Social climbing
It’s the sabbath day, and Jesus has been invited to dinner at the home of a leader of the Pharisees. An invitation is itself a compliment, a mark of status. And when the guests arrive, they sort themselves by rank, with the most important closest to the head of the table. Jesus stands aside, watches, observes.
And then he gives his fellow guests a piece of advice: Don’t claim the seat of honor, he says. You might embarrass yourself if your host asks you to move. Instead, sit in a lower place. That way, you can only be honored by being moved up—and there’s no chance of being shamed for your arrogance.
It’s actually pretty good advice if your goal is social climbing. Pretend humility now to achieve honor later. Is Jesus channeling How to Win Friends and Influence People? Or maybe Machiavelli?
It’s curious, though. Social climbing isn’t usually Jesus’s top priority. What’s going on here?
Jesus isn’t finished. He turns to his host. And now he begins to sound more like the Jesus we know. He no longer seems to care much about this year’s list of “Who’s Who in Galilee.” Jesus advises his listeners to host parties with a guest list made up of the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.
Now that’s not such good advice. Not if your goal is networking, or reputation, or influence.
But what if your goal is something else? What if your goal is mercy and justice? What if your goal is helping to build the kingdom of God?
It’s always important when you listen to Jesus to notice who he’s speaking to. Jesus lives out the aphorism: “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Here, he’s speaking to honored guests, to those who have a place at the table—and who know it. And he’s telling them that in God’s kingdom, the seating chart looks very different than it does in places of privilege and power.
It’s another version of the age-old upside-down Gospel: “The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.”
We just sang these words: “Build a longer table, not a higher wall, feeding those who hunger, making room for all. Feasting together, stranger turns to friend. Christ breaks walls to pieces; false divisions end.”
That’s what Jesus is doing in this story. Calling out the dynamics of power that keep us apart. And flipping the guest list on its head.
This isn’t abstract theology. It is etiquette of a sort. But you probably won’t find table manners for God’s table in the latest edition of Emily Post.
Even in the Church, we haven’t always set the kind of table Jesus calls us to set. For much of our history, membership and seating in Episcopal churches depended on race, wealth, and social standing. Families actually rented pews, which then were reserved only for their use. We don’t do that anymore, but Episcopal Churches can still sometimes feel uptight to newcomers.
But the Table we gather around every week reminds us that that isn’t how it’s supposed to be.
Our former Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, tells the story of his father’s first visit to a mostly white Episcopal Church in the segregated south. He saw black and white worshippers drinking from the same cup. And he said, “Any church where [this is possible] knows something about the gospel. I want to be a part of that.”
The table Jesus describes—a table where the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind get first choice of seats and first dibs at the meal—that table isn’t just a metaphor. It’s a vision of what a table in God’s kingdom will look like. It’s a call to us to work to build such a world.
In a few minutes, we’ll gather at God’s table. Not because we’ve earned a place there. But because Christ himself has invited us.
There’s an invitation to Communion that’s sometimes used by the Iona Community in Scotland. It expresses this idea well.
“We are here because Jesus has called us – strangers and friends, locals and visitors, believers and doubters, the certain and the curious. It is always a mixed company that Jesus gathers and invites to his table where, in bread and wine, he meets us and through him we, who are different, are joined to each other. So come, not because you understand, but because you are understood. Come, not because of how you feel, but because God has food for you. Come, not because you deserve a place, but because Jesus invites you, just as you are.”
Come to God’s Table. Not because you’ve earned a place there, but because Christ himself has invited you. And then go out into the world to set tables of your own—tables where the hungry are fed, where strangers become friends, where the walls that divide us are broken down by the radical hospitality of the Gospel.