Sermons
2th Sept 2007 - Trinity 13
Jesus says ‘do not sit down at the place of honour, 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.’
People can get quite animated about where they feel they should sit at table, particularly as they prepare to come to the feast of the church, the eucharist. Two brief and true anecdotes from church life in a distant diocese bear this out.
Story one - one Sunday, when he had the day off, one of the Bishops in that diocese decided to go to church unannounced and in mufti. He arrived in good time and found an almost empty village church, he was welcomed very nicely and it was clear that the lady on the door had no idea who he was. Comfortably anonymous for once in church, he took a place about half-way down, surrounded by empty chairs with about ten other people around the nave pews. Whilst saying his prayers before the service started he was tapped on the shoulder and a lady loomed over him and shouted ‘Are you going to be sitting there then?’. The disguised bishop had taken the lady’s customary seat and he immediately offered to move, but mid-way through his offer the lady shouted again, this time to the back of the church ‘He’s going to be sitting here this week, I will just have to find another seat!’
Story two - similar, but better. In a market-town church there was a plan to remove three pews at the back of the church and to turn around the fourth one so as to make an area for children during the services. A good idea it seemed, and very popular with the PCC. But it was very unpopular with one particular lady, who always sat in that fourth pew. She lodged complaints with the PCC, and with the vicar and with the bishop (luckily not the same one as in ‘story one’) about the forthcoming change, and what a deleterious effect it would have on her ability to worship. But as she was in a very small minority, the change went ahead. Not to be seen to have failed in her demonstration though, the lady arrived on the Sunday after her fourth pew had been turned around to face the back of the church…and took her usual place, sitting for the entire service with her back to the vicar and facing the very children’s area to which she so objected.
This sort of attachment to, or ownership of, a particular seat becomes much more heated a subject when rank or hierarchy is involved. Consider for a moment the meticulous planning that takes place in arranging guests at a wedding, or consider the High Table arrangements of colleges, or royal banquets…etiquette needs to be observed and the least mistake can issue in disaster, offence is taken, scandal ensues.
So, is Jesus’ advice about not taking the best seat merely a prudent warning, a way of avoiding trouble by not putting oneself forward? It is, after all, the sort of wise saying that can be paralleled in Greek and Hebrew writings many times over, but it is the context of this table story that tells us that it is significantly more than good advice.
Firstly, the advice is offered at the table of a Pharisee. The Pharisees were experts in the etiquette of dining and of invitation-planning and seating-planning. It may be that we all naturally associate with people who are in some way similar to ourselves, but the Pharisees had elevated this practice into the spiritual sphere, only cultivating contact with those who fell within their carefully patrolled enclosure of religious purity. Those who found themselves outside that circle were very large in number and included the blind, the lame, the diseased, anyone guilty of a crime (particularly a sexual crime), and women in general.
The Pharisees no doubt gained satisfaction from their mutual benefit society, but Jesus tells them that they should redraw their guest lists and their seating plans, beginning this time not with those who can repay their hospitality and pass their tests of inclusion, but with those whose humble status in society makes it impossible for them to reciprocate and are beyond the pale. And this is not just advice that goes contrary to all that the Pharisees hold dear, it is a pattern for God’s desire which is to do away with that imaginary circle of purity that they have invented. Furthermore they are warned that in the fullness of time the whole order of their hierarchical structure will be turned on its head. There will be what the literary critics call a polar reversal, it is not just that the humble will be raised up, but that those exalting themselves with pride will be cast down. North will become South and South will become North, the carefully constructed world of the Pharisees is going to be turned upside down. Jesus is teaching that the values of God are radically different from those invented by humans, he is teaching that in the eyes of God true dignity and honour is not something sought after and perfected, and is often something to be found in places that the polite or religiously polite world has forgotten even to look into.
This is an argument for disinterested goodness, the reward of which is sharing in the life of God. And it is an argument we need to hear again and again if we are to clear away the lines of demarcation in our own social and religious lives. Who couldn’t you invite to eat with you at your house? Who would be outside the circle of acceptability? Do you need to redraw your circle, or might it even be possible to rub it out all together? And why would you want to do that? you might ask. What might there be in such a lavish scheme of open-handedness for you? The blessings of the kingdom might be in it for you, says Jesus, and that might be significantly more important than anything else you will ever be offered, by anyone.