Table Manners

Jeremiah 2:4-13; Luke 14: 1,7-14

  It was meal time and Jesus was at the dinner table in the home of a Pharisee. The occasion provides Jesus with the opportunity to teach a lesson about the importance of humility and hospitality, two of the most important characteristics for those who live life in God’s kingdom.

    The Pharisee and all the dinner guests are watching Jesus.  Jesus, in turn, is watching them.  The guests are jockeying for the best seats at the table.  They are part of a culture that encourages the pursuit of the highest honors and loftiest status.  They are scurrying for the most esteemed positions at the head table.  It all is very disturbing to Jesus.  So, he tells a parable that teaches proper etiquette, proper behavior at the dinner table and proper behavior for those who would sit at the heavenly banquet table. 

    The parable urges the guests to avoid the most prominent seats and to sit in the ones that are least desirable.  It is reasoned that to be moved by the host from the lowest to the greatest seat would be an honor.  But, to be moved from the greatest to the lowest would be a disgrace.   It is radical advice for those who always choose the best seats at the table.  And, it is followed by a statement that is just as radical

“…all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Humility.  It was a trait embodied in the life of Jesus, “one who did not count equality with God as something to be grasped; but emptied himself and became obedient, even to the point of dying on the cross.”  (from Philippians 2)

Leonard Bernstein once was asked which instrument was most difficult to play. Before I tell you his response to the question, I am wondering what you think is the most difficult instrument to play.

Would you say the piano, or the oboe, or the French horn, perhaps?  What is the most difficult instrument to play?

With a twinkle in his eye, Bernstein responded, “second fiddle.  I can get plenty of first violinists, but to find someone who can play the second fiddle with enthusiasm—that’s a problem. And if we have no second fiddle, we have no harmony.”[1]

When it is necessary for group harmony, are you willing to let others be in the limelight while you tend to tasks behind the scenes?  Are you willing to be humble, to play second fiddle in the interest of cohesiveness and unity?

After using the parable to teach an important lesson about humility, Jesus turns to the Pharisee and teaches an important lesson about hospitality.  “Invite to your dinner party the poor, the lame, the blind-people on the lower rung of society, people who cannot return the favor.” 

For Jesus, who dined with tax collectors and sinners, the dining room table is circular, a table where no one person is esteemed higher than another, where all receive equal seating and equal treatment. 

According to one biblical scholar, in the church the litmus test for the inclusion of people who are different is “not at the point of baptizing them but of eating with them.”[2]  Another suggests that “To admit a person to table with you is to admit that person is a full, equal human being, just like you.”[3] 

There is a story set in the south in 1935, during the depth of the depression.

In Waxahachie, Texas, a young mother of two is left to fend for herself and her children.  Her husband has been killed by the town drunk.  Within hours, the murderer, a young black man, has been lynched by a mob, tied behind a car, dragged out of town, and his body hanged from a tree.

Times are hard in Texas in the 30’s.  The banker who holds the mortgage on the widow’s farm is not understanding of her plight.  As the plot unfolds, there is more meanness and hatred and betrayal than you can imagine.  The widow’s sister’s husband fools around with a married woman in town.  The man who runs the cotton gin tries to cheat her out of her meager profit.

 You may recognize the story.  It is the story told in the movie Places in the Heart.  For me, the most memorable scene is the closing one.  The setting is a church on a Sunday morning. 

 

We hear the choir and congregation singing.  It is Communion Sunday in that little Texas church.  The plates of bread and wine are being passed.  In every pew you see the people whose faces you have met during the course of the movie.  There is the town drunk who murdered the widow’s husband, and, next to him, are the members of the mob that lynched him.  The communion plates go up and down the pews.  Reaching for a small piece of bread is the brother-in-law who committed adultery, and three rows back is the woman he committed it with.  The widow’s children are there and sitting right next to her and holding her hand is the husband that she lost, way too soon. 

They are all there-the good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful, innocent children and scandalous adults.  All are there.  They have come to the table of our Lord where all receive equal seating and equal treatment.[4] 

What about the heavenly banquet table?  There, the CEO will be seated next to the street beggar he always passed on his way to work.  The person who lived in a mansion will be seated next to a homeless person.

There will be no economic class distinctions.  All who have accepted the invitation will be together, sharing communion and experiencing community. The host issues the invitation not in anticipation of what he might get in return, but out of love. 

I wonder if the church might offer the world a foretaste of life around the banquet table of God’s kingdom where the guest list is broad and includes all people, where the love that is shared is unconditional, universal, no strings attached, where no one person is esteemed higher than another, where all receive equal seating and equal treatment, where humility and hospitality are a way of life.