"Banquet Etiquette"

 

Luke 14:7-14

August 31, 2025

 

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 and sisters 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.”

 

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            So much gets wrapped up in our evaluations of where we and others might be on the status charts that it can become an embarrassment when we get it wrong.

“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.” [Luke 14:8-10]

            Jesus seems to have been very familiar with the kind of setting he describes.  The gospels talk about him having supper at the home of Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary.  They mention him eating at the house of somebody named Simon the Leper.  He invited himself to dinner at Zacchaeus’s house.  There was a wedding in Cana of Galilee where he saved the day by turning water into wine.  And his very last gathering with all of his disciples together was a holiday meal, a Passover seder, where he was not a guest, but the host.

            Formal occasions, public events, and even a lot less formal get-togethers where people don’t necessarily know everyone well, are full of those embarrassing moments.  Weddings, funerals, even fundraising dinners, all have their goof-ups.  Luncheons or banquets put all kinds of social interactions on display.  In Jesus’ time, especially, people paid a lot of attention to the seating as a reflection of people’s social standing – and a lot of things played into those calculations.  What was your relation to the host?  Did you hold some sort of religious or political office?  Could you be expected to return the invitation sometime?  Were you on good terms with the other guests?

            One of my friends, who is a lawyer, was at a dinner for some group or another in Washington, where he was living, and didn’t really know anybody yet.  So he walked in and tried to find a seat right away because the tables were filling up, and he saw a table with an open spot. He went over and did the proper, “Is this seat taken?” thing.  A man was sitting there who gestured to an empty chair and my friend sat down and they began talking.  They actually kind of hit it off, which is not guaranteed in that kind of setting.  After awhile they realized they hadn’t exchanged names and he said, “By the way, I’m Marty.”  “And I’m Pete.” The table filled up and the dinner went on and then came the speeches.  The main speaker began with the usual acknowledgements.  For one of those Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg (the notorious RBG herself) pointed out into the hall and thanked her husband Marty Ginsberg for being there.  At the end of the evening, Pete said something like, “I’m sorry I didn’t know who you were,” to which Marty replied, “If you did, neither of us would have had a real conversation.  Thanks.”

            There’s an underlying sense of deference that is capable of getting in the way of simple friendliness if we let it.  And we do.  For the most part, it’s just something to shake our heads over with regret.  “Too bad people can’t just be themselves.”  Some people find a way to work around it, at least sometimes, like Marty Ginsberg.

            There is a darker side to this, however, that Jesus also addresses.  That is that if you give into that deference, knowingly or unknowingly, you block people out.  In a book called Rediscover Jesus that the “Fitting Room” group is going to discuss on Sunday mornings this fall, the author, Matthew Kelly, says a few words about how our tendency to rank people plays out beyond the reception hall.

“The problem,” he says, “is that we value some people more than other people.  Jesus doesn’t do that.  If a hundred people died in a natural disaster in our city, this would capture our attention for days, weeks, months, or even years.  If a thousand people died on the other side of the world, we might barely think of it again after watching the story on the news.

Why do we value American lives more than African lives?  Why are we comfortable with Asian children sewing our running shoes in horrific conditions for wages that are barely enough to buy food?  What is so important?  Cheap shoes.  Cheap clothes.  Cheap drill bits.  Cheap stuff.

Would you be willing to pay a little more?  How much more?”[1]

That’s a problem far deeper than trade policy.

            Jesus knows that.  He goes right to the heart of it and lays out this crazy, radical concept of asking his followers to get out of the practice of evaluating other people generally, and specifically confronts the practice of relating to people on the basis of what we somehow get out of one another.  Forget about reciprocity.  If any kind of reward or benefit comes out of it, leave that to God to determine.  Just concentrate on people as people.

“When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers and sisters 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.” [Luke 14:12-13]

            Back to the banquet hall again.  One time I was invited to say grace at an event, and was seated at the front, next to the speaker, who was the governor.  This wasn’t in Pennsylvania but I still won’t give his name, because of what I’m about to say:  He was boring.  I tried to make small talk and I tried to touch on big subjects, and the man had no thoughts on anything and no opinions on any topic – not an observation, not an anecdote, not a knock-knock joke.  It was excruciating.  Then they brought dessert and it became worse.  The governor started talking and wouldn’t or couldn’t stop. He went on for what felt like the next half-hour between spoonfuls of his dessert about how good this pudding was, how he liked pudding, how it was probably his favorite thing in the world even though a lot of chefs never learn to make it right. This stuff, he would say, waving his spoon, for once was decent pudding, not like the cup of pudding that he ate at a similar banquet the previous week.  Did he mention how much he liked pudding?  Rice pudding, chocolate pudding, tapioca pudding, banana pudding; he liked them all except vanilla, which was too bland for him unless they were going to top it off with something that had real flavor – because he liked pudding you could really taste.  I was relieved when it was time for him to give his speech, but I was also afraid he was going to tell everybody how much pistachio pudding had changed his life or propose a ban on Jello.

            How I wished that day to be seated way at the back, near the kitchen or maybe even the exit.  What a relief it would have been to sit next to someone who could talk intelligently about the weather. 

Then again, maybe in his way he was emotionally or socially one of

“the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind,”

and I myself was too blind to see it, all because of where the two of us were both seated next to each other on the dais.

            Sometimes Jesus knows us all too well.

 

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[1] Matthew Kelly, Rediscover Jesus: An Invitation (North Palm Beach, Florida: Blue Sparrow Press, 2019), 85.

"Burn on, not Out"

 Revelation 3:14-22

August 24, 2025

 

¹⁴ “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the origin of God’s creation:

¹⁵ “I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. ¹⁶ So, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. ¹⁷ For you say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.’ You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. ¹⁸ Therefore I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, and white robes to clothe yourself and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen, and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. ¹⁹ I reprove and discipline those whom I love. Be earnest, therefore, and repent. ²⁰ Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you, and you with me. ²¹ To the one who conquers I will give a place with me on my throne, just as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. ²² Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.”

 

 

            I used to be part of a clergy study group that included a Moravian, a Lutheran, two Presbyterians, and a United Methodist.  It was a sort of stereotypical version of what is called “Mainline Protestantism” and even though we had our theological differences, one of the participants referred to the group as “a bunch of radical moderates” and the name stuck.

            When I come to this last letter sent from John in exile on the island of Patmos, and read his warning to the Laodiceans, I think of what he said:

“I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot.  So, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” [Revelation 3:15-16]

It troubles me that I have heard that applied to us “radical moderates” by people who fail to recognize the deep commitment to faith as a way of life that does not need to prove itself to anyone but God, nor to call attention to itself when the spotlight should be on God’s grace given to us by the work of his Son, urged upon us daily by the Holy Spirit.

            I had a little time last week to scan the internet for items that had nothing to do with the news, and watched a few episodes of a series called “Atheist Church Audit”.  It’s done by a North Carolina man in his thirties who grew up in a conservative, Pentecostal Christian environment who now considers himself an atheist but who regularly visits a whole lot of churches of all sorts (and the occasional mosque or Mormon gathering).  He reviews his experiences, which include in-depth conversations and interactions with the people he meets there and honest, wide-ranging discussions about faith and life.

            Across the series he shares little bits and pieces of his own spiritual biography, which becomes the most moving part.  I hesitate to describe it because the story is complex and I don’t want it to come out as a cartoon version.  In this one episode about his visit to a church that was neither fundamentalist nor especially liberal, he compares the people he meets to the people among whom he spent his teenage years who left their faith, about whom he says,

“They were known as ‘Crispies’ because fire burnt them.  And I don’t think there are many people like that here.”

That was kind of a snide remark.  He went on, though, and it felt like he was going off-script.

“Also I want to tack this on as a postscript because this always happens.  If your immediate response to everything I just said is to type in the comments, ‘Well, it sounds a lot like you had a works-based religion, but did you ever have a real relationship with Jesus?’  Respectfully, shut up.

Jesus was my everything.”

[Then he choked up for a few seconds.]

“And I hope you never have to experience the pain of losing him.”

[More silence.] 

Then he finished the way he finishes all of his videos:

“My name is Jared; I’m an atheist.  Go to church.”[1]

Do I myself want to be on fire for Christ?  Yes.  Absolutely.  Do I want the same for others?  No question.  What I don’t want to see is someone burn out.  There is a time and a place for bonfires.  More often, though, there is a need for something steady.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew recounts Jesus’ words:

“You are the light of the world.  A city built on a hill cannot be hid.  No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” [Matthew 5:14-16]

To maintain a constant witness to the love of God in Christ requires a constant reliance on him that is like regularly refilling the oil in a lamp.

 

“For you say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.’ You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.” [Revelation 3:17]

 

Instead of thinking you are self-sufficient, look to him.

 

“Therefore I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, and white robes to clothe yourself and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen, and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.” [Revelation 3:18]

 

That is what keeps up the steady kind of faith that lasts through both the highs and lows of lifelong discipleship.

            I do not offer the following story as marital advice.  It is not a good model to follow, but take it for what it is worth, for God hides his wisdom everywhere:  There was once one of those game shows where they take a couple and separate them, then ask questions of one spouse to see how the other will answer.  So they sent a husband offstage and asked his wife a series of questions, one of which was, “How long has it been since he said, ‘I love you’?” and she answered, “Fifty-four years.”  Everybody laughed, but she insisted that was her answer.  Then they brought the man in and asked all the other questions before they came to “How long has it been since you told your wife, ‘I love you’?” and he said, “Fifty-four years.  I’m not good with that kind of thing, but when I said it I promised I would let her know if it ever changed, and it never has.”

 

“Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.” [Revelation 3:22]

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[1]  Jared Smith,  Why I HATE Episcopalians - Christ Church on Capitol Square - Atheist Church Audit

"Endurance"

 

Revelation 3:7-13

August 10, 2025

 

⁷ “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:

These are the words of the Holy One, the True One,
    who has the key of David,
    who opens and no one will shut,
        who shuts and no one opens:

⁸ “I know your works. Look, I have set before you an open door that no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. ⁹ I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not but are lying—I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you. ¹⁰ Because you have kept my word of endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth. ¹¹ I am coming soon; hold fast to what you have, so that no one takes away your crown. ¹² If you conquer, I will make you a pillar in the temple of my God; you will never go out of it. I will write on you the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem that comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. ¹³ Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

 

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“If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

 

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!”

 

That’s by Rudyard Kipling, and it goes for the women as well as for the men -- with appropriate adjustments.        

            Strength.  Dependability.  Consistency.  Reliability.  Put into practice, all of those become what the book of Revelation calls “endurance”.

“Because you have kept my word of endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth.”  [Revelation 3:10]

It means more than putting up with the winds of events or stoically shrugging off all suffering and every tragedy with, “This, too, shall pass,” or, “It is what it is.”  It means not getting blown off course by every wind.  It means not chasing every shiny new trend just for its shininess or its polish.

“All that is gold does not glitter. 

Not all who wander are lost.  

The old that is strong does not wither. 

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”

 

Endurance.  Above all, it means to love God, who first loved us, and never to lose track of what that.

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” [I Corinthians 13:4-7]

            The Bible has a lot of tales of endurance, and they’re almost always tales of love.  Genesis 29 tells how, when Jacob was on the run from his brother Esau, who wanted to kill him, he went to stay with his uncle Laban.

“Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel was graceful and beautiful. Jacob loved Rachel, so he said, ‘I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.’ Laban said, ‘It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man; stay with me.’  So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her.” [Genesis 29:16-20]

That was patience, and it was beautiful.

“Then Jacob said to Laban, ‘Give me my wife that I may go in to her, for my time is completed.’ So Laban gathered together all the people of the place and made a feast. But in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and he went in to her. (Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah to be her maid.)  When morning came, it was Leah! And Jacob said to Laban, ‘What is this you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?’ Laban said, “This is not done in our country—giving the younger before the firstborn. Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another seven years.’ Jacob did so and completed her week; then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel as a wife.  (Laban gave his maid Bilhah to his daughter Rachel to be her maid.) So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah. He served Laban for another seven years.” [Genesis 29:21-30]

That was endurance, and it was more than patience, and it had both love and integrity built into it.

            Endurance is an aspect of love that persists and does not let go.  Endurance is the love of the Prodigal Son’s father, watching and waiting for his return so persistently that he saw him coming down the road on his way home, long after everybody else had given up on his return. 

Endurance is an essential aspect of Christian discipleship because it is an essential aspect of the redemptive love of Jesus that we depend on to lead us, as it led him, through whatever troubles we face toward the future that God holds in store for his beloved children. 

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,”

says the book of Hebrews [12:1-2],

“let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”