Scriptures:
Proverbs 25:6-7a & Luke 14:1, 7-14
As the minister officiating the wedding, I was once invited to the wedding receptions of couples I really didn’t know that well. On one occasion, the bride and groom were not members of the church I was serving, but had very close friends who were. They had found me and our church sanctuary through them. I had assumed Phil and I would probably be seated with those friends since they were our only obvious connection in the room.
That wasn’t the case, though, for whatever reason, and when it came time to sit down to dinner in our assigned seats, we found ourselves getting to know everyone at the table. One exuberant woman seated next to me was chatting the table up when she asked every there, “So, how was the ceremony?” It struck me as a little odd because I figured everyone had just been there. Maybe she was running late, I thought. Or maybe she had another commitment earlier in the day. But no, I was wrong, I quickly found out. “I never go to those things anymore. They are so boring!”
She was pretty embarrassed a few minutes later when it was my turn to introduce myself to the rest of the table. Unoffended, I had a good inner chuckle, though, at the unexpected interaction that came after what I imagined was hours of stress about the seating arrangements on the part of our hosts.
Any who have worked on such a project know that it’s not easy, deciding who should sit next to whom. Will it be a table of people who have known each other for years or a table of people who share the same interests? Will couples sit next to each other or be scattered around the table? And no matter how hard the host works on the arrangement, it seems that there’s always at least one person at every party who thinks he or she has a better idea, and the place cards start shuffling. The seating arrangement is knocked out of order.
In the culture of Jesus’ time, the societal norms dictated the seating chart. At a wedding banquet, the guests would sit, or more likely recline next to, a U shaped table. The host or guest of honor would be seated at the center of the table with other guests sitting to their sides in order of social rank or importance – the most important person to their right, the second most to their left, going back and forth, side to side, around the table, until the least important or the lowest person was sitting at the end of the table, farthest from the place of honor.
At a dinner hosted by a leader of the Pharisees, Jesus sees the guests at this Sabbath meal at work trying to claim their status as they jockey for position at the table, rearranging the seats trying to make sure they are next to the right person, and, even more, importantly in the right position. They rearrange the hypothetical placecards to get themselves seated in a place of high honor, maybe higher than they deserve, Jesus warns.
Trying to get close to greatness is, of course, not just an ancient phenomenon. VIP tickets to sporting events. Meet and greets at concerts. A coveted reservation for opening night at a celebrity chef’s restaurant. Camping out overnight or waiting for hours to secure the best spot at the front of the line for a parade or rally or general admission event. It might be about having a good view in part, but isn’t it also often about being able to say “I was this far away from them” or “They looked right at me!” And of course, in both literal and figurative ways, we watch it in the political world all. the. time. It looks like voters, candidates, corporations, and aspiring leaders of all kinds losing themselves and their convictions just to stand next to and be seen as aligned with a person in power above them. Some folks will fall all over themselves, their commitments to constituents, their core values, and their oaths just to earn or keep the blessing of the one at the top.
Yet in many of these situations, we forget that in the realm of God, our honor doesn’t come from our proximity to those who are exalted. We are exalted by accepting the invitation to humility.
Humility, Jesus’ story tells these guests, is far more important than honor in the sight of others. It’s better to put yourself at the bottom of the pile than to make assumptions about your worth over others. It’s better to show honor, show love really, to all others than to try to take that honor for yourself. In fact, the best seating arrangement is the one where we place ourselves in service to others, thinking of their needs before our own, holding them in highest honor.
Which is what he says in his next comments for the host of the party. The guest list, he says, is a bit off. “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.” In the realm of God, we are not rewarded for keeping comfortable company. We are made righteous by being a blessing to others.
Extending kindness to our friends is all well and good, and enjoying the fellowship of those we know and love is wonderful in its proper time—but true hospitality occurs when it reaches far beyond our usual comfort zone, far beyond those from whom we can expect anything in return.
As we are approaching the 24th anniversary of the horrific attacks that took place on September 11, 2001, I am reminded of a story of immense hospitality that unfolded alongside the immense tragedy of that day. You may know this story from the news stories that were told then and in the years that followed. You may know it from the Broadway musical, Come from Away, that was written about the events that unfolded on a small Canadian island. Or maybe, like me, you know this story because you know someone who received the hospitality of strangers in Gander, Newfoundland, after international flights were diverted there following the terrorist attacks.
On September 11, 2001, my friend, a seminary classmate, and his family were in the air somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean on their way back to the US from a family wedding when US airspace was closed. This family found themselves, along with passengers and crews from 39 other flights, temporarily grounded in a rural town of about 10,000 people, 10,000 people who opened themselves whole-heartedly to 6,600 unexpected guests. Passengers were housed in the school, and when that didn’t seem to be enough, local residents showed up to take individuals and families home with them, not just for warm showers and hot meals, but even to stay in their own beds instead of on mats on the gymnasium floor.
Some years later, the mayor of Gander, Claude Elliott, commented on why this story was so interesting in his country and ours. He said, accurately I think, “American people are not used to people helping them and not want to get paid for it. They find this unusual.” I also believe the flip side is true. We aren’t used to offering help to others without wondering or asking “What’s in it for me?”
There was nothing in it for the people of Gander. They didn’t open their town and their homes because they expected financial reimbursement or even a chance for the same hospitality to be offered back to them. Their guests were from all over the world, so they certainly weren’t expecting an invitation back to dinner from those whom they served. They offered their hospitality warmly, selflessly, and sacrificially with no regard for when or how they might be repaid, when or how the invitation might be returned.
This is the way Jesus calls for hospitality to be extended. Hospitality, Jesus teaches, is not the Martha Stewart cooking, organizing, bed sheet ironing industry we often imagine. Hospitality is not about a mint on a pillow or a “free” pair of slippers when you walk into the room for which you have paid. And it’s not about surrounding yourself only with people who can exalt you with honor by association. Hospitality is about being open to the friendless, welcoming the stranger, making room for those who are different from us, and not trying to turn them into us, but letting them find out who they are in our midst, giving them space to be who God calls them to be without threat of judgment or pressure for repayment.
We see Jesus doing this throughout all of the gospel accounts, not just Luke. He sits with tax collectors who cheat the public. He spends what some people think is an inappropriate amount of time women. He risks ritual impurity by touching lepers and the dead. These are not the folks you might find walking the red carpet or behind the velvet ropes in the ancient world. These are not VIPs he is rubbing shoulders with. Instead, Jesus sees in them honor that no one else can see, a reason to exalt them based on nothing more and nothing less than their status as children of God.
And apparently, he expects the same from us. He says as much in these parables. When we are the hosts, or when we the church are opening our doors to the community and the world, our list of invitees isn’t supposed to look just like our membership roster. When we, his disciples are trying to serve others, our scheduled visits aren’t supposed to come from our Christmas card address list, but could rather include those with no addresses. Those we seek to serve in the name of Christ, can’t be restricted to those who have served us, but must focus on those who are on no other lists, those who are forgotten, ignored, or even purposely shunned. That is the unique and challenging call of Christ.
As we move through the world, in spaces where we are invited and spaces where we simply exist with others, we can’t presume to have a better idea than our Divine Host about who deserves honor and who is exalted. We can’t show up and try to manipulate the seating arrangements to make ourselves look better. The call to humility is the call to place others above ourselves. It goes hand in hand with the call to hospitality – – to open our doors, our hearts, our minds, our lives to any and all who walk through them.
Together these are a call to go out and seek those who are welcome in no other place to make sure they have a place, a call to humble ourselves by letting go of the need to be seen by and with “the right people”, in order to be present among the people God exalts. When we are doing this, taking our seats as servants of one another, we will be blessed by being a blessing.