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Sermon - The Significance of Meals - 2nd September 2007
St Alban’s Epping 7:00am and 8.00 am
Readings: Jeremiah 2:4-13, Psalm 81:1, 10-16, Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16 Luke 14:1, 7-14
A meal is the setting for the Gospel this morning. What follows are parallel advice to the guests and to the host.
Meals were important social ceremonies in the time of Jesus. Little was left to chance. In other places in this Gospel it is recorded that, people noticed where one ate, with whom one ate, whether one washed before eating and where one sat to eat. All of these matters determined one's social position. Pliny the Younger, a social commentator of the first century, recorded a similar criticism of the discriminatory meal practices of his host in one of his letters:
“Some very elegant dishes were served up to himself and a few more of the company; while those which were placed before the rest were cheap and paltry. He had apportioned in small flagons three different sorts of wine; but you are not to suppose it was that the guests might take their choice: on the contrary, that they might not choose at all. One was for himself and me; the next for his friends of lower order … and the third for his own freed-men and mine.
The first section of this mornings Gospel account is addressed to the guests and the second to the host, but both follow a common pattern.
To the guests:
"When you are invited ... do not sit...lest...."
"But when you are invited ... sit...so that...."
"Then you will be honoured" because you will be judged at the end of time.
To the host:
"When you give a dinner... do not invite ... lest...."
"But when you give a banquet...invite"
"And you will be blessed" Because you will be blessed at the end of time.
Jesus is hardly the model guest. When he sees how the guests choose for themselves the places of honour, he exposes their strategy with direct words drawn from Proverbs, where the ancient sage had counselled:
“Do not put yourself forward in the king's presence or stand in the place of the great; for it is better to be told, "Come up here," than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.”
However, Jesus seems to sanction another reference to Proverbs,
“Play the game, but play it more shrewdly. Do not be like
buffoons who set themselves up for embarrassment”.
When the host asks the guest to move down from the place of honour, no term of address, respect or affection is used. He says merely, "Give this person your place". When the host invites the guest to move up, however, he says, "Friend, move up higher". To be acknowledged as the friend of a powerful or wealthy person was itself a distinct honour. Honour is not gained by seizing prominence, others must give it. However, is Jesus merely pointing the Pharisees and lawyers to better ways to gain honour? We remember Jesus' adage that the first will be last and the last first. Second, "honour" points the hearers beyond the recognition they may receive from the others present to the glory that belongs to God and that only God can give.
The fact that these hints are significant indicates that Jesus is not merely correcting the guests to play the game more cleverly is confirmed by what follows: "For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted" (v. 11). The saying points beyond the immediate situation to the reversal of values that is characteristic of God's kingdom. Humility is not to be used as a strategy for recognition. On the contrary, humility is a quality of life open to all who know that their worth is not measured by recognition from by others but by the certainty that God has accepted them.
The focus changes and Jesus' words are directed to the host and they make a related point. Hosts are no freer from the quest for recognition than are guests. The community and sharing of life and bread that takes places at table is too sacred to be used for our private advantage. Jesus lists four groups one should not invite. They are precisely those groups most often invited: your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, and your rich neighbours. Balancing this list is another list of four groups who should be invited: the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. In Leviticus it says that such unlikely persons were explicitly forbidden to serve as priests. In the strict Jewish sect, the Qumran community, such persons were barred from entry.
“And let no person smitten with any human impurity whatever enter the Assembly of God. And every person smitten with these impurities, unfit to occupy a place in the midst of the Congregation, and every (person) smitten in his flesh, paralysed in his feet or hands, lame or blind or deaf, or dumb or smitten in his flesh with a blemish visible to the eye, or any aged person that totters and is unable to stand firm in the midst of the Congregation: let these persons not enter.”
The contrast between such restrictions and the spirit of Jesus' concept of the Kingdom could hardly be more striking. Jesus does not merely prohibit inviting those in a position to benefit us if our reason for inviting them is to seek their favour. He advises not to invite the powerful or well to do because they might return the invitation. Instead, we should invite those who have never had such a meal, who could never return the favour, who will never be our superiors. The promise "and you will be blessed" relates to the earlier assurance, "then you will be honoured". This time, however, it is clear that the matter of blessing and honour has been lifted from the praise of others to praise from God. God is ultimately the only one who can bless us or whose praise matters.
These words of Jesus can free us from the necessity of succeeding in our culture's contests of power and esteem. They free us from judgemental relationships and the attitudes and barriers they create, so that we may be free to create human community and enjoy the security of God's grace.
This description of ancient meal practices and social status makes two points. First, we should cultivate and practice humility, if only because it is a means of avoiding embarrassment. The end time application at the end of each of the two sections drives home a deeper meaning. Although the practice of humility is proper and prudent for disciples, the kingdom of God will bring about an even more revolutionary reversal. The very standards and practices of discrimination will be overthrown. The outcasts will be accepted as equals. Those who live by kingdom standards and values now will not only bear witness to the kingdom but also will be rewarded in "the resurrection of the righteous". Righteousness, not social position or the esteem of others, should be our goal. God does not look on the glitter of our guest list. Instead, God looks to see that we have practiced the generosity and inclusiveness of the kingdom in our daily social relationships. One standard offers the reward of social position, the other the reward of God's favour.
The distinctiveness of Jesus' vision of the kingdom was nowhere clearer than in his protest against unjust meal practices. Jesus and the Pharisees ate differently. For Jesus, meals were times of celebration and an inclusive fellowship that foreshadowed the inclusiveness of God's kingdom. The last supper, therefore, not only pointed ahead to the eschatological banquet, but also it reflected on Jesus' meals with the disciples, Pharisees, crowds, and outcasts in Galilee . The greatest crisis the early church faced, moreover, was not the delay of the return of Jesus but the burning issue of whom one ate with. Can this criticism be aimed at us? Perhaps it is time we learned new table manners.
This sermon prepared using the New Interpreter's Bilble, VoI IX