29 August 2010

Proverbs 25.6-7
Psalm 112
Hebrews 13.1-8, 15-16
Luke 14.1, 7-14

Jesus – dining in the house of a religious leader. Jesus among the hypocrites. But have no fear; Jesus does have an agenda, and no one’s going to go home from this party unscathed. Before we arrive on the scene, Jesus has already bested the Pharisees and canon lawyers by healing (on the Sabbath no less) someone who’s got dropsy, who’s been retaining fluids – but more about that we shall not say. We join the party just as the bar has closed, and Jesus is noticing how various and sundry dinner guests are busy jostling for the best places at the table, so Jesus tells them all a parable, expanding on the verses from Proverbs that we heard in our first reading. “Don’t take one of the better, higher-up seats at table. Go sit down at the lowest place so you’ll be honored when the host sees how humble you are and calls you up to the head of the table.”

And, don’t you just know it, instantly, in the twinkling of an eye, we with everyone else at the party are now wildly scrambling for the lowest place at the table so we’ll all look properly humble, thereby getting called up to a better seat at the table because of our humility. So that’s how it works! We humble ourselves so we can be exalted. Of course we’ll ear appropriately dour faces and hope that the host is, in actuality, too stupid to notice that our playing the martyr is just our pious ploy to earn an honored spot at the table. Jesus, however, beats us to the punch. “Gotcha,” says the Lord, “those who desire to exalt themselves – even through a show of humility – those ones will be truly humbled.” Trying to get it right is sooooooo tricky. Jesus, can’t you go easy on us – just this once?

Of course, there’s always the culturally Lutheran option for dealing with this seating crisis – everyone to the middle, in the high hope that the host will see us as the truly humble who aren’t really at all interested in being exalted for being at the bottom and who are smart enough to know better than to exalt ourselves by taking a place of honor at the head of the table. You know, hoping we’ll get it right by not attracting too much attention to ourselves – praying that our mushy-middle modesty will win the day and we’ll end up on top after all – showing appropriate surprise of course – Who me? Oh I couldn’t. But of course, if you insist . . .

Then again, perhaps the truly safe action is to stay home and avoid the whole problem altogether. But then, we’d go hungry and miss out on the drinks. But going hungry is a hell of a lot better than being a part of that bedlam down at the banquet hall. Yes! Perhaps that is the option that’s going to get us the furthest ahead. We’d rather be spiritual than religious anyway – the truly spiritual thing being to disassociate ourselves from the hypocrites altogether. Ugh. Who wants to put up with those people?

I had a seminary professor who said that whenever Jesus is around everyone gets caught up in the net, hoist by their own petard. Whenever Jesus catches up with us, we’re sure to be caught in the act of pursuing our own self-interest – and yes, just as often as not under the pious guise of humility. (This is, of course, what gets Jesus into so much trouble – he’s always revealing our blindness to our own self-serving motives and our lame self-justifying ways. What a buzz-kill. Come on Jesus. Whatever happened to positive thinking?)

But back to the party. While Jesus is wryly watching us dinner-guests tripping over one another as we all try to make ourselves look good, he appears to be giving some directives to the host of this little tragicomedy. “When you throw a party – don’t invite your friends and family or people who can repay you by returning the invitation. When you give a banquet, invite the lame and the blind who aren’t going to be able to do a thing for you. And then you will be truly blessed.” Not gonna happen, though. Can’t have all the trashy types and riff-raff traipsing through the banquet hall, scuffing up the paint and plugging the toilets. And even if, on an ice-cold day in hell, the religious leader did invite to his banquet those who cannot repay him – it’s a sure bet that it would only be out of self-interest. “Hey – we do this good work and people will know that we really do care. We’ll be met with nods of approval, a grant or two from church-wide, and maybe even a feature article in the local daily rag. And it’s what Jesus wants us to do. See how good we are at responding to the love of Jesus! And don’t you just love my WWJD, What Would Jesus Do? bracelet! Ah, the blessings we’ll earn.” Which is what leads Martin Luther to grumble characteristically that the stench of vile refuse clings to all our good works – that is to say, self-interest is never far removed from anything that we ever say and do.

No – there is no earthly host that’s going to throw a banquet and not expect something out of it. However, the invitation-list etiquette we hear from Jesus is most assuredly not about whom we decide to invite to our banquet. It is, rather, about whom Jesus is forever inviting to the Lord’s table – the poor and unsavory of every sort, the totally lame ones, those blind to their own holier-than-thou attitudes who are forever causing a ruckus at the foot of the table trying to show the whole world who’s the very humblest of all. No, it’s Jesus, very God from very God, who is the odd, eccentric host who hasn’t a clue how to put together a proper guest list to save His own life. It is Jesus who is thrilled to throw a party for those who will never know which fork or spoon or knife or plate to use how or when – thrilled to throw a party for those even whose only idea of repayment will take place not in some banquet hall, but upon a hill, atop a dung-heap, outside the city walls, from noon to three, on a Friday some will call Good. And it is Jesus, the only perfect host who will be blessed – early, on a third day, at the resurrection of the only one who is truly righteous.

And what is to become of us as we continue our mad scramble to the bottom in order to get to the top? Jesus says, “Come to my party! And look!! I’ve rearranged the banquet hall a bit. There is no head table. There is only one table. And to that table all are called – and, yes, the lame shall enter first – that is to say all of you and all at once – and there will be no first in line, no last in line – no higher place, no lower place – only one equal and eternal circle without beginning or end or end or beginning. Clever aren’t I?”

What then of our good works? God gives them back to us as a gift – they’re not our response to God. God doesn’t need a damned one of them. And we don’t do them so people know we care – because if we do then they’re for us ourselves. Nor do we do them to convert anyone to anything. Luther teaches us, rightly so, that our good works are disinterested, with no motives whatsoever other than they be for the sake of the neighbor alone, for the good of the neighbor alone. Period. End of discussion.

And so it is that we come to the table, hands empty, begging, groveling even, with nothing at all to offer in return – nothing except our blind, lame, self-righteous, and self-justifying selves. So, at the invitation of Jesus, no – at the command of Jesus – do come. All are welcome to the table; Jesus positively loves dining with hypocrites.  Keep in mind, however, no one gets to go home from this party . . . unchanged.