Luke 14:1, 7-14 (II); Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (II)?

Now that everyone has finished checking each other out, they are ready to eat. But, unless you have nice little name tags at your place (I wonder when those things were invented?), you have to pick a place you think is the right one for you. There are positions of honor, and there is a "pecking order" at the table.

Just to show you that there always are "pecking orders" and "more desirable seats" in human gatherings, I want to relate a story regarding my research. I spent several days in 2003 in the special collections room of the Harvard Law Library researching the papers of an early Professor at that school--Simon Greenleaf. Greenleaf was the first scholar in American history to write a treastise on the law of evidence. He also was an active Episcopalian churchman and a supporter of the popular Evangelical causes of the day (colonization society, theological education in the West, Bible societies, etc.). When I was going through his papers, I ran across the floor plan of an Episcopal Church in Cambridge or Boston. I could easily make out where the pulpit was, the pews, the chancel, etc., but what riveted my attention was the fact that the pews were "rented" pews. That is, instead of having a "freewill offering" each week (I wonder when that practice caught on?), the standard practice was for people to "rent" a pew. This then became the family pew, and the Church could meet its budget. What was fascinating to me as I studied the chart was that there were dollar amounts put in for the various pews. And most pews were assessed at different rates. The most expensive pews (ah, which pews do you think would be the most expensive ones?--maybe those in the last row, as a way of discouraging people from sitting there?!) were those about five rows from the pulpit, right in front of the pulpit. Eye contact could easily be made with the preacher from these seats. Then the "prices" of the pews declined as you moved away from direct or straight-ahead eye contact with the minister while he was in the pulpit. Humans have an almost instinctive need to recognize places of honor and access.

This illustration sheds light on the jockeying for position in Luke 14:7-11. Jesus knows that most people would want to take the place of honor. What is interesting is that those who put themselves forward to take the highest or most dignified place might be removed not to the second place but to the lowest place. The picture envisioned seems to be that everyone has taken a seat and, if you have improperly selected the place of honor, you don't, as it were "bump" everyone else. You go to the bottom of the table. And, Jesus takes pains to show that this "demotion" is really an experience of humiliation. Rather than seeking to put ourselves forward, we are to wait until we are invited up to the honored position. I give an example from Confucius' Analects in my Proverbs essay for this week to illustrate the point. The point? We get more in life if we wait for the invitations to "move up" rather than if we try to force the issue by asserting ourselves in a rash manner. Earn the trust of people over time, and they will trip all over themselves to try to elevate you.

The Guest List (vv. 12-14)

But the culminatory point of the passage is in vv. 12-14. Here Jesus assumes that you are putting on the feast, rather than attending a marriage banquet, and that you have to put together your guest list. Guest lists are put together based on a philosophy or on some kind of principle. Two popular ways to do it are because you "owe" someone who has invited you to their event or you want to "get in good" with some people and so you extend an invitation to them. You pay debts and you want to make others indebted to you. There is, of course, a third principle--that you invite people who are fun to be with, and you just want to enjoy the evening without any "strings" attached.

But Jesus will take us to a different place than this. He has not forgotten (have we?) his earlier ethical advice in his Sermon on the Mount/Plain (Luke 6). The central principle of this advice is that we are to give things to people without expecting any kind of return. We are to do good to people regardless of their ability to repay. In fact, we might delight even more in extending ourselves to people if they can't repay because, in this case, we will have a reward at the "resurrection of the righteous." In so teaching, Jesus is reversing the so-called "patronal ethics" (the term used by NT scholar Joel Green) of the day. The central principle of patronal ethics is that one is under obligation, at all times of one's life, to various people. You are indebted not simply to your family members but, perhaps even more important, to people "out there" whom you "owe" for various things they have done for you.

This is reminiscent of the story told to me by a friend who used to be a college president in the midwest. One day he said he was at lunch with one of his trustees talking about the college, when the trustee said something, and immediately took a little black book out of his pocket. He opened it, hastily scribbled something down, and then returned to the meal with my friend. My friend asked him, "What is that book you keep?" The man said, "It is my 'I-owe' book. In this book I keep track of all the ways I am indebted to people and what everyone owes me."

That, in a nutshell, is the way that society works. We work on the principle of 'owing' the other person. And, of course, not all of this is bad. If people didn't feel some kind of obligation or duty to repay acts of kindness or friendship, there probably would be a lot fewer acts of these demonstrated. But Jesus stands firmly against this kind of living, as a basic principle of our lives, in this pasage. When we give a feast, and we draw up our guest list, the basic principle of invitation is to invite those who can't repay us. They are our guests. As if to make the point more visible, Jesus lists four categories of the vulnerable ones who can't repay us: the poor, crippled, the lame, and the blind. These people are the most vulnerable ones, both in our society and theirs, because they are unable fully to care for themselves. I have been struck at the prevalence of mental illness and physical debility among our poorer citizens in America. When you not only have to fight the "system," as we all do, but have to fight it with major physical or mental debilities, you are really without much hope.

The heart of Jesus' teaching, however, is that we are not to participate in the system of the world in this way. Though he isn't fully dismissive of our system, he does emphasize that those on our guest list should be there precisely because they can't pay us back. If we are living our lives as Jesus commanded us to do in 6:35, by giving without expectation of return, we will find that inviting these most vulnerable people to our feasts is not a hard task at all.

Note, in closing, the last words of the passage. Jesus says that we will be compensated in a different way for inviting those who can't repay us--in the resurrection of the righteous. I think, however, that I can add something to Jesus' words. We might indeed be repaid later, but I suspect that if we made jesus' ethic our regular activity, we would find that we are already repaid in some strange way in this life.

Conclusion

This is very radical teaching. Make no mistake about it. Indeed, Jesus will even temper it a bit in ch. 16, when he speaks about making friends by means of unrighteous mammon, but we aren't there yet. We are fixed deeply in the advice of giving, without expecting return. And now we have a visual story, a picture, to go with Jesus' earlier teaching. We don't have many excuses to ignore him at this point, do we?

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