Pentecost 15 C

BASE HEADER LEVEL: 2

Tell the truth: did you ever find yourself in an office by yourself, and since no one was looking, took your seat in the boss’s chair? Just to imagine what it would feel like?

Especially in corporate settings, the desks are designed to intimidate. You can almost feel the power of sitting in that chair just by sitting in it.

We have all these cultural signals to tell us who’s in charge, or how to behave in particular settings. In an office, the big desk and high chair is a pretty good symbol that its owner is in charge and that everyone must listen.

If you go against the mostly unwritten cultural rules we live by…things can get awkward.

Can’t think of any? Imagine yourself in a public restroom. Guys, if you’re standing at one of, say, ten urinals, and another comes up and uses the one right next to you, and starts asking you for restaurant recommendations…that’s against the rules, right?

Students, if you’re in a small huddle of friends giggling about something someone did in the last class and the new kid steps into the middle of your circle and asks what your favorite book is…awkward!

There’s nothing wrong with asking for restaurant recommendations, or someone’s favorite book, but who, what, when, where, and how it happens…that makes a big difference in our comfort level.

Well this was even more true in Jesus’ time. Something as simple as a dinner with friends was loaded with all kinds of cultural rules and regulations and chances to make a social fool of yourself. And the risk was much greater. Your reputation was everything then, so if you messed up your social status, you risked losing your friends and even family.

… And into this delicate system of honor and shame and subtle cultural maneuvering walks Jesus.

“On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely. When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”” (Luke 14.1, 7–14 NRSV)

Just getting invited to this meal with the Pharisees is kind of a big deal. It means that this leader of the Pharisees is willing to consider Jesus as being at the same social level. Jesus should feel lucky to even get an invitation. Everything that happens at this meal is supposed to affirm his social identity. So naturally, everyone there is watching him very closely.

Now, put this in a bit of context…in the Gospel of Luke, which we’ve been reading from recently, Jesus has been making what the Middle Schoolers would call some sick burns on the religious leaders of his day. Just last week, we read that Jesus made a fool of the synagogue leaders in front of the crowd. You wonder what the Pharisees could be thinking, except…we know that Jesus was a bad guest of the synagogue, but maybe, if we invite him into this tricky situation on our home turf, maybe, we can put him in his place.

Ha, not likely. From the moment that Jesus arrives at this meal, he is just about the worst guest possible.

Just like he did in the synagogue, he uses scripture to criticize the actions of the Pharisees. The Pharisees who are supposed to be the experts of following scripture. Like he did in the synagogue, Jesus heals someone — even though it was the sabbath — and then dares the Pharisees to challenge him. As if that wasn’t rude, Jesus then paraphrases from an old Proverbs verse which says,

“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.” (Proverbs 25.6–7 NRSV)

Of course, Jesus would say this right as the guests were choosing their seats. Awkward. Why would anyone invite Jesus to anything?

“Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest,
and turn this meal into a mess.”

Now, we know Jesus by now. And we know that Jesus is up to something. We know that he didn’t give his entire life and being just so we could remember these clever pieces of wisdom like, “it’s better to be moved up, than to be moved down.” So what is Jesus doing by ruining this dinner party?

When get another hint when Jesus really goes off the rails and starts talking about who should have been invited: not the social regulars, but the social outcasts. The poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, he says. This would have been outrageous.

Jesus is talking about how things are in the Kingdom of God.

It’s a bit different than the world of the Pharisees, and our world, too. Remember those social cues? Everybody has their place. The king’s chair, or the boss’s chair is the best seat in the house, and everyone has their own spot, too. The trick in the way the world works is find your seat not too high and not too low, but just where you belong. You know, like Goldilocks. And if you’re lucky, and the person above you makes a mistake…maybe you can move up a seat.

Not so in the Kingdom of God. As Jesus describes it, everything is reversed. The first shall be last, and the last shall be first. The meek shall inherit the earth. God’s not about the ‘most.’ God is with the ‘least.’

Now at first, this sounds like bad news. The Pharisees sure heard it this way. When it comes to our own lives, most of us want to be in the boss’s seat. I want to be in control. I want to sit behind the big desk of my life. I want to be in charge. You see, I’ve sneaked into the office, and taken the boss’s chair when I thought no one was looking. Feels pretty good, doesn’t it?

It does until you and I realize that the best seat, the boss’s chair, the in-charge seat, is not really the best seat. The longer we spend pretending we belong in the boss’s chair, the more likely we are to push the boss — God — out of our lives.

And that’s when we realize that what Jesus is saying is the best news we could ever hear. We are not in charge. God is in charge.

And the most amazing thing…the hardest thing to believe…the thing that makes Christians Christians…is that Jesus tells us, and then shows us on the cross, that the best seat is the lowest. It’s with the least of these.

With the poor, the pathetic, the pushed out people. Even people like you and me.

If you want to find Jesus, look among the least of these. Look in the last place you’d expect to find the boss.

[cartoon I like:]

Why is it that whenever I ask Jesus to come into my life he always brings his friends?

Though we will find it awkward and out of our comfort zone, Jesus calls us into relationships with his friends. All of them. Until we realize that each of us, also, is among the least of these. And we, too, are his friends.

Maybe our prayer should be:

“Come, Lord Jesus, bring your guests,
and let us all as one be blessed.”