Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
The Gospel of Luke 14:1, 7-14
Preached at House of Hope Lutheran Church (New Hope, MN)
August 28, 2022
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Grace and peace to you from God the Creator, Christ the Liberator, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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Something I often say is that faith communities, at their best, are spaces where we can practice trusting in abundance, living in community, and embodying radical hospitality. Where we can dwell in the love of God, and respond with wonder, curiosity, and amazement. At their best, faith communities are counter-cultural – striving for the Kin-dom of God, not the Kingdom of Empire.
And in the Gospel text for today, Jesus’ observations and parables invite the guests, and invite each of us, into a different way of being – one that disrupts the expectations of Empire. Jesus is inviting us to reflect on what drives our actions, and live into abundance.
Because Jesus is a disruptor. Jesus Christ, God incarnate, God enfleshed, disrupts and provokes the world-as-it-is for the sake of the world-as-it-could-be. He is being watched closely at this dinner party. At this point in the narrative, he on his way to Jerusalem. In the passage immediately before this text, some religious leaders warn Jesus that Herod wants to kill him. And then some of these same religious leaders invite Jesus to share a meal with them, knowing that he is a disruptor, watching him. But Jesus is also watching closely – he is watching how this specific group of people are being in community together.
I read the stage that is being set for these parables as utterly ordinary. Of course the dinner guests are trying to seat themselves in places of honor, of status. Because striving for status, for recognition of status, is viewed as a good and fair thing. That was true in Jesus’ time, and it’s true now. How much of our lives are built around attaining status? Of gaining a better seat? How much energy do we put into that? Into getting the next promotion at work, climbing the next step of the ladder? Into advanced degrees, letters after our names? Into saying we know someone who is well-known, of name-dropping our connections?
It’s utterly ordinary. We live in structures that are perceived to reward this type of status-seeking. And at the core, striving to learn more, to know each other more fully, isn’t a bad thing. But Jesus is inviting us to reflect on what drives these actions for each of us. Is it to learn more, to be better at how we spend our time, to know each other more fully? Or is it to get a better seat, to be perceived as better or more powerful than we were before?
Things that are considered ordinary by Empire are not often the same things held sacred by God.
Jesus disrupts this scramble for seats of power with a call to humility. What if, he seems to be asking, what if you don’t concern yourself with how high your power and status might allow you to sit? What if, instead, you recognize yourself as part of a community, not a food chain? What if you seat yourself with those who hold less power?
Calls to humility can be complicated. For some of us listening to this text, we might be the ones who are striving to seat ourselves as highly as we can, due to our own perception of ourselves, due to what we have achieved, due to what we think is fair. But for others of us listening to this text, we might already be seated in a place of lesser status, or we wouldn’t dare to seat ourselves too highly. And for many of us, we occupy both of those spaces – in some aspects of our lives and identity we might be the ones rightly assuming we can sit in a place of status, or put ourselves there regardless, and in other aspects, we might be asked to move down, or wouldn’t dare to dream of sitting higher.
Humility might invoke a feeling of making ourselves smaller, of downplaying how we exist in the world, of erasing ourselves and our needs because that’s what we think we should do in order to be humble. This text, in conversation with the text from Hebrews, whose central theme is to let mutual love continue, makes me wonder if this text is disrupting Empire’s focus on status and inviting us to have a right-sized view of ourselves.
What do I mean by that?
I have had moments where I have felt utterly woven into the fabric of Creation – myself, but interconnected so I was both more and less than myself, in a way that felt like liberation. I’m going to try to share one of those moments with you in words, but I would ask you to reflect on the sacred moments in your life where words will always fall short. I pray that each of us has experienced a moment of interconnection like this, of feeling right-sized in the vast universe, while also acknowledging that there are social and political structures built around depriving us of these interconnections. That are built to strip us of these moments of utter being-ness, in order for us to seek that same feeling through power, or status, or wealth, when we don’t need those things to experience the love of God and community.
Last summer, I spent time on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, returning to a body of water that I had spent a lot of time with as a child, but little-to-none as an adult. Laying on the beach, feeling the sand supporting my body, the sun warming my skin, the salt in my nose and mouth, sounds of other people and the waves in my ears, I felt both centered, anchored, and also insignificant. Not in a bad way, but in a right-sized way – acknowledging that I am one heartbeat in a lifetime, one grain of sand on the beach. I was basking in God’s love – knowing in my body that I was beloved just as I was, while also being called to move from this place of center for the sake of a broken world, searching for healing.
What does it feel like in your body to bask in the love of God, without putting pressure or expectations on yourself to have your life look a certain way? What would change if we each moved from a right-sized, wonder-filled place of grounding and center? What would be different if we trusted that we didn’t need to climb the ladder to earn God’s love, if we trusted that there was enough to go around?
In order to move from that place of center, we each need to find it for ourselves. Through prayer, through discernment, through time spent in nature, and with God. And then in order to move from that center, we might need to let go of some of what’s considered ordinary – letting go of a need to be first, to be best.
This text is an invitation. It is an invitation to freedom from the oppression and heartache that come when we define our lives in terms of success and status as defined by Empire. This text is saying – you don’t need to do that. You don’t need to fight over the best seats at the table, because at God’s table, all of the seats are beloved, and places of honor. We aren’t winning God’s favor by winning through social status – God is already lifting us up, holding us in love. We aren’t earning more of God’s love through achievement and accomplishment as defined by Empire.
How do we live together as a community of God? We live together as a community of God by rejecting our desires to climb the ladder individually, and we live together as a community of God by embracing abundance, and inclusive community.
The second part of this parable is calling in the hosts of the party, inviting them to a different kind of relationship with hospitality and hosting. Again, it’s perfectly ordinary to host a gathering, and then expect to be invited to similar gatherings in return. This reciprocity can be a sign of continued relationship, continued conversation, and isn’t a bad thing – but Jesus is asking us to notice who is left out of relationships when we have decided that relationships need to be 100% equal and reciprocal. Jesus is asking us to define hospitality as generosity, and as redistribution. Doing things for the sake of God and community because we can, because it is a form of prayer, not doing things so that we get the same in return.
Like all of Jesus’ parables, this too holds nuance. Everyone needs to both give and receive care. Give and receive hospitality. Give and receive love. But that isn’t the same for everyone, and relationships aren’t 1-1 transactions.
I’m a weaver, and the structure of fabric is something I often return to when thinking about community – how we live together and support each other, when that looks different for each of us. In weaving, the vertical threads, the warp, need to be structural. They need to be able to withstand tension, and they hold the weaving together. The horizontal threads, the weft, have more fluidity – they don’t need to be structural, because they are receiving support, and contributing texture and softness. This dynamic balance is what creates the finished textile.
And so again, what would it feel like to constantly return to your center – a center that reflects and basks in the love of God, and move from that point? Trusting that generosity and hospitality will return to you when you need them, and if you are able to offer them to others, that is a gift and a blessing.
I would invite you to find that center for yourself, and move from there. Find the wonder, and curiosity, and belovedness we each already have, and take time to practice existing in and from that space. Bask in the love of God. Ask yourself, where in your life are you living as a reflection of God, and where are you living as a reflection of Empire? And how can we use this space, together, to trust in abundance, live in community, and embody radical hospitality?May this be our prayer in action. Amen.
Reed Fowler 