Banquet etiquette – or something more?

Proverbs 25: 6-7    Luke 14: 1, 7-14

I have a confession to make. (don’t get over-excited, it’s not the sort of thing you can use to blackmail someone). Before this week I hadn’t realised that Jesus’ words of advice to a guest at a banquet – don’t assume you should have a top spot and get demoted, but take a humble place so that someone will say ‘come up higher!’ – were based on a little snippet from Proverbs.

“Do not put yourself forward in the king's presence

or stand in the place of the great;

for it is better to be told, "Come up here,"

than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.”

Jesus is giving good practical advice about not thinking too highly of yourself & not being embarrassed as a result.

But since when did the Son of God come to dispense good social advice?

Just last week the lectionary reading from Luke’s gospel told us the story of the woman bent double – a ‘daughter of Abraham’, healed on the Sabbath. If you turn over a few pages in Luke’s gospel you’ll find (in ch 19) the story of Zacchaeus, a ‘son of Abraham’, turned from his crooked life by an encounter from Jesus who says “the son of Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost”.

Jesus does not want to give us better manners, or help us avoid social awkwardness, he wants to seek and save us.

So what does Jesus say here which seeks us and saves us?

Jesus uses the banquet as a metaphor for the kingdom of God – how to live in the broadest sense, how to have God’s priorities as your priorities.

Jesus is at a banquet hosted by the leaders of the Pharisees. Everyone is watching Jesus closely because he has just healed that woman bent double in the Synagogue on the Sabbath, causing the leader of the Synagogue to angrily tell the people to get healed on the other 6 days. Jesus’ rules for the Kingdom of God are a bit different to that leader’s interpretation of the rules of the synagogue – healing is God’s will, whenever it happens and people are more important than rules.

So now Jesus arrives at the house of one of the most important Pharisees.

Immediately (in the part of the chapter the lectionary leaves out) a man with ‘dropsy’ stands before him – what we call oedema or a swelling of the legs caused by fluid retention.

Jesus asks the Pharisees and other teachers of the law who are there ‘Is it right to heal on the Sabbath?’, but none of them can answer, and so Jesus heals the man.

Jesus wants those who are watching him – and that includes us – to know that love and care for people should come before our rules about what’s ‘proper’.

Then, as we heard, Jesus turns his attention to the seating plan at this banquet.

His audience of Pharisees and teachers of the law should know perfectly well what Jesus says next about where to sit – because there it is in Proverbs.

It’s better to be ‘promoted’ (‘come higher!’)  than ‘demoted’ (‘who do you think you are?’).

But Jesus is not just concerned with seating plans at any banquet, he wants to talk about the Kingdom of God.

“If you humble yourself you will be honoured”, says Jesus. In the kingdom of God, honour is given to those who show humility, rather than those who think they are important and deserve a high position.

What is there here for you as you continue to celebrate your 50^th anniversary as a United Church?

Perhaps a reminder about the importance of humility. I know you have achieved many things since you united here, and I know too that relating to 2 different denominations has its frustrations and its tests. But when the ‘other’ way of doing things seems inexplicably strange, remember ‘not to think too highly of yourself’ as Jesus says.

There is a movement which Churches Together in England has been promoting in recent years called ‘receptive ecumenism’. Instead of asking what other traditions need to learn from us, we ask what our tradition needs to learn from them, what we can receive which is of God.

In God’s kingdom, Jesus tells us to be humble – to ask what we still have to learn from others, what things about the church we haven’t grasped yet – even from ‘that funny lot’ – whoever that is for you. You have been united for 50 years, but there is still more to learn about how to be the church.

Jesus teaches about humility, and then he turns to the host of the banquet: “don’t invite all your rich friends to a banquet – invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind.”

Jesus wants to teach the ‘teachers of the law’ about who they should befriend, care for, help. Not rich people who will reward them, but the poor, so that God will reward them.

Jesus takes the opportunity to point out that the crippled, lame and blind should also be invited.

Jesus wants this banquet he is attending to be more like the kingdom of God – where the blind, lame & crippled are not told ‘come back tomorrow if you want your healing, don’t bother us on this holy day’ – but are welcomed, fed, healed, cared for.

This is Good news for any of us who have ever wondered if we are good enough to be welcomed by God and loved by God. Jesus has come to seek and to save the lost, not to turn us away until we are better people, but to welcome us exactly as we are and then offer us healing and wholeness.

This table for communion is like a banquet in God’s kingdom – it is for all, it excludes no-one, it offers a place of welcome and healing for those who feel like the dregs of society and those of us who have just had a bad week.

Come in all humility to receive what Jesus wants to give you – bread and wine as a sign of the coming of God’s kingdom of love, mercy and peace.

Come with your hunger, and be fed.

Come with your brokenness, and be healed.

Come … everyone. Amen.