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Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, 09/01/2013
Sermon on Luke 14:7-14, by Frank C. Senn
Jesus was invited to dinner at the home of a leader of the Pharisees, and "they were watching him closely." But Jesus was also watching them closely.
We should pay attention to this. We invite Jesus to many of our meals in our homes with the prayer, "Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest." And Jesus accepts the invitation. But then there is in our midst observing all that we say and do. Can our actions and conversations at the table withstand his scrutiny? Does our celebration of Holy Communion in the Church withstand his scrutiny when we invite him, saying "Come, Lord Jesus"?
St. Paul raised that issue to his congregation in Corinth when they gathered to celebrate the Lord's Supper. He reminded them, "When you eat the bread and drink the cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." Can their behavior at the table withstand the scrutiny of the One who comes again as judge? Paul said "no." It wasn't the Lord's Supper they were eating and drink but their own supper, because one group had one menu and the others than a different menu and no one waited for the slaves to get off work to take their place at the table. The sacrament of the unity of the body of Christ had become a source of disunity, demonstrating a fractured body.
Today's gospel reading is not about the Lord's Supper, but we are gathered to celebrate the Lord's Supper. So this reading today is being heard at the Lord's Supper, isn't it? The gospels were written for the benefit of the churches and they were read in the assembly when the congregations came together for what St. Luke calls "the breaking of the bread." We're hearing this gospel today also as we gather for Holy Communion. So shouldn't what Jesus says about table fellowship in the home of the leader of the Pharisees also apply to table fellowship in the house of the Church?
The leader of the Pharisees was inviting his social equals to dinner in his house. Isn't that what we all do? We don't invite those who are above us socially because we're concerned that our dinner fare and our table setting may not be up to their standards. But we also don't go out looking for homeless people to join us for dinner. Their company may not be up to our standards. Yet Jesus told the Pharisees precisely to invite those who cannot repay you with a return invitation, like the poor and the crippled and the lame and the blind. These might be the very people we pass on the streets of our cities who are looking for a hand-out buy a McDonald's meal and maybe a bottle of ripple to wash it down. Well, such people are not likely to ask for enough change to get a filet mignon and a bottle of merlot. They understand the economics of their station in life. They're on the bottom rung and they shouldn't be expecting to receive the same dinner menus that we desire.
The word "economics" comes from the Greek word oikodome, which means "household." Economics is not just about balancing a budget; it's about how the household is constructed to meet its own ends in interaction with the rest of the community. It's not just about accumulating wealth; it's about joining our fortune with the fortune of others. At the base of economics is the idea of connectedness. The fundamental question of economics is: how are we connected with others?
First century Mediterranean economics operated according to a patron/client relationship. Everyone was born into a station in life which gave them a place in the pecking order. But upward mobility was possible in Greco-Roman society. One could climb the social ladder by gaining the favor of someone who was a little bit higher up. You could become a client of someone who was higher up than yourself and who could serve as your patron. And you, in turn, could have clients for whom you served as patron. It would be to the advantage, especially the political advantage, of a great patron to have clients who had clients. We still speak of a patronage system, although we usually don't think very highly of it. But, actually, it's a very effective way of getting things done.
At first it seems that Jesus is affirming this economic relationship. Don't push yourself up the ladder; wait to be invited to move up higher when someone offers you his patronage. If you are invited to move up---or in the case of the banquet to move closer to the center of the action---you will be honored in the sight of everyone by being offered your host's patronage. There were a lot of benefits to having a good patron. The patron could open doors for you. He could defend you when needed. There were also a lot of responsibilities to being a client. You had to support your patron in his public works and praise him when he took office or when he died. You helped to make his name great. So when Jesus says, don't put yourself forward in the presence of your patron, wait to be honored by him, he was recognizing the patronage system.
But then in the second part of our reading the ground shifts and we find ourselves in an entirely different social orbit. Jesus turned to the one who was giving the banquet, the one who serves as his patron, and says, "You ought to invite people who can't do anything for you, people who can't even serve as potential clients. Invite only the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind." These are the people on the lowest rungs of the social ladder, those who have no economic status at all.
Jesus is seemingly calling the whole system of patron-client relationships into question. He rejects the morality of a system in which people are valued only in terms of what they can do in exchange. He does so on the basis of what can be called messianic justice: a strong belief that God is the patron of all people. This is a radically different kind of patronage which is given freely and without any condition of response. This is a patronage which gives even the untouchables a sacred status as children of the Most High God.
I said that this gospel story would have been read at the meal gatherings of the church---a gathering like that at Corinth where the Christian congregation assembled in the house of a member to celebrate the Lord's Supper, just as it is read today at our gathering for Holy Communion. This means that this gospel story stands to challenge this gathering for the Eucharistic meal to the extent that our meal fellowship is not as broad and inclusive as our Lord would prefer.
We pray, "Come, Lord Jesus," but it is not our supper; it is the Lord's Supper. It is not our fellowship meal to which we invite the Lord; it is the Lord's meal to which he invites us. The patron of the feast is Christ himself, and we are all his clients. And he means to have a clientele so wide that it includes even the people on the lowest rung of the social ladder. In next week's gospel reading we will hear Jesus' parable of the great banquet in which the master sends his slaves out purposely to round up the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind when the better people send their regrets.
Some have taken this idea of a socially-inclusive meal fellowship to mean that the hospitality of the Communion table should be open to all who are here present, whether they are baptized or not. That's the easy way out, and it's not what Jesus intended. His intention is that the Church itself, which is above all a meal fellowship, should be inclusive of all humanity. That means that the invitation to baptism should be open to all, not the invitation to Holy Communion. And that means we need to go out into the highways and byways and compel people to come in and to painstakingly and lovingly accompany them in their initiation into the body of Christ, an initiation which climaxes in their participation in Holy Communion.
St. John Chrysostom, the fiery patriarch of Constantinople who was always getting himself exiled because he said things the imperial family didn't like to hear, exulted that beggars and emperors came to the same table and ate from the same loaf and drank from the same cup.
If we are to have beggars with us at the Lord's table, according to our Lord's instruction, we probably need to be with the marginal people of our society in their struggles, their suffering, and their hopes. The church needs to have ministries which facilitate our work with and accompaniment of the poor and needy.
In the economy of God there are no boundaries to the welcome we have all received at the bath and the table. Freely have we received. Freely let us give as we extend our Lord's invitation even to those who would only ask for a happy meal and a bottle of cheap wine. Our Lord offers more than that: the washing of regeneration and the meal of the kingdom of God. Amen.