Work in the Realm of God
Work in the Realm of God
Luke 14:1, 7-14
Christian Community Presbyterian Church
Bowie, Maryland
24 September 2017
Formal table fellowship is complicated. A lot of us have faced the perplexity of the extra forks and spoons in a formal table setting: Which one do I use with which course? (Basic rule of thumb is to use the fork or spoon on the outside first.)
I suspect, however, that few of us have dealt with the often very diplomatic problems of seating people. It is supposedly a social no-no to have an odd number of persons at the table. That is because in a formal setting people are to engage in conversation with their neighbors. Gentlemen are supposed to speak first with the lady on the right, and then during the next course to converse with the lady on the left. This continues through the meal. Did you notice the underlying seating arrangement? Male, female, male, female, etc., with the honored male guest next to the female host and the honored female guest (usually spouse) next to the male host. The fun of placing the rest of the guests is in avoiding having ill-matched guests sitting next to each other.
So much for formal social etiquette. I don’t think that was a problem for the Pharisee host at the meal reported in today’s scripture. My question about that scene is this: Where was Jesus at the table? Was he miffed that the host asked someone else to sit in the seat of honor? Whatever his personal reaction, he offered an two observations. We usually think of the one about guests because it comes first. But in reality, Jesus made two parallel admonitions, as you can see in this slide.
Jesus treats seat-coveting guests with the same disdain as connection-grubbing hosts: When invited, do not sit high up; when inviting, do not invite cronies. When invited, do sit low; when inviting, invite those ignored. Then you will be honored, then you will be blessed.
Guests often seize prominence in order to grasp honor. The problem with that is that honor cannot be claimed, it can only be given. Jesus says to go to the least important seat. Honor is in being asked to move up. The Greek word translated here as ‘honored’ is the word doxa which is usual rendered as ‘glory’ or ‘praise,’ as in ‘doxology,’ “Glory be to..., Praise to....” Jesus points hearers beyond any peer-given honor to the glory that belongs rightfully to God. In other words don’t get beyond who you are.
The same basic point is made about hosts who invite noble personages to their table in order to have the favor returned. Hosts are no more free from the quest for recognition than guests are. Alan Culpepper, in The New Interpreter’s Bible, says that “the community and sharing of life and bread that takes place at table is too sacred to be perverted for our private gain.”(1)
Jesus lists equal numbers of those to not invite and to invite. Don’t invite friends, brothers or sisters, relatives, or rich friends; but do invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. In other words, invite those who have no chance for an invitation. Our treasure is not in the starred contacts on our phones; it’s in our relationship with God who gladly hosts the least, the last, and the lost; the imprisoned, the sick, the friendless, the hungry, the homeless, the oppressed, the immigrant.
We live in a world that looks very much like that dinner party that Jesus attended. It seems that everyone is grasping for the biggest, best, shiniest, most this or that which can be had. That’s the best seat at the table, the corner office, the flashiest prestige, the most significant award, or the best invitation. Everything is geared toward personal economic potential (What’s in this for me?) rather than community good (How can I help others?). Jesus argues that workers in the realm of God don’t assume places of privilege (status, elitism, class, etc.). Their privilege comes solely through their relationship with God, a relationship based on grace, not self-serving fawning or merit.
Many of us are victims of human privilege – the expectations of others (parents, teachers, employers, society in general) that we will behave ourselves, not rock the boat, or in the idiom of our Appalachian kinfolk, “not get above our raising.” At the same time many of us are recipients of privilege – we come from good stock, grew up on the right side of the tracks, been to the best schools with an old school tie to prove it, and have connections that we didn’t earn. We are in the seat-grabbing and invitation-making business whether we realize it or not.
Tomorrow is Labor Day. For thirty years I was pastor for a congregation composed for the most part of people who had left behind careers in industry, academia, marketplace, and church to labor in the vocation of retirement. Having retired twenty-three months ago today, I am still a novice at this new calling. That said, it seems to me that Labor Day is a holiday that Christ’s followers ought to celebrate with gusto – whether they are preparing to be employed, unable to be employed, under-employed, over-employed, or beyond employment.
New York Times columnist and author David Brooks wrote a book several years ago, The Road to Character, in which he described two sets of virtues: resume virtues and eulogy virtues. Resume virtues are all the things we achieve, the things we put on our Who’s Who listing, the human competitive “Best in Show” awards, the Pulitzer Prizes and Oscars of our life, etc.
Eulogy virtues are the lasting, memorable things that made a difference in the world we inhabited, the people we nurtured, the causes that we embarked on. These are the things people will talk about at our funerals.
Brooks expands on these thoughts in his latest book, The Second Mountain. He likens the first mountain to getting out of school, establishing a career, and starting a family. Climbing this mountain involves making a mark in the world and managing one’s reputation. This is career orientation and forms the resume virtues. First mountain people are the seat- grabbing guests and connection-coveting hosts that Jesus describes.(2)
Brooks then goes on to say that people then get knocked off that mountain by some life-altering tragedy. That could be divorce, job displacement, death of a parent, child, or spouse, catastrophic disease, or addiction. As the person struggles to get their life righted and reoriented, the climb of the second mountain begins. This new climb is the search for life’s deeper meaning, the understanding of true relationships, and the developing of what will become the eulogy virtues. This is a shift from career – What am I doing, where am I going? – to vocation – What am I here for?
Emilie Townes, in commenting on these verses in Luke’s Gospel, says that the realm of God is about “how God offers an invitation in our lives to receive a genuine blessing when we learn that it is crassly unfaithful to store up spiritual brownie points to note our goodness and then make it worse by ostentatious displays of that goodness.”(3) There is nothing that we can do on our own to display our worth so that we can work ourselves into a deeper relationship with God. A first mountain emphasis on resume virtues will never get us close to God.
Townes continues, “God asks us to live into our createdness through our everyday acts toward each other and in and through our relationship with God and creation. Jesus wants us to understand that our all-too-human drive to seek the best seat in the house or at the party will not mark genuine participation in God's mercy or love.”(4) In other words, don’t race for the best seats and don’t cater to better invitations. Rather, begin climbing the second mountain; move beyond resume virtues and develop eulogy virtues.
Jesus encouraged his hearers to refocus their sights, to move from exalting themselves to exalting and serving others. C. S. Lewis wrote, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.”
Rodney Sadler, Bible professor at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, is struck that the text of Apostles’ Creed jumps directly from “born of the Virgin Mary” to “suffered under Pontius Pilate.” He says that “Jesus' whole life is somehow hidden in the comma between one phrase and the next. No mention is made of his parables, his sermons, his instructions to his disciples. There are no exhortations in the creed to humility or any other virtue.” Sadler continues, “Is this an unfortunate omission? Could it be that all the teachings are made manifest in the cross and the resurrection? ‘Those who humble themselves will be exalted.’”(5)
The Apostle Paul quotes an early creed in the second chapter of his Letter to the Philippian Church when he asks that the same mind be in his readers as was in Christ Jesus:
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death —
even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:5-11 NRSV)
Jesus demonstrates what work in the realm of God’s rule looks like. It is not narcissistic or arrogant. It is community conscious. It means sitting at the far end of life’s tables and benefiting those who have no benefits.
You and I are not going to achieve this new perspective on life over night. Yet we can begin in small ways to move from self-promotion to community building. When we move about the sanctuary offering and receiving Christ’s peace, we can make an effort to greet someone we don’t know. When we are at a fellowship meal, we can sit with someone we rarely see. In the lunchroom we can sit with the girl or boy who sits alone. When we listen to someone whose theological or political views are different from ours, we can listen to learn and understand rather than to rebut their thoughts.
I am sure that in the context of your daily lives, you meet people who need to be invited out of the low seats of weariness and invisibility, such as the harried check-out clerk or the beleaguered waiter. You can welcome them to higher seats of hospitality and hopefulness with a smile, a compliment, a word of encouragement, a genuine expression of gratitude.
And if we examine our own lives, I’m sure we can find things we don’t need to do or connect with so that we can enjoy being enriched without them.
We don’t know why Jesus got invited to the Pharisee’s house. What we do know is that Jesus is the host for the table that is set before us here. None of us have any claim to be invited, yet Jesus has saved the best seats for us. There is nothing that any of us can add to Jesus’ celebrity status by being here. This meal is a free gift from the one who shakes up the status quo and who offers abundant life. That’s his vocation, the one he invites each of us share in.
Working in God’s realm is a life-long challenge. May the Spirit bless us with this employment.
Amen.
(1) Culpepper, R. Alan, “Luke,” The A New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), vol ix, 287.
(2) Brooks, David, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life (New York: Random House, 2019), xx.
(3) Townes, Emilie M., “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), Year C, vol. 4, Proper 17.
(4) Ibid.
(5) Sadler, Rodney Jr, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), Year C, vol. 4, Proper 17.
Luke 14:1, 7-14
Christian Community Presbyterian Church
Bowie, Maryland
24 September 2017
Formal table fellowship is complicated. A lot of us have faced the perplexity of the extra forks and spoons in a formal table setting: Which one do I use with which course? (Basic rule of thumb is to use the fork or spoon on the outside first.)
I suspect, however, that few of us have dealt with the often very diplomatic problems of seating people. It is supposedly a social no-no to have an odd number of persons at the table. That is because in a formal setting people are to engage in conversation with their neighbors. Gentlemen are supposed to speak first with the lady on the right, and then during the next course to converse with the lady on the left. This continues through the meal. Did you notice the underlying seating arrangement? Male, female, male, female, etc., with the honored male guest next to the female host and the honored female guest (usually spouse) next to the male host. The fun of placing the rest of the guests is in avoiding having ill-matched guests sitting next to each other.
So much for formal social etiquette. I don’t think that was a problem for the Pharisee host at the meal reported in today’s scripture. My question about that scene is this: Where was Jesus at the table? Was he miffed that the host asked someone else to sit in the seat of honor? Whatever his personal reaction, he offered an two observations. We usually think of the one about guests because it comes first. But in reality, Jesus made two parallel admonitions, as you can see in this slide.
Jesus treats seat-coveting guests with the same disdain as connection-grubbing hosts: When invited, do not sit high up; when inviting, do not invite cronies. When invited, do sit low; when inviting, invite those ignored. Then you will be honored, then you will be blessed.
Guests often seize prominence in order to grasp honor. The problem with that is that honor cannot be claimed, it can only be given. Jesus says to go to the least important seat. Honor is in being asked to move up. The Greek word translated here as ‘honored’ is the word doxa which is usual rendered as ‘glory’ or ‘praise,’ as in ‘doxology,’ “Glory be to..., Praise to....” Jesus points hearers beyond any peer-given honor to the glory that belongs rightfully to God. In other words don’t get beyond who you are.
The same basic point is made about hosts who invite noble personages to their table in order to have the favor returned. Hosts are no more free from the quest for recognition than guests are. Alan Culpepper, in The New Interpreter’s Bible, says that “the community and sharing of life and bread that takes place at table is too sacred to be perverted for our private gain.”(1)
Jesus lists equal numbers of those to not invite and to invite. Don’t invite friends, brothers or sisters, relatives, or rich friends; but do invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. In other words, invite those who have no chance for an invitation. Our treasure is not in the starred contacts on our phones; it’s in our relationship with God who gladly hosts the least, the last, and the lost; the imprisoned, the sick, the friendless, the hungry, the homeless, the oppressed, the immigrant.
We live in a world that looks very much like that dinner party that Jesus attended. It seems that everyone is grasping for the biggest, best, shiniest, most this or that which can be had. That’s the best seat at the table, the corner office, the flashiest prestige, the most significant award, or the best invitation. Everything is geared toward personal economic potential (What’s in this for me?) rather than community good (How can I help others?). Jesus argues that workers in the realm of God don’t assume places of privilege (status, elitism, class, etc.). Their privilege comes solely through their relationship with God, a relationship based on grace, not self-serving fawning or merit.
Many of us are victims of human privilege – the expectations of others (parents, teachers, employers, society in general) that we will behave ourselves, not rock the boat, or in the idiom of our Appalachian kinfolk, “not get above our raising.” At the same time many of us are recipients of privilege – we come from good stock, grew up on the right side of the tracks, been to the best schools with an old school tie to prove it, and have connections that we didn’t earn. We are in the seat-grabbing and invitation-making business whether we realize it or not.
Tomorrow is Labor Day. For thirty years I was pastor for a congregation composed for the most part of people who had left behind careers in industry, academia, marketplace, and church to labor in the vocation of retirement. Having retired twenty-three months ago today, I am still a novice at this new calling. That said, it seems to me that Labor Day is a holiday that Christ’s followers ought to celebrate with gusto – whether they are preparing to be employed, unable to be employed, under-employed, over-employed, or beyond employment.
New York Times columnist and author David Brooks wrote a book several years ago, The Road to Character, in which he described two sets of virtues: resume virtues and eulogy virtues. Resume virtues are all the things we achieve, the things we put on our Who’s Who listing, the human competitive “Best in Show” awards, the Pulitzer Prizes and Oscars of our life, etc.
Eulogy virtues are the lasting, memorable things that made a difference in the world we inhabited, the people we nurtured, the causes that we embarked on. These are the things people will talk about at our funerals.
Brooks expands on these thoughts in his latest book, The Second Mountain. He likens the first mountain to getting out of school, establishing a career, and starting a family. Climbing this mountain involves making a mark in the world and managing one’s reputation. This is career orientation and forms the resume virtues. First mountain people are the seat- grabbing guests and connection-coveting hosts that Jesus describes.(2)
Brooks then goes on to say that people then get knocked off that mountain by some life-altering tragedy. That could be divorce, job displacement, death of a parent, child, or spouse, catastrophic disease, or addiction. As the person struggles to get their life righted and reoriented, the climb of the second mountain begins. This new climb is the search for life’s deeper meaning, the understanding of true relationships, and the developing of what will become the eulogy virtues. This is a shift from career – What am I doing, where am I going? – to vocation – What am I here for?
Emilie Townes, in commenting on these verses in Luke’s Gospel, says that the realm of God is about “how God offers an invitation in our lives to receive a genuine blessing when we learn that it is crassly unfaithful to store up spiritual brownie points to note our goodness and then make it worse by ostentatious displays of that goodness.”(3) There is nothing that we can do on our own to display our worth so that we can work ourselves into a deeper relationship with God. A first mountain emphasis on resume virtues will never get us close to God.
Townes continues, “God asks us to live into our createdness through our everyday acts toward each other and in and through our relationship with God and creation. Jesus wants us to understand that our all-too-human drive to seek the best seat in the house or at the party will not mark genuine participation in God's mercy or love.”(4) In other words, don’t race for the best seats and don’t cater to better invitations. Rather, begin climbing the second mountain; move beyond resume virtues and develop eulogy virtues.
Jesus encouraged his hearers to refocus their sights, to move from exalting themselves to exalting and serving others. C. S. Lewis wrote, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.”
Rodney Sadler, Bible professor at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, is struck that the text of Apostles’ Creed jumps directly from “born of the Virgin Mary” to “suffered under Pontius Pilate.” He says that “Jesus' whole life is somehow hidden in the comma between one phrase and the next. No mention is made of his parables, his sermons, his instructions to his disciples. There are no exhortations in the creed to humility or any other virtue.” Sadler continues, “Is this an unfortunate omission? Could it be that all the teachings are made manifest in the cross and the resurrection? ‘Those who humble themselves will be exalted.’”(5)
The Apostle Paul quotes an early creed in the second chapter of his Letter to the Philippian Church when he asks that the same mind be in his readers as was in Christ Jesus:
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death —
even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:5-11 NRSV)
Jesus demonstrates what work in the realm of God’s rule looks like. It is not narcissistic or arrogant. It is community conscious. It means sitting at the far end of life’s tables and benefiting those who have no benefits.
You and I are not going to achieve this new perspective on life over night. Yet we can begin in small ways to move from self-promotion to community building. When we move about the sanctuary offering and receiving Christ’s peace, we can make an effort to greet someone we don’t know. When we are at a fellowship meal, we can sit with someone we rarely see. In the lunchroom we can sit with the girl or boy who sits alone. When we listen to someone whose theological or political views are different from ours, we can listen to learn and understand rather than to rebut their thoughts.
I am sure that in the context of your daily lives, you meet people who need to be invited out of the low seats of weariness and invisibility, such as the harried check-out clerk or the beleaguered waiter. You can welcome them to higher seats of hospitality and hopefulness with a smile, a compliment, a word of encouragement, a genuine expression of gratitude.
And if we examine our own lives, I’m sure we can find things we don’t need to do or connect with so that we can enjoy being enriched without them.
We don’t know why Jesus got invited to the Pharisee’s house. What we do know is that Jesus is the host for the table that is set before us here. None of us have any claim to be invited, yet Jesus has saved the best seats for us. There is nothing that any of us can add to Jesus’ celebrity status by being here. This meal is a free gift from the one who shakes up the status quo and who offers abundant life. That’s his vocation, the one he invites each of us share in.
Working in God’s realm is a life-long challenge. May the Spirit bless us with this employment.
Amen.
(1) Culpepper, R. Alan, “Luke,” The A New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), vol ix, 287.
(2) Brooks, David, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life (New York: Random House, 2019), xx.
(3) Townes, Emilie M., “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), Year C, vol. 4, Proper 17.
(4) Ibid.
(5) Sadler, Rodney Jr, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), Year C, vol. 4, Proper 17.
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