HUMBLE EXALTATION

SCRIPTURE READING: Luke 14:1, 7-14

Let us pray. Gracious Host, You invite us to listen for your Word, a word of radical welcome that invites all to come to the table. Open our hearts, minds and lives that we may join you in the great fellowship and feast set before us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Social graces. How many of you have been schooled in proper social etiquette? Do any of you even know who Emily Post is and what she has written about appropriate social behavior? Few of us do. Much of what was once upheld as prim and proper has gone by the wayside, as our lifestyle and culture have become more casual in recent times. And some of what was once considered suitable for the occasion or circumstance, we now would find comical.

Listen to these bits of advice garnered from 19^th century books on table manners and social etiquette. “Large dinner napkins should be folded in half after opening and before placing on one’s lap. Unless you are a person of large stature, then open it and cover your entire extended lap.” “At no time should you use your dinner napkin as a handkerchief unless you sneezed all over your hand, then feel free to use your dinner napkin as a handkerchief.” “A gentleman at a social dinner party holds the chair and seats the lady on his right. If the gentleman and the lady are alone, then the gentleman may invite the lady to sit on his lap, but only after placing a large dinner napkin in his lap, folded in half, before seating the lady.” “When introducing yourself, stand at an approximate distance of one arm’s length from an individual, never any closer, lest you be accused of being too familiar with your guest.”

Today, I would venture to say that very few of us have kept abreast of advice given by Emily Post or Miss Manners. Yet, most of us have been raised with a modicum of social graces and have pleasing table manners. At formal affairs we usually wait until everyone is seated and has been served before we begin eating. Most of us know to chew with our mouths closed and refrain from speaking with food in our mouths. We know to use our knife and fork appropriately (although my Canadian friends would beg to differ with me). Of course, we would not dare spit, burp or expel gas at the table. And, usually, we don’t leave a table while other guests are still dining.

It would seem upon first reading of this morning’s gospel lesson that in telling this parable, Jesus is trying to instruct us in proper etiquette, especially on formal occasions, such as banquets or weddings. “Don’t sit at the head table until you are asked, but go and sit where you’ll be least noticed. If you sit at the head table and the host has reserved that seat for someone special, more special, then you’ll definitely be embarrassed when your host comes up to you and says, ‘Excuse me, but would you mind moving. I’ve saved this seat for someone else.’” You’ll especially be humiliated if your host asks you to move after others have already been seated, and you notice that the last available seat is that chair way over on the other side of the room in the corner.

However, when you come to the banquet and choose to sit in the corner seat, you are hardly recognized. Then if your host, upon seeing you, invites you up in front of everyone to come sit at the head table, what an honor that would be!

I believe that the author of Luke wants us to learn something more here from Jesus’ teachings than appropriate banquet behavior. I believe Luke wants us to learn something about kingdom behavior – how we are to live and act in the world as it is in God’s realm. I believe Jesus used this parable to teach us about humility, exaltation and honor.

Jesus is invited to dine at the house of one of the Pharisees. All eyes were upon him, they were watching him – watching to see how he would behave; watching to see what he would say. “Jesus, in turn, was watching them, to see whether any grace and humility pierced the veil of their protocols.” (Tom Ehrich) As guests filed in for this dinner, this Sabbath banquet, Jesus noticed how people chose seats, how some rushed to be seated at the best seats in the house, while others were left to choose the least favorable places. He also noticed who was invited to the banquet and who was left out. In noticing, Jesus then tells them the parable, “a story which is meant to call the hearers to judgment.” (Aida Besançon Spencer)

The Pharisees exercised great power and influence in the synagogues. But they were really nerdy teachers who thought themselves better, set apart and a class above, from those they were called to serve. Needless to say, humility and grace were not their strong suits. Thus, Jesus’ parable must have stung, especially when he chides them with “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” And then, to add insult to injury, he criticized the guest list – friends, relatives, and social acquaintances – essentially telling them that they were only reaching out to those who can repay them in some way. (Sounds like Washington lobbyists could also have scored an invitation!) Such banquets were an opportunity to be appreciated and recognized.

All of us have a need to be recognized and appreciated. None of us could live without being loved. That’s been proven over and over again by social scientists and mental health professionals. Case studies show that for babies to not only survive, but thrive, they need recognition, attention, appreciation. They need to be loved in order to grow up as strong, healthy, vibrant individuals. Those that don’t receive love often die at a very early age. We all need to be recognized and appreciated and loved.

However, the problem is when that need becomes the central focus and motivation of our lives – when we live, move and breathe just for the recognition itself. We all need to know we are special, but when we begin to believe that we are more special than the next person, or live our lives so that we can shine head and toe above the person next to us, then we’ve missed the mark indeed.

Sometimes I think this behavior has infected us more than we know, as individuals and as community. Isn’t the need for recognition and appreciation often what drives us to excel, excel often at the expense of others? Isn’t that why many of us work to excess? Isn’t that why many of us live excessively – in excess of what we really need? And doesn’t this excessive lifestyle stress our health, and the well-being of our families?

And what about the number of problems we face in this country that have been caused by greed and other excessive behaviors? Personal spending and outrageous credit card debt is forcing thousands into declaring bankruptcy. Our national debt is so out of sight that it will plague generations to come. Socially, the gap between the have’s and have not’s widens each year, forcing more and more to live in inescapable poverty, while others enjoy excessive lifestyles oblivious to the cries of their brothers and sisters in need. Educationally, there is increasing demand in the marketplace for more advanced degrees while many more children is this country do not have the teachers and resources they need to achieve a basic level of education – some even graduating without learning how to read or how to do basic math to balance a checkbook. Lack of living wage jobs, affordable housing, and affordable health care continues to add to social disease and unrest, adding to the increased violence and crime in our communities.

Sometimes I wonder whether what propels our need for excessive need for recognition and appreciation and excess living is real fear that we don’t believe ourselves worthy of God’s love and grace; that in the end we will be excluded from God’s banquet table. Therefore, we spend our entire lives working to prove we are worthy and thereby entitled. A friend of mine once said, “The greatest sin of humanity is not something we’ve done or failed to do. It is believing that we are separated from God.”

Think about it for a minute. If you know who you are, that is to say, if you know in your heart that you are God’s beloved, then you know that “it is God’s love, not worldly attainments, that confer value and honor worth seeking.” (Tom Ehrich). Or, as our friend Bill Coffin said, “God’s love doesn’t seek value, it creates value. It is not because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved that we have value. Our value is a gift, not an achievement.”

Furthermore, we need to know it is God who is our host at the banquet. Because God loves us, we will always have a seat at God’s banquet table, where we will be fed with all that we need.

To know we are loved and beloved by God enables us to live humble lives. In gratitude we are empowered to humbly serve God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. In knowing who we are as God’s beloved, made in God’s image and likeness, we are already exalted. Thus, we are able to live as God’s humble people – embracing each person for who they are authentically created to be, not social rejects, but God’s beloved. In gratitude we can honor each one by recognizing and appreciating their unique gifts, by inviting them to our tables and making them feel welcome, and by opening ourselves to share abundantly of our resources.

We are humbly exalted by a loving God. We are invited to join together at table where we are invited to share in the banquet of God’s grace. Let us now come to Christ’s table. Let us pray.

Dear Lord, Great Host of all of humankind,

We give you thanks that you are mindful of all of us, and all of creation – that you count each one as special and significant in your realm. You invite all of us to join you at your banquet table, to be fed by your Spirit. We give you thanks that because of Jesus’ life and leadership, we in this human realm are made more mindful of one another. Jesus invites us to be especially mindful of those in our community who are different from us, those who are most in need of being welcomed into fellowship and fed with a banquet of your love and grace, nourished abundantly in body, mind and spirit. Help us to reach out and be your Body as together we join in fellowship and communion with you around this table. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Sermon preached by Reverend Jane B. Anderson at First Congregational United Church of Christ, Appleton, Wisconsin on September 2, 2007.