Loading...School starts this week!
Whatever that may mean to you now, cast your mind back to your elementary school days – that may be years and years ago, or just last year,
or, it could be this Tuesday!
Specifically,
remember the moment on the first day of school when it was time for lunch.
(Now, the outgoing extraverts amongst you may have no idea what I’m talking about, but if you’re kind of shy or introverted, or ever were the “new kid”, you’ll know exactly what I mean.)
Where do you sit to eat your lunch?
What table do you go to in the cafeteria,
and what seat at that table do you go to?
If you sat in the wrong seat, the ones reserved for the cool kids (and you weren’t one of them), then you ended up having to move.
Or, if you didn’t see anyone you knew in your quick scan of the room, you’d scuttle off to a side table by yourself and hope someone – ANYONE – would join you.
Oh. Maybe that was just me....
Social cues and social order can be so mystifying!
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In our Gospel story this morning,
Jesus is not telling us how to arrange ourselves at the table –
at least, not exactly.
This is definitely not a set of instructions about etiquette:
Emily Post was not on site, filling in for Luke.
Now, it may sound like that’s what Jesus is telling us when we first hear this parable.
But it’s a parable; and this is Jesus. Something more is going on!
It was true then and it’s true now – maybe more so.
We count, and we keep track, and we keep score:
who’s got the most (fill in the blank) ;
who’s ahead,
which then leads to
“how can I get more”, or
“I must have failed in some way because I don’t have more.”
Usually when we count,
we’re talking about money and about material stuff,
but it can also mean social position, power, prestige, and authority.
We jockey for position and network with all the right people.
In school that means we get the best grades, pick the right classes, and try to join the popular cliques.
At work and in society at large that means
where do you belong in the big scheme of things?
what slot do we stick you in?
what seat at the table can you sit in without the dishonor and shame and embarrassment of being asked to move to a different seat?
Jesus invites you to walk away
-- I know it can be hard –
from that whole system of categorizing people,
of shoving people aside (or being shoved) in order to belly up to the table,
of comparison and the feelings of inadequacy and shame that may come.
Jesus invites you to walk away from all that,
and just sit at the bottom end of the table.
Go there first. There WILL be room there.
Jesus invites you to stop counting and measuring and comparing,
and just come to the table.
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Whenever I hear this story,
I hear “scriptural echoes” – other stories in the Bible that I’m reminded of.
Specifically, I hear the scriptural echo of the feast table from prophet Isaiah:
“On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.” (Isaiah 25:6)
Come to this table with the feast of rich food and well-aged wines.
Come without attempting to get ahead of anyone or
with the worry that you aren’t worthy.
Come.
Indeed, come while helping others who may hesitate or begin to turn away thinking they aren’t welcome.
Come to sit with someone who feels “bumped down” and feels that loss keenly.
Come, even if you feel awkward and out of place
because God makes a place for everyone at the table of grace.
By the way, this table of grace is not just this table of grace, the Eucharistic one,
from which many people have been and are kept away (though not by God!).
Yes, that table of grace, but also
the table of justice,
of adequate food,
of being connected in the community,
of education,
of love and acceptance.
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There’s a great picture out there in internet-land painted by someone, I don’t know who, who is part of an artists’ collective in Cameroon*. The painting, entitled “The Poor Invited to the Feast” is of the second part of Jesus’ parable:
“When you give a luncheon or a dinner do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But 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, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” (14:12b-14)
This painting depicts a village square – as I image a village square in Cameroon would look – with all kinds of people gathered, joyfully sharing a feast:
people in rags, with walking sticks, young, old, women and men.
I imagine some are poor and/or blind, but you wouldn’t know it by the picture because all are sharing food, laughter, community, and a place at the table.
This parable from Jesus reminds me of an apocryphal story that a dear professor at seminary told – one of his own parables:
“Jesus is hosting a party after the resurrection. It’s a big celebration at a house and all kinds of folks are there: Peter, James, John, and other disciples; Mary, Mary, and Mary Magdalene; prophets of old – Isaiah, Elijah, Elisha, and dour-faced ol’ Jeremiah; neighbors, grandma and grandpa.... All kinds of people. The party is in full swing; laughter and joy abounds.
“But Jesus keeps looking back at the door each time it opens and someone comes in. It’s like he’s expecting someone, but they just aren’t showing up.
“Finally Peter says to Jesus, ‘Who are you looking for, Jesus? We’re all here. See?’ (and he points out a bunch of folks)
“Jesus answers, ‘Yes, I’m so glad all y’all are here, but,’ and here Jesus shakes his head and looks sad, ‘I’m wondering where Judas is.... He was invited!’”
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Everyone, everyone, is invited to the feast.
And every time we remember that and extend our tables,
this Eucharistic one,
the Dinner Table in West Central,
our own welcome and inclusion of those pushed aside and rejected by our competitive and, frankly, ruthless society,
then we are at the party that God envisions.
The party at which Jesus kept watching and waiting for Judas.
Every time we remember to extend the table,
to welcome people to sit with us,
to join them wherever they are sitting
– at the bottom of the table or in a corner by themselves –
then we are making God’s hope and love for the world real.
Come, and bring folks along with you, to the feast table,
where all are invited and welcomed
and all have enough to eat,
and all are treasured and loved.
Amen
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*Editor's note -- Attribution is as follows: JESUS MAFA. The poor invited to the feast, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. //diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48397 [retrieved August 30, 2016].
