Table Talk

 

 

Texts: Proverbs 25:6-7; Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16; Luke 14:1, 7-14

 

If you look at the front of the pewsheet for a moment you will see that our gospel reading this morning appears to be one of those split readings; it is taken from St Luke's gospel, chapter 14, and we begin at verse 1, but then jump to verse 7 and continue from there through to 14.   In other words we are omitting verses 2-6, and, as I have said before, that usually indicates that the Church wants to spare our blushes – there is something too non-P.C. for us to read.

 

But that's not the case this morning.  What we're omitting this morning is another healing-on-the-Sabbath story', which we have already had recently.   The point this morning is not so much that we are omitting verses 2-6, as we are preceding our story from verses 7-14 with this verse 1.  We are reminded, in other words, not so much that what is happening here is happening on the Sabbath, but that it is happening 'in the house of a prominent Pharisee', to which Jesus has gone to eat.   So Jesus is a dinner guest at the home of this prominent Pharisee.

 

There's the first surprise.  The Pharisees are in the vanguard of the increasing opposition to Jesus, yet here he is a guest in the home of one of their prominent members.   St Luke gives us another clue: he was being closely watched.  And that leads immediately to the healing story.   His host has arranged for a man suffering from dropsy to be there in front of him.  So this was in part a set up.

 

But it could also have been in part a genuine desire to hear more of what Jesus had to say.  Perhaps the host had in mind an evening of theological discussion and reflection.   Perhaps he had a few questions for Jesus on the finer points of the Book of Leviticus, for example – always a pleasant way to fill in an evening or two.    And in one sense Jesus didn't disappoint.  Only he concentrated, not on abstruse theoretical points, but on practical issues of right living, starting where they were all at.   He gave them a few pointers as to how guests and hosts should behave.

 

He started with guests.  St Luke says he noticed how the guests picked the places of honour at the table.   So this seems to be a fairly large, formal dinner.  There must have been a top table, where the host himself sat, and the most important guests would be seated near him.   In a culture where personal status was very important, the guests would have wanted to be seen to be seated at, or as near as possible to, that top table.   But who were to be so honoured, and who was to decide?

 

Here's a little anecdote that illustrates what's going on here.  At funeral services it is often the case that we will reserve the front two or three pews for family members; and they sometimes like to gather together and enter the church together after the other guests are seated.   In a previous parish, we had a particularly large funeral, and one regular member of the parish walked up to the reserved seats and sat down.  When I explained to him that he was sitting in a seat reserved for the family, he insisted that he was a very close friend of the family and they would be happy to have him with them.

 

The funeral director decided to check with the family, who took a very different view.  The man was required to leave that seat and find another at the back of the church.   He had a mistaken view of his own importance, and, through his own arrogance, he had exposed it to the whole congregation.  He was, to use the word from today's reading, 'humiliated'.   How much better for him if he had gone to the back and then been asked by the family to join them if they had so wished.

 

In my experience that man was very much an exception to the general rule.  Usually on such occasions, people tend to favour the back pews before the front ones.   Similarly, when we are guests at a dinner party we would usually wait to be told where we are to sit – we would not usually grab the position at the head of the table, or the most comfortable chair, or the one with the best view out over the harbour.  

 

Our cultural norms are different from those being addressed by Jesus in this first part of the teaching.  As with any society, we do have notions of status and rank, of course, but we also have a strong distrust of people pushing themselves forward.  We tend to hang back, and we prefer other people to do the same.   Which reminds me of a lovely little episode in a documentary about the life of Archbishop George Carey.  When he was Archbishop of Canterbury he went to South Africa, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu met him at the airport.   After their greeting, Carey stooped to pick up his luggage, but Tutu beat him too, it.  "No, no, George", he said.   "Let me.  I'm much more humble than you!"

 

Generally speaking, then, we don't have too much trouble with the first part of Jesus' teaching.  In the Church, on our formal occasions, we do trip over it a bit.   If you watch the formal procession in the cathedral, you will see it is in reverse order, with the Bishop bringing up the rear, and the most junior of deacons leading the clergy.   Presumably the idea is to suggest that the Bishop is servant of all, least of all, last of all, etc.  All very humbling and biblical.

 

Of course, it would work better if he didn't have by far the prettiest gear on at the time; and if the important people weren't given Communion before the masses.   But I'd better stop there and turn to the second part of Jesus' teaching this morning.  And here, interestingly, the roles are reversed.   Here we as individual Christians must feel challenged by this teaching, while the Church can claim to comply a little better.

 

Now Jesus changes from commenting on the behaviour of guests to commenting on the behaviour of hosts, and he says some astonishing things.    He says we should not invite our family, friends and neighbours, because they will in turn invite us to their dinner parties, and it becomes a sort of self-perpetuating cycle of hospitality with the same people included and, by implication, the same people excluded.

 

Instead, he says, we should invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.  In other words, those who cannot return the compliment.   Those who are complete strangers.  I'm reminded of one of the prayers suggested for use in a wedding service: Help them to be honest and patient with each other, and to welcome both friends and strangers into their home.   I particularly remember that prayer because it was included in a form of service I gave to a couple to look through.  Up until this point, the husband to be had been on his very best behaviour, but when he saw this he couldn't contain himself any longer:   "Who the Blankety-blank-blank does that?" was his question.

Who indeed?  And the answer is, the Church does that, doesn't it?  One obvious example is the community Christmas Day lunch, usually (although perhaps not always) run by local churches or city missions.  They are very good examples of this teaching in action.   Anybody is welcome to come along and share in such a meal.

 

And, of course, whenever we gather for worship we are open to everyone.  You don't need a ticket or an invitation to come in here and join in the meal of the Church.    Nor do you need to be one of those important people in the formal procession – though it can help if you are in a hurry!