Today Jesus tells the first of two banquet parables to the Pharisees with whom he is eating. After Jesus heals a man, he notices how the Pharisees chose to position themselves in places of honor for the meal. Jesus’s instruction to the Pharisees then, and to us today, seems simple. When you show up to a party, seat yourself in the lowest place so that if you are sitting in the wrong place, you will be moved to a better place to sit, as opposed to being moved into a worse seat. That advice makes a lot of sense!
I remember my first baseball game at Shea Stadium; we had upper deck seats. At Shea, because the stadium was so massive, that meant you might get hit in the head by a plane landing at LaGuardia airport! Anyway, we had upper deck seats, I was a 6-year-old, and walking out of the tunnel and seeing the field for the first time, was the most magical experience of my young life. I remember seeing the bat hit the ball, seeing amazing athletes run down fly balls. The best part was my childhood hero Gary Carter hit a home run that night, and against the Dodgers, it was terrific. I went home that evening, the happiest little boy in the world.
A few years later I was fortunate enough to get seats right next to the New York Mets’ dugout. I remember seeing how big the players were, hearing the bat hit the ball, and the loud pop of the mitt as the pitcher threw his fastball by a batter. The experience of sitting at field level was far superior to sitting in the upper deck. However, because it was years later, it did not diminish how enjoyable my experience was the first time I saw a game live. Can you imagine if, at my first game, we watched the first inning sitting on field-level, and then an usher showed up and told us we were in the wrong seats and moved us to the last row of the upper deck in right field? Sitting in the upper deck was so magical that first game. However, if my first experience was field-level seats, those same upper deck seats would have felt like a disappointment.
Setting our expectations too high, or perhaps better stated, thinking too highly of ourselves, and too little of others is a recipe for disaster. Some have suggested this parable is about shame and honor. That this parable has incorporated some crucial ancient wisdom, that is good advice for all sorts of social situations. For them, this is a parable that teaches us how to be cautiously humble. Others have suggested that this is a parable about the treatment of the poor, which makes a lot of sense, especially because Jesus instructs those he is dining with to invite the poor, who cannot repay their hospitality, to feasts they host.
If what you take away from this parable, is that you should be careful not to place yourself in a seat of honor lest you be moved and disappointed, that is good. If you take from hearing this parable that you should be more generous to the poor, and help those who cannot repay you, that too is good. However, if that is all you take away today, you are not getting the whole picture.
Remember, Jesus uses parables to convict his listeners. The parable we heard today is followed up by the parable of the great banquet which puts an exclamation point on the parable of the wedding feast we just heard. Jesus in this parable and the one following is describing himself. Jesus is about to hold a great banquet, the banquet of the lamb, the banquet of the Messiah. Jesus is about, in the land given by God to his chosen people, to demonstrate most profoundly radical hospitality. He will give up himself so that we all might have access to reconciliation with God. Not just to those who God has been in a covenant. Not only the priests, prophets, and holy men and women, but to all.
To the sinners, the tax collectors, the prisoners, the lame, the sick, and the Gentile, Jesus invites all of us to his banquet, and not one of us can repay him. Not one of us is eligible to sit at his right hand. Not one of us is worthy of what we receive through his body and blood. Yet here we are with field-level seats to worship him, and when he comes again, he promises all of us field-level seats to be in his glory. At that time there will be no usher to move us to the back row, because we don’t fit into the right category, or because we have come late to the party. In the kingdom of God, all of us will be in an equal relationship with God through Jesus. Jesus’s direct message to those who he is speaking to is this: you are all still invited, and continually invited, but don’t be discouraged if you see the least among you, or those you deem unworthy entering the kingdom first. Not because they have earned it, or deserve it more, but because they trusted Jesus as a young child trusts his or her parents.
Today we heard a parable which declared the magnitude of Jesus’s mercy. The magnitude of his love. And the magnitude of his promises to all of us. We are all invited to Jesus’s banquet, and he invites us without pretense, and only expecting in return our love, and our commitment to make Jesus Christ known, hallowed, and adored, to the ends of the earth, and from ages to ages.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Christian M. Wood
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
13th Sunday after Pentecost
1 September 2019