Title: Radical Hospitality
Scripture: Luke 14: 1,7-14
Thesis: The gospel of Jesus Christ is about not merely obeying the rules of good etiquette, but also going beyond good etiquette to make sure that all are welcome at the banquet table.
Antithesis: We can do God’s will by merely making sure the convections of good conduct are upheld.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer? In the name of the father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen
It is the wedding reception and everyone enters the reception hall and looks for his/her seat. At the front of the room is the table with the special wine glasses in the middle and the white apron around the table and special flowers decorating the table; no one has to be told that that table is for the bride, the groom and their attendants. After that things get a little confusing. If you are at a formal wedding with a sit down dinner and linen table clothes and napkins, you probably have assigned seats and do not have to worry about with whom you are going to eat. However, if you are at a less formal reception you are left to find your own seat and most folks look for someone they know to sit with. It is hard for us to identify with Jesus teaching about not finding the seat that is higher in station than we should sit, because that is not the custom at most meal we will eat and when there is a prescribed protocol there are tiny little name cards that tell you where to sit so that there is no danger that you will wander into the wrong seat. Beside we have the universal symbol of the folded chair leaning against the table to tell us that a seat is already taken and is not for us.
We can identify with a banquet as a place where important things are celebrated and often negotiated. We also have little problem recognizing that with whom we eat or do not eat tells a great deal about where we are in the hierarchy of society. In most Sunday editions of the paper there is a whole section of pictures taken at functions that most of us will never attend. If the truth were know do not really want to attend. But we do know that in the political and business world being seen with the right people in the right places can be very important. But most of our lives are structured around much more modest dinners, that are no less important and where at least in our sphere of influence have great affect. When we go to Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma’s we know where everyone is to sit at the table. Granddad will be at the head of the table, Grandma at the foot with various aunts and uncles seated around the table and those not married and under a certain age will be at the little kid’s table. In western Pennsylvania where many of us can count generations sitting around our banquet tables, it is sometimes hard for us to imagine that we are called to invite others into our tight family circles.
While many of us can count on where we will eat all of the important feasts of the year and with whom, there are many who dread any of the holidays because it is just one more lonely day of the year and even more lonely because we know that everyone else has someone else with which to share the holiday.
What Jesus is calling his followers and the leaders of His day to see is that in God’s kingdom there is no one left outside the doors of the banquet table. No one eats at the little kids table and no one has to eat in an adjoining room because there is no room at the table. Jesus is telling us that we must practice a radical hospitality that forces us to invite to the table those whom we would never think to invite. The banquet table is not just the meal table for feast, but is rather Jesus talking about full inclusion of all into God’s work.
It requires a great deal from those of us already at the table and engaged in God’s work. We must be intentional about looking around to invite to the table, into God’s kingdom, God’s work those that the society tells us are not worthy. This is far more than passing out food to the hungry or being friendly to the newcomer. This is radical, it is inviting others into our lives. When we were being trained in the Bluebook outreach program, Gregg Hartung told us a story about a church that was friendly and could not understand why people came to their church but then drifted away. Gregg had explained about how new people needed to be invited into the established programs and activities of the current members. One of the member said to him, "Does that mean that we need to invite the new person in the choir on the ski trip that we always take?” “Yes, “ was the answer. “But, that is not a church activity, that is just a bunch of people who all happen to belong to the choir who take a trip together.” They did not invite the new member on the ski trip and wondered why he and his wife wandered down the street to another church where hospitality, not friendliness was practiced.
Sometimes radical hospitality means that we have to equip people for the banquet. If you are invited to a wedding feast there are certain expectations about how you will dress and carry yourself. If it is a formal affair you may need to know how to eat when there are more than one fork and several spoons at your place at the table. When my uncle was still on active duty in the Air Force, at one point his job was to see that new young officers knew how to act if they had to go out to eat. In a day when many young people have grown up eating fast food with plastic utensils, eating at a formal table is foreign. He had to teach them basic things like when you eating in a home as a guest, you do not eat until the hostess has taken the first bite. Or if you are eating where there are more than one fork, you start on the outside and eat toward the middle, etc. It would be embarrassing for the young officer and the Air Force to send them out to transact business over a meal when their table manners got in the way of their message. In much the same way we need to equip those new to the banquet table with the basics of table etiquette. With gentleness and grace we need to help those invited to the banquet to learn what is expected of them here.
