TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH 12TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST PASTOR NICK DROGE SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

“WHERE DO I SIT?” LUKE 14:1, 7-14

Last Sunday, my wife’s family — her mom, her dad, her step-sister and brother-in-law from Bakersfield; my wife’s kids and her grandkids gathered for dinner at my in-laws’ to celebrate my wife’s birthday. Her birthday was actually this past Wednesday, but of course it’s much more practical to gather on a weekend rather than to gather in the middle of the week.

Her oldest son flew in from Utah as a surprise, and it was; it was a really pleasant surprise, a surprise that kept on giving; because she got up at 4:00 Monday morning to take him back to the airport.

You might be thinking I should have been a good guy. I should have offered to get up in the middle of the night Monday morning and take him to the airport. Yeah, well I’m not a good guy.

Her son’s been living in Texas for the past two years and she doesn’t get to see him that often. So that drive to the airport at 4am Monday gave them an opportunity to spend some alone time together. I suppose I could have been a good guy and offered to go along to the airport with them so she wouldn’t have to drive home alone. But remember, I’m not a good guy.

Back to that dinner at my in-laws last Sunday. My wife’s parents are both in their early eighties and they moved to Fresno from Coarsegold almost two years ago, downsizing their home considerably. A consequence of that downsizing is they no longer have room for a table that seats 12. And whenever I find myself at a dinner like that, I wonder, where should I sit? I didn’t have to this time, because I was told.

My wife, her kids and her grandkids were around the dining area table and the rest of us were at the kitchen table. My wife was with all her kids, and they had a good time eating and visiting. And the rest of us eating in the kitchen, well, my in-laws talked about their ailments, then I talked about my ailments and my brother in-law and his wife talked about their ailments. We were, you know, having a good time gathered around that table.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus, seems to love gatherings around meals; at a table. In our story, Jesus is at a banquet where he tells a “parable” about the meal setting, and if you read further in chapter 14, he follows it immediately with another story about another banquet, another table.

The table is not only where we say grace before we eat; it’s also a place to extend grace; to share grace with others. Tables in the ancient world were places where

philosophers and teachers could share their wisdom; they were also a place where community’s identity is both shared and revealed. There’s a Near Eastern proverb declares, “I saw them eating and I knew who they were.”

The company we keep around the table when we eat says a lot about both who we are, and how go about being who we are. And that was especially important in the Middle East when Jesus lived. Status, honor, respect and reputation could all be seen in the place the host offered you at table.

In Luke’s Gospel, the dining table is a very important, very serious place. Jesus institutes communion there. The two disciples Jesus meets on the road to Emmaus recognize the risen Christ in the breaking of the bread.

In the very beginning of the book of Acts Jesus promises the Holy Spirit to the disciples while eating with them. The dining table is taken so seriously in the first century Jesus gets into trouble because with the Pharisees because of his eating companions. He was known as a “friend of tax collectors and sinners,” people with low reputation, because he ate with them. He was marked as suspect.

Inviting others to a table can be an expression of affluence or status but it can also be an expression of service or an act of acceptance, as equals, creating fellowship through the breaking of bread. Table fellowship meant full acceptance by the host of the guests, so the inclusiveness Jesus exhibited in the company he kept, especially of those socially ostracized, was suspect. Table fellowship practice at that time was an expression of who’s in and who’s out; it was a reflection of the culture. So the practice around the table was as much about shame and honor; about status, as it was about food. It was about quid pro quo, this for that.

If you invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors to your table, Jesus says, they can pay your back by inviting you to theirs — quid pro quo. But if you invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, you will be blessed because they have no way to repay you. They have no table to invite you to.

In this parable we hear Jesus tell today, he calls out that culture, and our culture too, for looking at our relationships as transactions, looking at them as “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” affiliations in which we count both the cost and the reward: looking to balance the books with others.

The problem with that is, well, there are two problems with that — first we can too easily exclude others if we think they are of no value to us, and second, we can also begin to view our relationship with God as a quid pro quo, you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours .

So in this parable, Jesus who came to teach us about the Kingdom of God among other things, is using this parable to declare that quid pro quo thinking is not how the kingdom of God works. And here’s a reason why.

How do you measure or calculate repayment of love, of mercy? If we begin to think we can, then we have to forget that our beliefs about faith and discipleship are based in the claims about who we think God is. In other words, if we insist that our faith, our salvation, is dependent upon an equal rate of exchange between God and us, then what does that say about the kind of God we believe in? And if God is balancing our books, what happens if we don’t measure up? Also what makes us think we can quantify, that we can place a value on, the grace of God?

There’s another danger too in thinking our relationship with God is quid pro quo, we will then start thinking our ministry also, is quid pro quo. No! Ministry is about life – a thriving, joyful life, for our congregation, for our neighbors, for me and for each one of you. Because the very essence of God is life, is creation – God has the power and authority to give and grant life. What God does can’t be justified using the same measures our culture uses to justify its activities.

We ask questions in our daily lives to gauge the value of our ventures, to keep score. Are we getting a good return on our investments, are we getting the biggest bang for our buck? But ministry is not about keeping score, Ministry is about giving life, it’s about growing the Kingdom of God.

When Jesus went to that dinner and looked at the table; he noticed people choosing the places of honor, and what he saw was life diminishing, not life giving — honor, respect, disgrace and humiliation were the scorecards in use, not life, mercy, grace and love.

The table is a place where food is eaten — food, which itself is life giving, and food can add joy to our life, to everyone’s life. But in that honor and shame society of the first century, the table was a place where life was sustained for some, but diminished for others, diminished for the likes of the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, those who were left out; those who were unable to compete in a quid pro quo culture.

And the truth is, in the 21st century, we too live in a quid pro quo culture. A “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch your back” culture where those who can’t compete are left out. Their lives are diminished.

There is so much in our lives that is life diminishing, life taking. Just yesterday in Texas there was another mass killing — at least 5 dead. So far this year, through eight months, there have been 25 mass killings, just over 3 per month. That’s approaching one per week.

But those aren’t the only things diminishing and taking life — there’s addiction, poverty, disease, loneliness, bullying, hatred, fear, food insecurity and so very, very many more. There is quite the scorecard for things diminishing, taking away life.

Jesus calls us to do better, Jesus calls us to do things that are life giving not life diminishing. He calls us to power our ministry not with the quid pro quo mindset we find in our culture, but with the love God has placed in our hearts.

Jesus calls us to feed where our culture produces hunger, to clothe where our culture makes naked, to heal wherever we find the sick, to visit those who are lonely, to love where our culture encourages us to hate, to include those our culture casts out.

Jesus challenges us to connect with those we want to keep at arm’s distance; to smile when our urge is to scowl. He calls us to extend a life-giving hand when our culture diminishes life for someone; to show grace and mercy when the world encourages tit for tat, quid pro quo behavior.

Jesus calls us, he challenges us to live out the Kingdom of God here and now, to take the lowest place at the table and look closely for opportunities to find joy in life.

Last Monday morning, when my wife took her son to the airport in the dead of night, that was a life giving experience for both of them. Mother and son, spending time together, connected by love and finding joy in the moment.

And for me, it was sleep giving, I was not in that car, I was in bed, because remember, I’m not a nice guy.