I just love dinner parties with friends - the bigger the better.  I just get a kick out of the semi confusion that goes on prior to sitting down to the meal - the chance to wander from conversation to conversation talking to people all at once whom I may not get to see for months at a time.  I am just enthralled by the wide range of conversations and topics and points of view that can be experienced all in the same room.   Although I love to eat - especially when it's food I did not cook - the food served at the dinner itself is almost secondary - and I could care less about where I sit - unless of course, I can arrange for a seat right next to dessert - or the mashed potatoes.

            Of course there are other times when having dinner with people is not quite so much fun.  These are business dinner parties.  At these parties, I'm always on my guard - ever watchful for persons whom I have not met who might have interesting information I can use later.  I am always careful with my speech and my body language - and when I encounter someone who could be useful, I make a point of positioning myself near them at dinner so that we may continue our conversation.  Of course, you must be careful not to position yourself too high.  You can’t try to sit next to the President of Microsoft or Apple or the Moderator of General Assembly and expected to be treated as an equal.  You might even be asked to sit somewhere else so that the Vice President of Microsoft or Apple, or the Vice Moderator of General Assembly, could have your seat – and that would be really embarrassing.

            These dinner parties are more like hunting expeditions, where the whole purpose is to come home with a pocket full of business cards that belong to people higher up the corporate or ecclesial ladder or with expertise that I need and who can be useful later on.  These dinner parties are not very much fun.  But they do tell me a lot about how I am doing professionally.  Am I using all the up and coming methodologies?  Are there new techniques I should be pursuing?  - and where do I fit in as compared to my colleagues?

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            This morning's gospel lesson is about a dinner party that is a lot like the business party I just spoke about.  In Jesus’ day, most interpersonal relationships outside the family were about status and honor and shame.  This seems very awkward to us as Americans, but it is still quite common in many cultures, especially in Asia and in the Middle East.  In these cultures, your community standing is based on what others think of your family and your social standing – not what you think about yourself.

            Children are raised to honor their elders, obey all of society’s rules and be good citizens of their tribe and country.  In cultures where survival can depend on the help and goodwill of neighbors, making waves is a very bad idea.

            It doesn’t matter what you think, you act according to the rules – in fact, you rarely tell anyone what you think, because no one wants anyone else to upset the status quo.

You behave honorably in order to gain honor for your clan.  You try to sit in just the right place – even at dinners with those of your own social standing – because you don’t want to socialize with the riffraff and you don’t want the higher ups to tell you to take a hike.

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            This morning’s gospel portion turns on questions of honor and shame, the two driving forces of society in Jesus’ day. Shame and honor are seen in two ways, from the point of view of the Pharisees, the prominent culture of the day, and from the counter point of view of Jesus himself.

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As our story opens, Jesus is continuing on his journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. On the way he is invited for a meal at the house of a leader of the Pharisees. It is the Sabbath, and the people who are present at the meal are watching Jesus closely.  As the meal continues, a man with dropsy appears.  Dropsy is the swelling of the body, ‘edema’ we would call it, and it can be the result of a serious illness.  Jesus asks a question of the lawyers and Pharisees who are present: ‘Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath?’ Jesus receives no answer to his question, so he proceeds with a cure. He heals the man and sends him away.

            Jesus asks another question: ‘If your child fell into a well on the Sabbath, could you not pull him out?’ Obviously the Sabbath law allowed them to do this. The second part of the question was more difficult: ‘If your ox fell into the well, could you pull him out on the Sabbath?’ Sabbath law was divided on this point. In some ways it seemed to say yes, in other ways it seemed to say no. But there was no argument over the point from the people present. If a man could rescue his child on the Sabbath, God could rescue his child, the man with dropsy. This incident supplied the context for the remarks that Jesus is about to make.

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Jesus notices how the guests chose places of honor at the table. This was important to them. Eating in itself was important to sustain life. But ‘community’ was sustained by the places at which people sat around the table. Those of highest honor sat at the most honorable places; those who were not so high on the social scale were placed at the foot of the table. Where one was placed at the table by the ‘seating chart’ was extremely important in determining one’s honor in the community.

            So Jesus tells them a parable. ‘When you are invited to a wedding banquet, do not seat yourself at the place of honor. Someone more distinguished than you may come to the feast, and the host will say to you, 'Give this person your seat.' What shame, what disgrace is yours, as you leave your place of honor and move to the lowest place.’ So, says Jesus, ‘When you come to the wedding feast, seat yourself at the lowest place. Then, when the host comes, he may say to you, 'My friend, move up higher.' Imagine the honor that follows you as you move from the lowest place to a higher one.’ Nothing happier than this could happen to the man who was invited to the wedding feast.

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            Let us look at the differences in Jesus’ words. When the man is told to move to a lower place, he is told this bluntly and without ceremony: ‘Give this person your place.’ But when he is invited to move higher, the host treats him with dignity: ‘My good friend, move on up.’ Any guest would long to hear those words. But then Jesus moves beyond nuance to principle: ‘All who exalt themselves will be humbled. All who are humble will be exalted.’ Now it is not a human host who is speaking but God, the host of the eternal banquet. ‘Whoever claims first place in the kingdom of God will be given last place. Whoever comes to the kingdom of God making no claims upon God but who quietly trusts God will be given first place in the kingdom.’

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We cannot pretend to be humble as a way to gain recognition.  Humility is a quality a life open to persons who know that their worth is not measured by recognition from their peers but by the certainty that God has accepted them.

            This is a lesson that James and John, the Sons of Thunder, were soon to learn in Jesus’ presence. Never ask for first place. Simply trust God to honor you, and in God’s own way and in God’s own time, God will do it.

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            The next statement Jesus makes to the host of the dinner carries an even more stinging point. ‘When you give a dinner, do not invite your friends or brothers or other relatives or rich neighbors. They will invite you to their own banquets, and then you will be repaid in kind, with no further honor due you.

            In the American northwest, the native American Indians have a custom called ‘potlatch’.  The potlatch is an extravagant dinner to which you invite all your friends.  The purpose of the dinner is to show your friends that you have simply no regard for your material wealth.  You give everything away – and you gain great honor.

            The practice became so extreme in the early 20^th century that for a time, the practice was outlawed – but there is something more – when you give a potlatch, all your neighbors are so awestruck by your generosity – and so envious of your new found honor in the community, that in a short time, all your friends will do the same thing – and you end up with about as much stuff as you started out with.

            So, your generosity is really just a temporary redistribution of the wealth.  Everyone you gave stuff to, gave you something in return and you end up no worse off than before – so you really haven’t given anything to anybody.

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But this is not how Jesus wants us to entertain. ‘Instead invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. Invite them,’ said Jesus. ‘Since these people cannot repay you, you will be blessed by God,’

            This was an impossible request to be made to a Pharisee. These four classes of people were by law unclean because they were imperfect; no Pharisee could possibly eat with them and maintain their status in the community.

            But Jesus invites them to his feasts. His meals by the seashore and in the wilderness included them. In his resurrection he will to invite them to share in the supper of the Lord. ‘Inclusion’ is the key. Jesus desires to include all persons in the kingdom of God, and his is the honorable way. The Pharisees moved to exclude from their meals anyone whom they deemed unworthy, and they did it to their own shame. ‘You look for the resurrection of the righteous,’ said Jesus to them finally. ‘But that resurrection is reserved for those whom God honors, and those whom God honors include the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind in their fellowship.’

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               The question we must ask ourselves this morning is: Who do we consider to be the outcast?  Who is on our list of undesirables?  I'm sure each of us can name a few.  Is it the poor person, the one who can't maintain the social standards and graces that we find so attractive?  Is it the sick of body, of mind or soul, whose demands upon the resources of the community or individuals for time, patience, money and prayer seem more than we are able to manage?  Is it the immigrant or the refugee, the person who looks or sounds different than we do because their background is different from ours?  Who's the undesirable for us?  

               Now recognize that Jesus is inviting us to invite them into our lives not for their good but for our good.

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But, gosh, we’re ‘good’ Christians.  We often think of doing good for others.  We think of the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, the Heifer Project, Salvation Army and Red Cross – but all of these serve the poor who are out of sight – over there – those people.

               Jesus reminds us that the true mission field is here in our own back yards.  It is the people in our own community - the ones who live next door to our homes and the people who live next door to our church.  These are the ones we try hardest to overlook – the ones who make us feel the most uncomfortable – but these are the very ones Jesus tells us we should have as our company.  Jesus says we need to invite these people to our table because that's what it means to be the people of God.  They give us the chance to live the faith we claim.    

               ‘Brothers and sisters’, he says to us, ‘you can't do anything nearly as important for them as they can do for you.’  They're not charity cases or objects of pity - but brothers and sisters in the family of Jesus and maybe – just maybe – one of them will be the person sitting next to you at God's eternal banquet.  

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               But there's more to the story.  Jesus isn't just giving etiquette lessons.  And he's doing more than telling us a parable about how to live our lives.  He's also teaching us about the Kingdom of God: about the party that will be hosted by God.  Our Lord is the sort of host that, once the inviting starts, doesn't know when to quit.  God just keeps on inviting and inviting and inviting any who will come.  The invitations come, not because of our efforts, not because of our merits, not because of our wealth or social status or our glib conversation.  The invitations to the banquet come only as a result of God's great love and as God's free gift.  They cannot be earned, they cannot be purchased.  The invitation comes as a free gift of grace and can only be accepted in faith.  And that may lead to some surprising events.

               If seats at the table in the Kingdom of Heaven are assigned by God's free gift, we may find heaven a surprising place. But we can make earth a surprising place as well.  If we commit ourselves to the faithful, daily struggle to see others as our Lord sees them.  Not as problems, or annoyances or difficulties or even as statistics - but as fellow children in God's family, swept up in the all-encompassing love of a God who measures worth in ways we can neither think of nor imagine. Whose love includes you and me.

               God says, ‘Don’t give potlatch dinners.  Yes, all our friends will be impressed, but soon our friends will invite us to their homes and we will be repaid.  But when we give a banquet, we must invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind, and we will be blessed.  Although they cannot repay us, we will be repaid - at the resurrection of the righteous.’  

Amen.