Dinner Parties and School Cafeterias

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Within these past two weeks, school started for most children around here.  My Ryan began Kindergarten and Hannah started 4^th grade this year.  So our mornings are now a lot earlier and we are frequently running behind.   But one thing in our new routine for which both Greg and I are thankful is that we do not have to pack lunches this year.  Instead, both of our children will go and eat a school-prepared meal in their respective cafeterias. 

 But while that is helpful in our mornings, I must admit that as I think about both of my kids picking up their trays and searching for a place to sit, my stomach turns a bit. Maybe it is different when you are younger, I don’t remember, but I clearly remember school lunches in middle school and in high school.  I clearly remember getting my lunch, looking around, and hoping with all kinds of hope that someone would say “Shannon, come on over!  We have a place for you.” 

 Now, the truth was that in the cafeteria, everyone did have a place, but it was more assigned than chosen.  And those assignments were given to you based on who you were.  And even though I went to a small school, there will still certain tables for certain people.  If you were popular and ran with the cheerleading/football/party crowd, you sat at one rectangular table.  If you were artistic and preferred drama or the creative arts, you sat at another one.  If you were a little nerdy or if you were a band kid, you were in a different corner.  And so on and so on. 

 And if, worst case scenario, you were new or you did not easily fit in any category, you either sat by yourself and risked being called a loser, or you wandered around, trying hard to act like you were just fine with not having a place to sit.  That is why an invitation was so important.  It could immediately do away with all of that anxiety over having to figure out who you were so that you knew where you were supposed to sit.  And, just in case you are wondering, I did check in with some of our high school students to see if this kind of assignment/ranking situation still exists in the school cafeteria.  Unfortunately, they confirmed that it did. 

 So I wonder what Jesus would say if he were to walk into the Owen middle school or Owen high school cafeteria this week.  What might he say as he watched how the kids split themselves up by rank? What might Jesus say when he saw who sat where, who was invited by whom, and who stood silently, waiting, hoping with all kinds of hope that his/her name would be called and a place would be made ready?

 Luke tells us Jesus was busily observing a dinner party.  And on this particular Sabbath day, Jesus was running with the A crowd.  He was at the home of one of the religious leaders—those with some power, some resources, possibly the adult version of the cheerleader /football /popular table of that time.  Jesus had invited to the meal as a guest.  But he also knew he was being watched.  He was always being watched.  But, Jesus also knew something that the others did not know.  He was watching as well.  Jesus was noticing who sat where and with whom. 

 A brief description of table manners in Jesus’ time period: First, the tables were probably rectangular, the shape of traditional cafeteria tables.  But they were low to the ground and people reclined as they ate.  And the tables were usually set up in a U shape—where the host sat in the middle of the “head table.”  And after the host had chosen his seat (FYI – women were not invited to be a part of these meals), all the guests would try and get the seats closest to the host.  Those were the power seats. 

 And, like the cafeteria, you knew your rank based on where you sat in relation to the host.  The closer you were to the host—the higher your status and the greater your power.  Jesus was well aware of these table dynamics.  Everyone was well aware of these table dynamics.  So Jesus watched as people slickly tried to make it to the host table as quickly as they could, knowing it was the place to be.  And, being Jesus, he did not keep his opinions to himself on what he observed. He spoke up as he watched the guests all fighting for the best seats in the house. 

 Listen to how Eugene Peterson translates Jesus’ words:

When someone invites you to dinner, don’t take the place of honor. Somebody more important than you might have been invited by the host.  Then he’ll come and call out in front of everybody, ‘You’re in the wrong place.  The place of honor belongs to this man.’  Red-faced, you’ll have to make your way to the very last table, the only place left. So when you are invited to dinner, go and sit at the last place. Then when the host comes he may very well say, ‘Friend, come up to the front.’  That will give the dinner guests something to talk about![i]

 Now, I must pause for a moment.  For if we stop Jesus there, it seems he is simply offering us helpful party hints.  He is being a Mister Manners.  Don’t humiliate yourself by sitting in someone else’s reserved seat.  Furthermore, if we stop right there, Jesus’ words also sound like good political advice.  He seems to be offering a way to get power and prestige by pretending to be humble.  Can’t you just hear the conversation as the guests fight for the very last seat in their not-so-subtle attempt to be seen as the most humble of all so they might be invited up?  “No really, I insist, I’ll be last,” “Oh no, no. You cannot possibly sit there. Please allow me.” And so on and so on. The false display of humility would be sickening.

 So thank goodness Jesus kept speaking.  Again Peterson’s translation:

What I’m saying is, if you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face.  But if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.[ii] 

All of the sudden, the attempts of false humility are revealed for being nothing but charades and those doing it are revealed for being nothing but imposters.

 Back to the cafeteria.  There was one girl at my high school that did not play the cafeteria game.  Her name is Cicily.  Cicily and I were good friends.  I adored Cicily.  Frankly, I wanted to be Cicily.  She had this effortless way of moving from table to table in the cafeteria.   She could sit down and be welcomed by the cheerleaders and the athletes.  Then, she could simply get up and walk over to join the Mathletes and the band kids.  She played tennis with the A crowd and laughed and acted goofy with the nerds.  The cafeteria ranking system seemed to have no power over Cicily. She was who she was and she expected an invitation at every table.  And I longed to be her.

 But I always wondered why she was so free.  What was it that gave her such incredible permission to be so disengaged with the power structure so that she was at home everywhere with everyone?  I am not certain, but my best guess is that it had something to do with the fact that she was the only African-American student at my almost all-white, college preparatory, private school.  And as one of the only students who was not Caucasian, Cicily constantly had to remember who and whose she was.  She had to remember as she heard “jokes” with tints of racial slurs.  She had to remember when the Cotillion invitations came out and she was literally the only one in the class not invited to join.  As an African-American teen attending a white, private school in Waco, Texas, Cicily always had to remember who she was.  She had to refuse to give over that kind of defining power to anyone.  And, thanks to her parents and her church, Cicily knew she was a daughter of God, beloved and claimed.

 And because she was so grounded in the knowledge that her worth came from God alone, she was able to be the most hospitable and gracious person in that entire lunchroom.  And the amazing thing was that everyone was drawn to her hospitality, regardless of where they sat and with whom they ate.

 The late Rev. John Claypool suggested that kind of “groundedness in grace” is the real theme of this Scripture reading in Luke.  We can be willing to take a lower seat at a dinner party instead of trying to sit at the head table because we do not need that kind of outward prop.[iii]   We are so defined by God’s abundant grace that we do not need a seat at the head table to tell us who we are.  Jesus has already done that—we are children of God, beloved and claimed.  And if we can claim that as the grounding of our being, we, too, can be as unencumbered as my friend Cicily, moving from table to table in the cafeteria, exuding Christ’s hospitality and welcome to all the different groups imaginable.

 At that same dinner party Jesus offered the host instructions for his next party’s guest list, thereby giving us another implication to living in the groundedness of grace.  “The next time you put on a dinner, don’t just invite your friends and family and rich neighbors, the kind of people who will return the favor. Invite some people who never get invited out: the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind.  You’ll be—and experience—a blessing.”

 It is important to know the people Jesus lifted out for special invitation—the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind—were people in Jesus’ community who would have never been invited to a Sabbath meal.  They would have never been invited into the table fellowship of the religious community.  The published table rules of Jesus’ day explicitly forbade invitations to “those” people.  But on that Sabbath night, Jesus directly challenged those rules.  And by doing so, he also directly challenges all good church people and their religious leaders, as well, including all of us. 

 Shred your normal guest list, he says.  Get out of the building and go out and invite to a fellowship dinner (not a mission dinner) all those people who normally would never even think to set foot in the church feast space, who would assume they were not welcome.  Let’s pause: take just a moment and think about who those folks might be…  Do you have your list?  “Now,” as John Buchanan once preached, “throw open the doors, put out a sign ‘In the name of Jesus Christ, you are welcome here, whoever you are. You are all welcome here.[iv]” And then, when they show up, sit with them, side by side, breaking bread.  Why?  Because all people are children of God, beloved and claimed.  ALL.  No exceptions.  And in God’s household that is the only thing that counts.

 With his parable of the meal, Jesus is proposing a human community based on something other than social custom, race, gender, sexual orientation, even religion itself.  He is proposing a human community based on nothing but the fact that God is its creator and therefore each person is a precious child of God.  He is proposing a human community that stands in sharp contrast to the tables in the school cafeteria, and sometimes, even in contrast to the community that gathers around THIS table.

 But let’s imagine for a moment that Jesus’ kind of community broke out in the school cafeteria as Jesus promises it will.  Maybe all the tables are round so everyone has the ability to be seen and heard.  You would walk in with your tray, carefully balancing your bread and your wine, and know that you were free to sit anywhere, with anyone.  The Mathletes are scattered in with the cheerleaders.  The band kids are trading jokes with the jocks.  The goths are hanging out with the drill team.  The drama kids are practicing lines with some of the football players.  It is all one, huge, mixed-up, gracious, loud feast where all are welcome and there are no assigned seats.  The invitation had simply said “Y’All Come, the Feast is starting!”

 And as you walk in, you hear people calling out to you, “Hey, come sit here. You are welcome to sit with us.”   And you sit down and you bless it and break the bread together. And your eyes are opened and you recognize him.  Won’t that be a day… Won’t that be a meal!  And why can’t something like that happen here, with us, and soon?