you tells you to strive always for the best seat -- to scramble for the best place at the best table. But I tell you, there’s another way to be.

If you want to gather at my table, Jesus says, then you must approach the table with humility. (Willimon 39) If you spend all your time striving for the best seat in the house, or clawing your way up the social ladder, then you’ll find yourself humbled in the end.

For the divine economy of Jesus is topsy turvy, where “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Lk.14:11) And let me be clear. Jesus does not want us to pretend we want the crummy seats so that we’ll get asked to move up and everybody can see us move up! No, no, no. Jesus is not talking about false humility. False humility, Frederick Buechner says, is like “the polite self-deprecation of saying you’re not much of a bridge player when you know perfectly well you are.” (Buechner 47-8) Jesus is talking about true humility -- which is a much rarer commodity. Jesus calls us to put the needs of others ahead of our own needs; to care more about feeding the hungry than about our seats at the banquet; to put our faith and our trust in God, instead of our place on the social register. I’ll admit readily how easy it is to point fingers at the dinner guests in this story and wag our fingers at them, saying Shame on you, Pharisees, Shame on you, scrambling for the best seats at the table, and only inviting guests to dinners who’ll invite you back! How easy it is to point our fingers and shake our heads at them, over there! It’s a lot harder to look honestly at our own conduct, and to start asking ourselves uncomfortable questions, like Do I head for the best seat in the house automatically? Do I push anybody out of my way to get there? Do I care too much about where I sit? Do I err on the side of arrogance or on the side of humility? All this talk of Jesus and dinner guests reminds me of the meal we have here, at God’s table, each Sunday morning, and the questions continue: When I come to the table, do I come in humility or in arrogance? My hands are open to receive the body of Christ, but what about my heart? My hands are open to receive the bread of heaven, but what about my life -- is my life open to receive the grace and love of Jesus Christ? And will I, having been fed at God’s table, turn around and invite others to God’s banquet, where Jesus meets us to fill our empty hands with bread, and fill our longing hearts with love? (Willimon 41) Amen.

Works Cited

Conder, Tim. “Table Manners.” “Living by the Word.” Christian Century, August 21, 2007. 18.

O’Driscoll, Herbert. A Time for Good News: Reflections for People on the Go: Year C. Toronto, Canada: Anglican Book Centre, 1991. 125-127.

Peluso-Verdend, Gary E. “The Season of Pentecost.” New Proclamation, Year C. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007.

Pohl, Christine. “Risky Business.” “Living by the Word.” Christian Century August 15, 2001, 16.

Stevenson-Moessner, Jeanne. “The Season of Pentecost.” New Proclamation. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004.

Wollenberg, Bruce. “Guest list.” “Living by the Word.” Christian Century August 24, 2004. 16.

Weathers, Janet L. “The Season of Pentecost.” New Proclamation, C 2001. Ed. Marshall D. Johnson. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001. 176-81.

Willimon, William H. “At the Table with Jesus.” Pulpit Resource (July 2001).