All Parable-y and Junk

 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.”

Well, that’s just great!  He told them a parable.  He just HAD to go and make it a parable, didn’t he!  Because if it wasn’t a parable, this whole lesson would just be about having good manners.  But no, Jesus went and made it a parable which means the lunch isn’t about lunch and the wedding banquet in the parable isn’t about chicken or fish.

Because he went and made it a parable we know he was trying to tell the people something they would find hard to hear.  His parables always started with something easy and familiar, like lunch, to draw people in but then always took a turn into something much more challenging.  Jesus starts this parable with a light, friendly, luncheon, set out in the shade of a backyard tree.  Sounds lovely!  But then Jesus turns it so the guests at this lunch aren't your comfortable friends, but people the world is often uncomfortable with... the poor, crippled, lame, and blind.

  

But that’s just Jesus getting warmed up because he isn’t asking us to find “A” person and invite them to a one-off meal, Jesus is calling us all into deeper, forever relationships with all people, starting (as he always does) with the least, the lost, and the last.  Where the world says NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) Jesus insists on LIMBY (Lunch in My Back Yard)!  Jesus is challenging us to build a deep, thriving community, right here and right now that includes ALL people.  And suddenly we find that Jesus has taken us from talking about a comfortable backyard luncheon with friends to talking about the Kingdom of God.

So lunch wasn’t just about lunch and as you might suspect, dinner isn’t just any dinner.  It’s a banquet.  But not just any banquet… it’s a wedding banquet!  And when Jesus starts talking about Wedding Banquets he’s absolutely talking about nothing less than the Kingdom of God.  And when Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God, he’s not talking about the sweet by and by either.  He’s talking about this, day in day out, figure out dinner, commute to work, pick up a refill at the CVS, and do your homework world.  And as Michael Curry always says, he’s talking about changing THAT everyday world from the nightmare it is for so many into the dream God has for it. 

While the world’s way leads much too often to great disparities, with a few having much and many not having nearly enough, God’s Kingdom is the vision of our world transformed so that it works as an all inclusive banquet that never runs out.  Like the prophet Isaiah describes, it’s a feast with meats rich with marrow and well aged wines strained clear... a world where everyone has enough.

But even with all of that, Jesus still isn’t quite finished making things all parable-ly and difficult.  Because now Jesus says, “When YOU give a banquet.”  Yup, it gets harder, because this is OUR banquet to give... our world to change.  Not alone, thank God!  Not without God… but together, as God’s people we are called, as Martin Luther King said, to bend the arc of the moral universe slowly toward justice.  

Over these most recent years bending that arc toward justice has felt particularly difficult.  It’s easy in these times to get knocked down doing that work and think, “How is it that I… or even us at Christ Trinity Church is supposed to do THAT kind of impossibly heavy lift?”  But when that happens to me… and it does on a regular basis… I lean on a quote from our Jewish friends that says, “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now.  Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”  

Jesus is telling US a parable.  Which means we are being called to host much more than just a jaunty backyard lunch for friends or a happy summer dinner party.  Jesus is calling us to continue to create and grow those things we’ve taken to calling Corners of Kindness… micro examples of what the Kingdom of God is all about… places that welcome ALL people into our community.  Then, together, continue to work together to grow those Corners of Kindness bigger and bigger so that each day the world around us looks just a little bit more like the Kingdom of God.  Amen.