The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost - August 31, 2025

Summary Mother Suzanne explores Jesus' teaching on table manners from Luke's Gospel, where Jesus instructs guests to take the lowest place and hosts to invite the poor rather than those who can repay them. She connects this lesson to Grace church's Thursday food ministry and shares a powerful story about welcoming an unexpected couple in need. The sermon emphasizes that God's kingdom is like a table where outcasts and oddballs are welcomed not because they're worthy, but because they're hungry and there's always room for more.

THE GOSPEL                                                                                                                                              Luke 14:1, 7-14

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, 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. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, `Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." 

Artwork: The Village Feast, by Hans Bol (1534-1593)

Transcript

Mother Suzanne:

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and said, open your mouth wide and I will fill it. In the name of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen, please be seated. Well, especially in the gospel of Luke, we find Jesus at table eating, dining, conversing, teaching, drinking. For me, it is a lovely way to display Jesus' humanity. I think often it is easy to forget that Jesus actually got hungry and probably desired good food and drink, which gave him sustenance for his journeys, interactions, healings, and teachings. Luke captures a number of these interactions and today's gospel does so, but puts a spin on things. In today's lessons, we are schooled in first century table manners, not just eating, but eating properly.

Now, that may sound kind of old-fashioned in today's world where families are busy and oftentimes don't even eat together. And if they do, many times it's with electronics. In the first century, eating at table was quite different. It truly was an event. It was a time to commune, and when doing so, there were rules that you followed. Jesus asks us to believe that our behavior at the table matters because it really does. Where we sit speaks volumes and the people to whom we choose to welcome reveals the substance of our souls. So Jesus was invited for Sabbath, a mealtime he shared with the Pharisees on this day. Arriving early, he sits and watches as his fellow guests clamor for places of honor around the table. But after observing this for a bit, Jesus calls them out with a parable. When you're invited by someone to wedding banquet, don't sit down at the place of honor, Jesus says.

Instead, go and sit down at the lowest place so that when your host comes to you, he'll say, "Friend, move up." Again, that famous verse which follows, "For all who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted." But wait, there's more. Jesus makes it a little bit more personal, turns to the host and says, "When you have a lunch or dinner, don't invite your friends, your brothers, your sisters, certainly not your rich neighbors, but instead invite the poor, the crippled. Those who can't repay you. Those are the ones to invite. Because you know what? When you do, you will be blessed because they cannot repay you.

Well, not sure how these instructions were received by those in attendance with Jesus. Man, talk about a letdown for those who were at the Sabbath meal. Probably not the words they wanted to hear. Difficult and maybe like a sucker punch. Hard to hear. But Jesus in his Jesusy way meant this parable to be hard to hear because this is the ordering of God's world. One in which the lowest place is truly the most sought after place. Last place isn't necessarily all that bad. Instead, Jesus says, last place is a place of honor and a place of nobility. Putting others first, thinking of serving rather than desiring to be served. All of these countercultural notions that the gospel of Luke keeps reminding us of even when we are eating.

Because when you think about it, there aren't many events in life that offer communion, intimacy, and camaraderie in the way that sharing a meal can. But the opposite is certainly true as well. Feasting, eating, and banqueting can also put up walls of exclusion and superiority as well. Jesus knows this. He's experienced both ends. He's been invited to so many dinners and lunches and banquets where he has witnessed the jockeying for position. And he has also been the one who has showed up with nothing. Only five loaves and two fishes. And still, he fed the masses.

Regardless, these instructions are stated so plainly by Jesus, and yet it's not that way at all, so plainly easy to do. It's hard. It's not how most of us think, let alone act or want to do. Some may think Jesus is always trying to ruin the fun. Why, Jesus, do you have to make things so hard? Can't we just enjoy ourselves? Why do we have to invite people we don't want there? Why? Well, simply, he is a God who has come to upend and reverse, to bring about the unexpected, to invite those who have never been invited, to surprise, and to bless because his ways ultimately are best as counter-cultural or foreign as they may seem or feel to us.

His ways, our best. Well, each week at Grace, we have the chance to see this parable played out on the stage, which is our campus, especially by way of Thursday mornings with church in the streets. All of us are gathered around the tables which are set up and banana boxes are filled to the brim with food ready to eat. Those who are there volunteering have been active participants in setting the table. There are no rules for who can come and who can't. Every single person is invited and welcomed. There are no seats of honor because everyone has a seat.

Everyone is shown dignity, treated with kindness, given a smile. And as I remind volunteers most weeks, smile for everyone who comes through because that may be the only smile our neighbors get all week. Abundance is on full display. Kindness is the currency in use. The same graciousness that is offered to the first guest who's been waiting for hours to receive food is offered to the last guest who shows up before everything runs out and hasn't waited a minute. The last is treated as the first and all receive an offering to dine, and no one is turned away.

This past Thursday, a couple showed up in the parish hall as we were eating lunch after mobile food pantry. I'd never seen them before and was kind of taken aback. They stumbled in, and my first question always is, "How did you get here?" They looked out of place and most of all, they looked really beat down. The woman had a lovely face and the man had bright blue eyes. They then described to me how both of them had experienced loss of health, income, job, and now the loss of a tire. They literally had a flat tire just as they pulled into the Grace parking lot, so they were stuck.

They didn't have money for food, and both of them expressed serious dietary issues. I don't normally do this. We really have a general rule that once everything is gone, things are pretty much shut down, but I felt impressed upon my spirit that I needed to help them. So I walked across the street and I made a box catering to them and their dietary needs. And with the help of one of our homeless friends, Derek, who walked it over with me, we greeted them. And upon seeing this box overflowing with food picked, especially for them, they were stunned. Both of them teared up, and the woman with a lovely face said, "You didn't turn us away." And the man with the bright blue eyes said, "You gave us the best." They perfectly said what I had been thinking about all week in this lesson.

What Jesus is teaching, they expressed. I stopped and I just shook my head and I looked up to the heavens and I smiled and I thanked God for this reminder. I cannot, I cannot stress enough how God desires us to welcome, invite, and make ready the table for others to join in wherever they are at, whatever they bring, whoever they are, and however comfortable or uncomfortable they may be, or I may be because of them. The invitation, the desire for communion with all of God's children is what Jesus is calling attention to and desiring his people to be faithful in.

And sometimes that invitation comes to those who don't expect it at all. And when it comes, they are absolutely blown away. Y'all, Jesus, his whole life is centered on inviting into the presence of God those who neither expect nor deserve such an invitation, and yet we must. Why? Because when all are welcomed and given seed, this is what happens. Dignity is restored. Hope, hope, blessed hope is gained. Friendships are made and gratitude reigns, supreme. In essence, the kingdom of God has come near. And as fellow preacher and now saint of God once said, Rachel held Evans. This is what God's kingdom is like. A bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they're rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes, and y'all, because there's always room for more. Amen.