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Sermon 9/21/08
Radical Hospitality: Invited - Luke 14:12-24
I’ve had a bit of a dilemma this week in preparing my sermon. Usually, you know, I preach from the lectionary – the scriptures scheduled on a three year cycle used by many Christian churches. When I preach from the lectionary, I start with the scripture first, and then from the scriptures, I find a theme. But this fall we’re doing something different – we’re focusing on these fruitful practices of congregations, today talking about Radical Hospitality. And so my order has been changed. I started with the theme, and then chose the scripture. I chose for today this Parable of the Great Banquet. It never appears in the lectionary cycle, so we’d never hear this scripture in worship otherwise. But it seemed to me so perfect for our focus today – Radical Hospitality. This Parable, I thought, is all about inviting, and having the biggest party for the kingdom of God that we can. But here’s where the dilemma comes in: sometimes, most times probably, scripture takes on a life of its own. I can’t make it mean what I want it to mean. The more I read the scripture for this week, the farther away from a focus of Radical Hospitality I seemed to be getting. I just couldn’t squish this passage into the image I’d had of it at first. So what do we do? Because I do want to talk more about what this Radical Hospitality means.
So I think we’ll look at this passage together, and I’ll show you what I mean, where it takes us. First, the context. Jesus is at the home of one of the leaders of the Pharisees for a meal on the Sabbath. When a diseased man presents himself, Jesus heals him, and a debate about healing on the Sabbath ensues. And then Jesus begins to notice how the guests for the meal all try to sit in the places of highest honor. He speaks against their behavior, telling them that the exalted will be humbled, and the humble will be exalted. That’s where our passage for today picks up.
Jesus starts by telling those gathered for the meal that when they’re having a dinner, they shouldn’t invite friends, or relatives, or rich neighbors, because all of those could invite you in return, and you’d be repaid. Instead, Jesus says, when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Then you’ll be blessed in the kingdom of God, because you couldn’t be repaid on earth. In Jewish thought, doing acts of kindness that can’t be repaid still is considered one of the highest mitzvot, or commandments. One of the guests at the meal hears Jesus and seems to catch some understanding. “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God,” he says. And then Jesus responds with the parable. Someone gives a great banquet and invites many people. But when he calls them to come for the big event, they all give their excuses – they have land to inspect, oxen to test, weddings to celebrate. The party-thrower becomes angry, and sends his servant out into the streets, telling him to bring in the crippled, blind, and lame. The slave does so, but there is still room for more. So the master sends him out yet again, sending him farther out of town. He instructs the slave to compel people to come, so that the house is filled. And he concludes with the promise: “I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.”
As I said, I want this parable to fit into the theme of Radical Hospitality. And it seems to, at first, doesn’t it? We’re to invite and invite and invite to God’s banquet table. And if at first we don’t succeed, Jesus reminds us to also invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Surely, we’re not great at that – inviting outside of our comfort zones. But we get the point, right? The trouble is, such an interpretation of this text skips over some important details of the parable we might not notice at first.
Let’s look again. Jesus, in telling the parable, mentions that the slave goes out to call the guests when the banquet is ready. But this isn’t the first time they’re getting the invitation. In Jesus’ day, the invitation would have happened in two parts. “(1) the initial invitation some time ahead [of the event], and (2) the actual summons to the meal when it is ready.” The guests the slave summons would have already been invited and RSVPed ‘yes’ to this banquet some time before. Their excuses now represent a sudden, last minute change in plans. “Not to come to a banquet where one had previously indicated acceptance was a grave breach of social etiquette. It was an insult to the host. [And] in a society where one's social standing was determined by peer approval -who is invited to whose dinners - this was an act of social insult as well. For a whole series of guests to reject the final summons [to the meal] appears to be a conspiracy [for some reason] to discredit the host. "In this instance, the socially elite of the host's community close ranks against him and shame him publicly. Whatever one makes of their excuses, their refusal to join the great dinner is a social strategy the effect of which is the host's defamation." (1)
The excuses the guests give aren’t very sound, either. The tract of land purchased already would have been examined before this time. The oxen would have been tested. The new groom would have known about the wedding when he was first invited and could have refused then. The guests, one after the other, give excuses, and their excuses, coming at the last minute, after they’d already said they were coming, represent a great insult to the host, and a very weak attempt on the part of the guests to cover their own rude, neglectful behavior.
So the master sends the slave out to invite more guests – the same group of ‘unwanted’ community members that Jesus mentions before he begins telling this parable – the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. “Inside the town would be the poor, the beggars, the indigent. But outside the town would be the vagabonds and sojourners, those who were shunned and unwelcome in the towns.” These people would be considered ritually unclean, socially unacceptable. These people, the master invites into his home, and the parable closes with a sentence that certainly has a sense of threat and warning: “I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.”
So you see, this parable isn’t really about how we invite and welcome people at all. It’s more complicated than that. First of all, when we look to find ourselves in this text, in this parable, we have to remember that we aren’t the master in the story. Jesus’ parables aren’t always equations we can work out neatly. But we can be pretty sure that we aren’t the master. So we aren’t the ones choosing who to invite and who not to invite in this parable. If we are instead, then, one of the invitees, which group will we put ourselves in? Are we in the second group? Those usually left out? The poor, and diseased? Maybe some of us have felt this kind of struggle or pain. But for most of us, I suspect, we have to find ourselves in that first group of invitees – the ones who responded, but then had excuses. If God is hosting this party, if God is inviting us to come together, then we’re the ones who talk about committing, but when push comes to shove, have nothing but excuses to give. I can speak at least for myself and tell you that I have plenty of excuses for God. My intentions are great – my plans are great. I know what God asks of me. And I think I will respond to the invitation. But when the time comes , it’s easy to say that now isn’t a good time, that I’m not the right person, that doing that would be too hard, that I just don’t have the energy to start something right now. Probably, if you look for yourself in this story, you’ll find yourself as one of the ones with excuses not to take part in God’s banquet.
See how I’ve wandered away a bit from this idea of Radical Hospitality? Maybe I should have chosen a different scripture passage! But maybe we just need to think about Radical Hospitality differently. I keep thinking of it as something that we do. After all, it is a fruit, a fruitful practice, that we’re trying to cultivate. But I think this passage reminds us of the most fundamental thing we need to know about hospitality: we’re not the ones in charge. We’re not the hosts. We don’t choose who gets invited or not. We can help out, if we respond, instead of making excuses, but it is God who is setting the banquet table. It is God’s role to determine the guest list. It is God’s welcome, God’s hospitality for us, that comes first, and gives us a home.
As we think, then, about being welcoming, and being inviting, and being an open place for people to come, we have to make sure we’re going about things in the right order. Rather than making all our plans, and asking God to bless what we’re doing, we need to be listening instead for God’s plans, God’s direction, and discovering how we can play a role in the great banquet God is hosting. And we must remember that God, as the host, has a plan for this world, and even this congregation, that will go ahead with us or without us. The Kingdom of God won’t stop growing, moving, just because we’ve got a set of excuse about why we aren’t ready yet. We’ve been invited to the banquet, invited into God’s heart, invited into the kingdom. But a lot of invitations have gone out, and the party must go on! We can’t ask God to slow down the work of the kingdom while we decide if it’s worth the risk.
What’s Radical about this Hospitality? Just when we thought we were in control of the guest list, we’re reminded that it is God who is in charge. Just when we were ready to send out invitations, we’re reminded that we’ve been invited, and God is waiting for our response. Do you have excuses to make? Or are you ready to come to the banquet?
Amen.
(1) http://www.jesuswalk.com/lessons/14_12-24.htm