St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Brunswick, Maine

Jesus is Invited to Dine

The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Ecclesiasticus 10:12–18, Hebrews 13:1–8,
Luke 14:1,7–14, Psalm 112

A dinner is at the heart of today’s gospel. Jesus is invited to dine at the home of one of the leading citizens of the town. What is a dinner, that occasion we often take for granted at the end of the day? It’s more than food, although how the food is prepared and presented is important. Dinner is also companionship. It is recollection—giving thanks, remembering, letting go; give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses, and those who trespass against us.

Certain dinners, such as the one in today’s gospel dinner, are ceremonial occasions. The Pharisee’s dinner was, we might say, coat and tie, even black tie, celebrating the fellowship and honor of those gathered, with proper food and dress, prayers for God and gifts for the poor. Our Lord’s Supper in the upper room was such a gathering. Jesus gave the supper a new purpose, but the form of the dinner was the same: ceremonial offerings and prayers. Despite the predominance of Leonardo da Vinci’s depiction of apostles sitting at table, they had a ritual way of sitting on mats at a low table. They reclined on one arm, with feet folded behind. Who sat where was important.

In those days, such dinners were all male. Once, Jesus was having dinner at the house of one of the Pharisees; and a woman entered with an alabaster jar of expensive lotion. She approached him from behind and poured the oils on his feet. She bathed Jesus’ feet, and rubbed them with her hair. The Pharisees were taken aback that Jesus did not banish her. He turned to her and accepted her. He healed her grief by including her.

On that occasion Jesus spoke by action, by body language we might say. In today’s gospel, Jesus explicitly addresses who is included at the table—who sits where and, even more, who is at the table in the first place and who isn’t, who is included and excluded.

He gives a warning. Don’t plunk yourself into the seat of honor. You’ll be embarrassed if you’re bumped! Let someone else do the choosing. It’s not that we have to be deliberately self-abasing. Perhaps you’ve heard of the man who prayed to be the most humble person in town. He prayed and prayed to be humble, until he was proud of his humility; and then started 1 again to be humble, until he was proud—and so on, in an endless cycle of self-enclosure. Be outgoing, accept your starting place and work from there.

Of more importance than place at table is who is at the table in the first place—who’s invited and who isn’t. Who dines with God? Who’s included? For whom is the Lord’s table set? The Pharisees were part of a tradition that to be with God is to be pure and holy. We all have purity regulations in what we do when and where, who’s in and who’s out. We don’t do that. We don’t eat, or drink, or dress that way. We, with our clean white walls, our purple mountain majesty, are set apart.

Jesus challenged the politics of purity with the life of compassion. “When you give a feast,” he said, “invite the maimed and lame, the least, the last, and the left out; and—here is the surprise—you will be blessed.” To begin with, you won’t have to go to all those stiff, social obligation dinners. You won’t always have to put your strong foot forward—your strong competent, independent foot forward. You can become a whole person, standing on two feet, including the weaker one left behind. Open your doors, set your table for the lame, and your wounded self will find a home and be healed.

Jesus lived the life of compassion. Purity alone—“be holy as God is holy”—is oppressive both to others and ourselves. Yes, we need rules and regulations in order to have compassion. We need zoning codes—what belongs where and when; in the bedroom, the bathroom, and the kitchen; in the industrial zone and residential zone.

We have in our parish a men’s group and a women’s group because there are some issues men find easier to discuss among themselves, and the same is true for women. The key is how we exercise our purity. Are our rules and regulations ends in themselves, or on the way to greater compassion? Is the men’s group better, brighter, more deserving than the women’s group? We’ve come a long way in answering that question in the last fifty years. We make distinctions, and set apart, not as an end in itself, but in order to allow for greater compassion, on the way to full communion.

Here is an issue in our town that follows upon today’s gospel. Brunswick churches instituted the Midcoast Hunger Prevention Program, now serving over a hundred meals daily, and the Tedford Shelter, which houses people with no home for up to three months. What happens when someone emerges from the Tedford Shelter? It’s very hard to stay in Brunswick, Topsham, Freeport or Bath with a low income. It’s hard to find 2 low or even moderately priced housing. Habitat for Humanity helps. We need more.

Who sits at our table? Who is invited to shop at our grocery stores? Let’s be outgoing in social policy and remember the gospel always brings events home, to the dinner table. My own mother and father come to mind. My father would expound on social policy—the mix of government, institutional, and personal initiative to create a community; but if someone of a different background walked into the room, he would tighten up. He didn’t know what to do. My mother would say, “Sit down. How’s your family? Where did you get that wonderful coat?” Welcome strangers; and we may be welcoming angels unaware.

The Reverend Daniel Warren
August 29, 2004

May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart, always be acceptable in thy sight, O God, our Strength and our Redeemer.