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August 29, 2010. MLC, Ocean View, NJ. H. Fege, Pr. Proper 7, 14^th Sun. Pentecost, 22 Sunday in ordinary time.  Hebrews 13.1-8, ff. Lk. 14.1, 7-14.

 

Last week Jesus got in trouble for healing a woman who had been bent over for 18 years.

He was charged with working on the Sabbath.

If you noticed, the Gospel begins with Luke 14.1 and then skips to vs. 7. We are told Jesus had been invited to eat a meal at the home of a Pharisee and again Sabbath is mentioned.

I’ll read you what was left out, starting at Vs.14.2-6, “Just then in front of him...”

Again, Jesus does a “no-no.” This time it is Jesus who asks the question and no one answers him. So he does what God always does. “He took him and healed him and sent him away.” Jesus uses a parable to drive home his point.  If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a cistern, will you not immediately pull it out… even on the Sabbath?

The lesson picks up at 14.7. When he noticed how the guests chose their places of honor he told them a parable… Luke 14.7-14.

And if that was not enough Jesus ends the parable with a little advice to his host…

The next time you decide to have a dinner party, don’t invite your family and friends and rich neighbors, the kind of people who will return the favor. Invite some people who never get invited out, the misfits from the wrong side of town. If you do you will be blessed. They won’t invite you over but you will know what heaven is…

I have heard well-meaning people tell me that of all religions Christianity is tops because it calls us to love one another… the only problem with that statement is that Christianity is not a religion… the word religion comes from religare – a Latin word which means (to bind to tie…as monk is bound by his vows) or as the crippled woman in last week's text is bent over – bound by her disease… and Jesus unbound her and set her free. It was religion that Jesus came to set us free from.

If anything, by the First Century the Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors had too much religion, too many rules that bound them to the point that even compassion was put off to a non-Sabbath day.

Ultimately it was religion that set the limits as to who was “in” and who was “out”.

Many of the Jews in Jesus' day believed that at the end of history there would be a great banquet with only a limited number on the guest list.

There were groups who had definite ideas as to who would be in and who was out… things haven’t changed much….

Around 1947 when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by a Bedouin shepherd, who to pass the time, threw rocks up the cliff where he and his brother were herding sheep. He noticed that some of the rocks where not bouncing off but seemed to disappear. When he investigated, he found caves hidden behind boulders and when he scrambled down into the cave he found clay jars… filled with rolled up scrolls.

He had just discovered some of the oldest manuscripts in the Old Testament… portions of Isaiah – Jeremiah - Hosea and the rules of order for the Essenes who lived there over two thousand years ago.

They also found something else, a sort of guest list to the “great banquet.”

It included the aristocracy of the community, the teachers, and the guy who ran the Synagogue. It also included who was not in… who was out.

“No man smitten in the flesh, or paralyzed in his feet or hands or lame or blind or deaf or dumb or with a blemish... no old and tottery men unable to stand still in the midst of the congregation; none of these shall come.”

There is no room for human frailty… as one of my professors said “no room for men with weak bladders, or children who cannot behave in church.”

This is a stag affair… wise men, men of renown, men of ability. No room for the lame, the blind, the infirm or those who have been scarred by and broken by the journey.

Jesus proposes a different guest list.

“When you give a banquet invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind – those who cannot invite you back… and you will be blessed.”

You will now see examples of a banquet of sorts… the kind of banquet that most of us participate in every week. It is not exactly a banquet of the noble and less noble – although it could be that – I will let pictures tell their own story. (Shown on screen was a weekly food budgets video.)

Jesus does not exclude the beautiful people… he just expands the list. Eugene Peterson, writer, professor, translator, and pastor tells of a time that he was on a tour of the Holy Land.

            We spent the day in Nazareth looking for Jesus. We walked up and down the narrow streets, took in the fragrance of the place. We saw him everywhere: Jesus 8  years old kicking a soccer ball in the streets; the 3 month old Jesus nursing at his mother’s breast; children in the courtyard celebrating the birthday of Jesus at age 6 – sitting on a makeshift throne with a crown on his head with friends dancing around him singing and throwing confetti. It was a good day with details that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. had forgotten to include.

Later in his travel log Peterson tells how one day while on the way to  another town, their guide a Palestinian-born man raised in Nazareth named Sahil (another Jesus?), offered to bring a picnic lunch.

            While they were picnicking on the side of the road a Bedouin with his camel stopped and asked for food. Sahil without hesitation gave him well over half of what we had there on the ground. I asked Sahil why he had given it to him, no questions asked – and so much. "Muhammad commands it. A man is hungry you feed him. And that’s it?"

             "That’s it!" That was our introduction to Middle Eastern hospitality.

Of all the Gospel writers, Luke tells of Jesus eating more meals with more people than any other Gospel. 

The feeding of the 5000… The Last Supper… Sometimes he is the guest and sometime he is the host.  On the Road to Emmaus, you don’t know who the guest is and who the host is.

Jesus tells stories called parables about banquets and food. The friend at midnight, the welcome party for the prodigal son and today’s gospel. There of course are many more.

I get newsletters from a Lutheran group called Word Alone – who are sure they know who is in and who out… the writer of Hebrews reminds us Heb. 13.1ff.

 "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, remember those who are in prison, those who are being tortured…"

Jesus reverses the order of what we expect… He invites the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind and teetery old men and women.

Don’t let the world dictate your values. You want to experience peace and happiness, Shalom… you want to sleep at night even when drones fly overhead?

 Don’t get too enamored with what is “in” and what is “out.”

Don’t be so competitive, too wrapped up in our 401K, and the real estate market.

Peace comes when the host says “friend, come up higher.”  No matter how hard you try you can never earn God’s welcome… you can only receive it as a gift.

Who is this profligate, reckless host that calls us friend? It is none other than Jesus. We do not need to scramble for a place at the table. Our names are on the placemats. As one Hymn has it “All are welcome.”

As one of my professors used to say “God’s banquet is made up of beggars who show the other beggars were the food is.” Amen