Our Gospel lesson for today is from the Gospel of Luke. Now there is an interesting thing about the Gospel of Luke that many people overlook. The Gospel of Luke has 24 chapters and in 19 of those chapters Jesus is either sitting down to eat a meal of some type, or the story somehow involves issues of eating or food--19 of 24 chapters. Given that the first chapters of Luke focus on Christ's birth and at least one of the last chapters focuses on his death, that means that most all of the Gospel of Luke has something to do with feasting, partying and general eating. Pastor Chris has suggested to me on numerous occasions that her basic approach to the Gospels is through themes of food and hospitality. It would appear that the most useful tools to understanding the Gospel of Luke, next to a Bible commentary, may be some good etiquette and cook books. It may be no accident that at our house next to our Lectionary Homiletics and Pulpit Resource journals we also find stacked copies of Cooking Light and Gourmet Magazine. There is probably no image or topic more central to the Christian faith than that of the meal. The focal point of our understanding of worship even today is the celebration of Holy Communion--a time when we remember the Last Supper Jesus shared with his disciples right before his death--a time also identified as a meal that is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet promised in God's coming kingdom.
We know from our own lives how important eating with other people is. When a four-year-old girl asks you to sit down with her for a tea party, you know that you're being invited to take part in something very special in her life. Or at lunchtime at school, if a child breaks his candy bar in two and gives half of it to the child next to him, that simple gesture has the power to create a new friendship. When one of our sons brings their girlfriend home for dinner for the first time we know that this is not just another female friend. There is something about eating together that binds us to one another, connecting us in a very special way. One of the marks of the Labor Day weekend, like most of our holidays, is the gathering of people for some type of meal together. That's what makes it holiday--or if we reclaim the origins of the word--not just "holiday" but "holy day". In the earliest times, Christians didn't say that they came together to worship, they said they came together on Sundays to break bread. While there were hymns and prayers and Bible readings, the central focus of their gathering was to share the bread and the cup of communion each week.
More than anything else, that act of eating together reminded them of who they were and what they were all about. Jesus knew how important eating together is but he also knew that the way we encounter others around us when we eat reveals a great deal about who we are, what we stand for and believe. In our lesson for today Jesus witnesses the jockeying for position and place of those sitting down to table. We all know this experience too well. It begins in our earliest days in the school lunchroom. As school classes resume one of the most critical questions facing many of our young people is where they will sit in the lunch room. Anyone who has been a new kid in the class knows what it is to walk into the lunch room and look for a place to sit. If you remember your school days you will also remember that who you sit with can define your social fate all through school. There is the table of the really smart kids and there is the table of jocks, the table of musicians and the table of the rebels or trouble makers that the teachers are always trying to break up and make sit somewhere else. And there are some kids who sit alone and even some who have no place to sit. That is what Jesus found as a key to his teachings in today's lessons. Not just who is sitting where but who might not even be at the table. As people sat down to eat with Jesus they had in the back of their mind the fact that you had to be careful where you sat and whom you sat with, because that was how people judged you. So people went out of their way to scramble to sit down beside the most prestigious person at a dinner. It always sounds a little silly and petty when described to us--but let's be honest--no matter what our political preference--to be able to say I had lunch with the President of the United States--any president of the United States--is something most of us wouldn't mind being able to say. Everyone would like to have the best seat but Jesus had some advice. Jesus would remind us that our true place in this world is not of our choosing--not our decision. Jesus suggests that we approach the table (and all life) in a posture of humility. Don't presume to take the best seat for there may be someone for whom that seat has already been prepared. Instead take a lesser place--approach with humility and be open to the possibility of being invited to come up higher.
Each Sunday the people of faith strive to humbly come before their God. Yet each Sunday the people of God gather in our mostly segregated and stratified communities of faith--white churches--liberal churches--fundamentalist churches. Hispanic-African-American-Asian--admittedly they may even be all Lutheran in our Metro Chicago Synod--but separated by social-cultural-economic-life style--and even some faith differences. It is not easy to see past our stereotypes and mistaken perceptions. Back around 1880, a man and a woman went to Harvard University and asked for an appointment with the university president. When the secretary looked at the couple and saw that the woman was wearing a faded dress and that the man had a threadbare suit on, she frowned and said, "I'm sorry, but the president will be busy all day." But the couple said that that was OK, and that they would wait. For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping they would leave. But they didn't. Finally, the secretary became frustrated and decided to disturb the president and tell him what was going on. The president sighed and reluctantly agreed to speak with them for a couple of minutes. When they entered the office, the woman explained, "The reason we wanted to see you is that we had a son who attended Harvard for a year. He loved it and was happy here. But about a year ago he was killed in an accident. And my husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him somewhere on campus." The president replied, "Madam, we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery." "Oh, no," the woman explained, "We don't want to erect a statue. We thought that we could donate a building to Harvard." But when the president heard that, he just looked at their clothes, rolled his eyes and said, "A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? Why we have over 7 million dollars in our physical plant here." The lady then turned to her husband and said quietly, "Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don't we just start our own?" So the two of them walked out of the president's office and traveled to Palo Alto, California. And there Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford established the university that today bears their--and their son's--name.
Jesus cautioned against seeing only those in the world we deemed worthy of seeing. Like the people that Jesus ate with in our Gospel lesson, sometimes we wonder why we should bother to associate with certain people. After all, what do they have to offer us? The answer, of course, is maybe more than we realize. One thing seems to be pretty certain. Jesus probably never won any awards for being Mr. Congeniality. Based on our lessons for today, you have to wonder how many of the hosts ever invited Jesus back again. When he wasn't critiquing the other guests for trying for the best seats he had something to say to the host. And the advice that Jesus offered the host was that in the future, instead of inviting all of his friends and all of the important people he knew to eat with him, instead of inviting the beautiful people and the elite of society, Jesus said invite the poor, the crippled, the blind --invite the kind of people who could not possibly return the favor. The point-of course is that we are to invite those who might otherwise be missing from our table.
Standing with those outside our community is not easy. It may mean more than a physical invitation to a meal. It may mean taking an active advocacy role--embracing stands for justice, equality and inclusivity that makes us uncomfortable. It may mean looking at our priorities through different eyes. To stand for the wholeness of God's family is not always easy. I cannot read this Gospel lesson without remembering another story. One Sunday morning in 1865 shortly after the end of the Civil War a black man entered a fashionable Episcopalian church in Richmond, Virginia. When Communion was served the black man walked down the aisle and knelt at the altar. A rustle of whispers swept through the congregation. Episcopalians use the common cup. In those days the two races didn't even use the same drinking fountain. There was a pause as everyone waited to see what would happen. It was then that a distinguished layman stood up--stepped forward to the altar and knelt beside the black man. The minister proceeded to distribute the sacrament first to the black man and then to Robert E. Lee, the former General of the Confederate Army. Lee's words are still remembered when he said of that moment, "All men are brothers in Christ. Have we not all one Father?"
The Civil Rights movement knew that where people eat together is the beginning of enabling them to live together. One sociologist recently observed the curious fact that McDonald's restaurants are now in over 100 countries and so far no two countries with a McDonalds are at war with each other. Sharing a Big Mac with someone will probably not save the world but sharing Christ's table of grace promises a peace that the world has yet to understand. Who is missing from our table this morning? How might we invite them? Do we even have enough room for them to join us or are we content to keep our space limited and our seating reserved for those we know best? Meals on my grandparents farm were never what I would call gourmet but they were always substantial with good food in hardy servings. There was always filling food--garden grown potatoes--loaves of homemade bread There was always a place at the table for those who were around the farm at any meal time--breakfast--morning lunch--dinner --afternoon lunch--supper--table space for hired hands--neighbors--salesmen--the preacher more than one time I remember--and even food brought out to a few transients who found their way over to the farm from the train tracks about a mile away. I think about all those meals to this day. My grandmother once commented that it is not easy to feed the whole world. I guess that's why I don't think in her 103 years of life she ever missed a Sunday's worship service. When you know God is caring for you it is a lot easier to care for others. We are invited to table once more this morning--God's table of grace. Our place has been prepared for us--each of us. No one else will take it because it is our place. But as we kneel before God let us not forget those who are missing Let us remember that God would have all creation gathered around this table because that is why Jesus came and died. To give us all a place at the table.
Amen.