After last week’s story about Jesus breaking the rules and healing on the sabbath, this passage feels like a bit of whip-lash. If the synopsis of last week’s teaching from Jesus was “break all the rules,” this week’s seems to be “how to game the system.” Last week, Jesus was a rebel for justice, this week he’s a shrewd Miss Manners, here’s how to use etiquette to win friends and influence people.
The section the lectionary gives us is a bit jumpy, because verses two to six are almost the exact same story we heard last week, about Jesus healing on the sabbath to the annoyance of the religious leaders. But in this healing there are a couple of key differences that are worth pointing out before we get into this morning’s text.
Like last week, once again Jesus was in the company of Pharisees on the sabbath, and once again a person in need of healing, this time a man with dropsy, was there also. Last week, with the woman who was crippled Jesus called her over and healed her immediately, and the Pharisees were irate. But this week, Jesus seemed to have wised up a bit. Instead of healing the man, he first turned to the religious leaders and asked, “so what do you think, should I heal this guy on the sabbath?” Which is a super shrewd question. There is a law against working on the sabbath, we know that from last week. But there is also a law about failing to help a neighbor in need. So whatever the Pharisees said, they would be breaking a law. If they said, yes, heal on the sabbath, then they were hypocrites and law breakers, and if they said no, don’t heal on the sabbath, they were cruel and heartless and law-breakers. It is a lose-lose for the Pharisees. So they just stayed silent. Jesus healed the man, and then chided the Pharisees for their hypocrisy anyway.
So Jesus already had the Pharisees on edge when he launched into these parables about humility and hospitality. At least, Luke called them parables. But they really don’t sound like any of the other parables we’ve heard. Take for example, the parable of the Good Samaritan, the parable of the rich fool, the parable of the Prodigal Son, all of these are stories told in the third person. Even the shorter parables, like the lost sheep and the lost coin we’ll hear in a couple weeks, are stories about someone else. But here, Jesus said, “when you are invited,” “when you give a luncheon.” These don’t sound like parables, they sound like advice.
And shrewd advice at that, at least the first one. When you are invited, do not sit at the place of honor. Instead, sit at the lowest place, because then you will be moved to a higher place, and will be honored for your humility. I don’t know about you, but it sounds like fishing for compliments to me. It’s like doing something nice for someone, and then making a big deal about how “it wasn’t that big of a deal,” so they are forced to thank you again for whatever nice thing you did. Yeah, you might get recognition, but you’re also “that guy.” And then the second piece of advice seems really tricky. Don’t invite your friends to your parties, invite the people who can’t pay you back, so that your reward will be at the resurrection of the righteous. The Bible conversation groups, and I’m with them, had a lot of problems with this piece of Jesus’ advice. First off, if you are inviting the poor, the crippled, the lame, etc., so that God will reward you, isn’t that works righteousness? Isn’t that doing something to earn God’s pleasure, really not a thing we believe in as Lutherans? And second, and here’s a great point that gets really confusing, if we are inviting the poor, the crippled, the lame, to our dinner parties so that God will be pleased with us, aren’t we still othering them? Aren’t we still seeing them as less than us? How do we do that Jesus?! How do we invite those who cannot pay us back while simultaneously not treating them as inferior or doing it just to earn God’s favor? If this is advice, I’m not sure I understand it.
So, what if it’s not advice? What if, like Luke said, it is a parable? Remember what parables are, short tales that illustrate a universal truth. Jesus’ parables usually communicate truths on various levels, a surface level about how we should live now, and a deeper description of the nature of the kingdom of God. For example, the Good Samaritan is a story urging us to care for everyone as our neighbor, and a deeper truth about God who comes to us on the side of the road and cares for us.
So if these sayings are not advice but parables, what if the “you” Jesus is talking about is not us, but God. What if what Jesus is saying is that when God throws a banquet, God does not invite the people who can pay God back for God’s generosity. Because who could possibly pay God back for all that God has done. No, when God throws a banquet, God invites everyone, the poor, the lame, the crippled, the blind. And I would guess again, if this is a parable, that we’re not only talking about physical lameness, poverty, blindness, etc. Physical ailments certainly, but also people who are poor in relationships, who are made lame by addiction, who are blind to systems of injustice, who are crippled by sin. So, you know, all of us. One of the great truths I learned in my time working for a homeless shelter that hosted AA meetings is that we are all in recovery from something, only some of us are lucky enough to realize it.
So if Luke is right, and these are parables, then maybe what Jesus was saying to the crowd and to us is, you’re already invited to the banquet. You don’t need to play this complicated game of sitting in certain places, and wrangling for attention, and trying to earn the best place at the table, because you’re already on the guest list, your seat is already reserved.
You’re already invited to the banquet. You don’t need to worry about status or dress codes or making sure you’re with the right crowd, because you are already invited to the banquet. And guess what else, not only are you already invited to the banquet, but you already have a seat, the best seat, because God is the sort of guest who always takes the lowest seat at the table to make sure others are served. Not out of some sort of show of humility, because God wants us to tell God how great God is all the time, and raise God up to the highest seat. No, God takes the lowest seat, because God knows that humility is not self-deprecation, it is honesty. God doesn’t need the false humility of self-deprecation, because God knows God’s own majesty, and God wants others to know just how fondly God thinks of them. God wants others to have the experience of being honored. God wants us, God’s own good creation to know that we are beloved, and God loves us.
I think this is a parable, and this is how it should be interpreted, because this is parable whose truth we experience every Sunday. Every Sunday we gather, on the sabbath, no less, for a meal. God is the host and we are the guests. God invites us to this meal, even though there is nothing we have done to earn it, no way we can every repay God for the invitation. So we come, the invited crippled, lame, poor, and blind, to the table God has set for us. At the table, we do not jockey for position, because there is no place more honorable than another. Every seat is the place of honor; every seat is the best seat. Every seat is the seat God has left, taking a lower seat in order to raise us up.
And because we experience this deeper level of the parable. Because we experience every Sunday the truth illustrated of God the host inviting the unworthy to the feast, God the guest giving the place of honor to us, because we experience that to be true, then we can live the surface level meaning of this parable. We can be the guests, giving the place of honor to others. Not to raise ourselves up in some show of false humility, because we do not need false humility when we know just how well God thinks of us, but to raise them up, to help them see how much God loves them. We can be the hosts, inviting those who will never pay us back, to the banquet. Not to earn God’s good graces for how great we are, but because we are so confident in the love God feels for us that there is nothing we can do but spread that love out in return.
So come to the table where God is the host, come to the table where God takes the lower seat so that we might be filled. Come to the table of grace. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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