The Downtown Presbyterian Church

Sermons

Opening Really Wide

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Rev. Kenneth M. Locke

August 29, 2004

Our lectionary this morning has given us two brief exhortations, two pieces of good advice. The first is for guests. When you’re invited to someone’s house don’t do that. Do this. And when you do, good things will follow. The second advice is for hosts. When you throw a party don’t do that. Do this. And when you do, good things will follow.

The question for us, of course, after we’ve admired the parallel construction in the two passages, is what to do with this advice. How do we follow it? How do we ingest these pieces into our lives and live them? What do they mean for you and me today?

Reading them I’m reminded of the scene in “Hamlet” where Laerties is heading off to school and his father Polonius gives him some advice. Give every man thy ear but few thy tongue. Apparel oft proclaims the man. Neither a borrower nor a lender be. We all know that passage.

It’s good advice and also well written, but it’s also extremely cynical. The old man is laying down for his son rules for getting along in polite society. If you want to be invited to all the best homes this is what you do.

I suppose we could read Jesus’ advice in the same way but Jesus is never very concerned about getting along in polite society. Anyone who goes to a dinner party and begins by criticizing both the guests and the host obviously doesn’t really give a rip about the status quo.

So we can’t imagine Jesus is giving us cynical advice on fitting in at the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus is not a divine Miss Manners.

Another way of looking at this text is from a magical standpoint. Eye of newt, tongue of toad, sit in the lowest seat and abra-cadabra: God will give you the best! Invite the poor and powerless to your Easter dinner, give $20 to the Salvation Army every Christmas, and God will have to give you a seat at the heavenly banquet.

The problem with this kind of magical legalism is we don’t see Jesus practicing it. Jesus is never telling God what to do, he’s never reciting magic prayers to make God do something. In fact, the one time he really would like to tell God what to do he ends up saying “Father, take this cup from me. But not my will but thine be done.”

No, we can’t read this passage as a cynical approach to heavenly manners. Nor is it a magical, manipulative incantation to make sure we always sit in the best seat and always get invited to God’s great feast.

So what do we do with this passage? Should we just do what it says and not worry about it? “The Bible says it, I do it, that settles it.” A lot of people take that surface approach to Scripture. But I’m not seeing Jesus being satisfied with that, either.

Perhaps we should look at it this way. What do we see Jesus doing in the Gospels? We see Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, doing slave’s work. We see Jesus touching women and lepers and insane people – people no serious, God-fearing teacher would touch. We see Jesus naturally treating the powerless as equal brothers and sisters.

We also see Jesus taking on not only the physical pain of death but willingly dying naked on a cross, willingly putting himself where only the lowest of the low could ever go. We see Jesus making an offering of himself, and with his body and blood hosting a banquet none of us can ever repay.

When we look at this passage through the lens of Jesus’ living, somehow being humble and inviting the powerless to share our kindness doesn’t look cynical or magical and it must go a whole lot deeper than the surface.

Think about it this way. Think about your extended family. Think about where you work or where you used to work. Think about your social set. In every group there is someone whose job is being picked on. There is someone whose job is being made fun of, laughed at, mildly ridiculed. There is someone whose job is not fitting in, being powerless. And every group of any size has someone like this. The person is the token outsider we cling to and don’t really want but know we have to have for the group to be whole. It’s just the way we humans organize ourselves.

Think of Otie from the “Garfield” comic strip. You remember Otie – big dog with a silly grin whose purpose is to be abused by Garfield. If you read the comic “Get Fuzzy” that job goes to Satchel the dog. He’s always being abused by Bucky the cat.

Every group has an Otie. And maybe what Jesus is doing is telling us when we go to a party we should go and sit with Otie not out of kindness and mercy so Otie won’t feel bad, but because we’ve bonded with Otie so much we know being with Otie is our natural place. We should be sharing our lives with Otie, baring our souls to Otie, inviting Otie to feast on our friendship knowing Otie can never pay us back and that’s OK because we don’t expect friends to pay us back. That’s just what friends do.

Maybe what we should be doing is treating Otie the powerless, Otie the misfit, Otie the embarrassment we keep around only because it’s convenient, perhaps we should be treating Otie as Jesus did - as emotional brothers and sisters, sharing his very self with them and being their slave. Perhaps we should treat Otie as Jesus treats us.

For this is how Jesus treats us. We are powerless to repay Jesus’ love. We all embarrass Jesus from time to time. And yet Jesus comes and sits with us and loves us and invites us to his banquet. Jesus bares himself to us. Jesus treats us as he tells the guests and hosts to treat each other.

I’ll grant you this is difficult and very scary. Baring ourselves to people and creating genuine intimacy is tough. Most of us keep our inner-self pretty well hidden even from our closest friends. Even couples who profess to love each other find it is easier to bare their bodies to each other than to bare their souls.

Baring ourselves to each other, baring ourselves to Otie, creating the kind of genuine relationship with the other Jesus has with us, is scary. It means dying to our selves and our concerns and being raised from the dead. Maybe even a couple of times.

But when we do it, we find it’s not just the other person we’re talking to. We’re also talking to Jesus. Sitting in the last place, sitting with the least, we find ourselves sitting with Jesus. Inviting Otie to feast on our souls we find ourselves at the feast of those who have risen to new life in Christ.

What Jesus is telling us in this passage is by living our lives so we naturally sit with the least, by living our lives so we naturally associate with the powerless, by living our lives so we naturally invite the outcasts to our feasts, we are feasting on the presence of God, which is always the most important seat in the house.

If we really want to feed on God’s goodness, if we really want to feast on the love of God, then opening ourselves wide to the powerless and the outsider, inviting them into our lives and making their lives our own, is what we must do.

Friends, God wants to fill us with goodness. May we have the courage to open ourselves wide and receive everything God wants to give us. Amen.