30 August, 2016

Offensive Faith, Alternative Visions.

I preached some version of this text on August 28, 2016.  It's the first time in this particular congregation I've received multiple "I'm Offended" responses.  Jesus received these responses regularly, so I'm in good company.  I stand by what I've preached as being faithful to the text and the ministry of Jesus.  


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.”.



The invitations come at least once a month, more often in the late fall and early winter.  They really ramp up in December.  It’s the Gala.  Or the Big Wig Dinner. Or the Lobster Boil… The seats at these dinners start at around $200 – or buy a whole table and bring your friends for just $3000. 
As you enter the venue, you immediately notice the décor:  shiny marble floors, live plants, original art, an extravagant water fountain.  Wait staff take your outer coat in exchange for a ticket.  You are directed to the event.
When you walk into the room, you notice immediately that the host has decked out everything in their very best.  The tables are nicely arranged. Nice china and a striking array of silverware (remember to start at the outside and work your way in). Several glasses of different sizes and shapes are a part of the setting.  Ornate centerpieces decorate each table.
Off to the side there is a table where Champaign is being poured. Anxious but dutiful wait staff carry trays of butlered hors d'oeuvres  (not canapés before dinner).  The social inequality between guests and the wait staff is palpable.
Before dinner, people mill around the room noticing the place cards on each table, -- beautiful people, lovely food. 
Up in front, the raised platform – the Dias where the important and prominent people will be seated on just one side of the rectangular table – this is the mark of influence and status.  The closer you are seated to these important people, the more important you are. 
The program begins and dinner is served.  As the anxious wait staff clear the dishes and pour the coffee, there is some celebratory talk accompanied by polite applause.  There are stories or a video that’s intentionally designed to cause the tension between the heart strings and the wallet to tighten.  And there are pledge cards.
We have the scene of many fundraising situations – the stewardship drive! – Last Sunday's Tea at Plymouth Place, and, today’s gospel story.
Jesus has been invited to the gala hosted by the most prominent of the Pharisees.  Why on earth would Jesus would eat at a Pharisee’s house? They criticized Jesus for blasphemy when he forgave sins, for uncleanness when he ate with sinners!   As dinner begins, the Pharisees watch Jesus carefully. The crowd is anxious to see if he can measure up to this level of social class. 
The table talk is at first polite… who will be the next leader at the village gate? How about that foreigner that took over Eli’s father’s vineyard.  And then it gets awkward.  Jesus speaks. 
“Is it legal to heal on the Sabbath?”
This is not friendly chatter.  This is confrontational.  Jesus is challenging the accepted and cultural interpretation of the Torah.  Then without anyone asking his opinion, Jesus starts to give advice to the other guests about where they should be sitting. And to the host about who should be invited to these parties.  His opinions are contrary to the social conventions of this crowd and show disregard for the tradition. 
Surely you know someone who has thrown this type of fire bomb into a conversation.  And it’s never comfortable.  People who ask questions that shake the status quo are rarely welcome in any setting.  As one person said, “they are arsonists in the hospitality forest[i].  They delight in watching social situations become conflagrations.”    They don’t get invited back. 
Can you hear the disciples trying to hush Jesus?  “Com’on Jesus, this dinner is hosted by an influential person. He could be tapped to finance this ministry and give it some status in Israel.  Just be friendly, keep your elbows off the table, and politely eat these appetizers – Just fit in!  Be like them so we can benefit from what they have!”
But everyday of living in faith calls us to ask – or be asked – confrontational questions. 
?      Why do Christians attack people who don’t believe as you do?
?      Why is that Christian leader kowtowing to the whims of that political party? 
?      If you follow a person who claims that God is love, why are you not speaking out against hate crimes?
?      Why is the church silent about gun violence, injustices against people of color, degradation of women?
?      Why won’t you deal with your fear of discussing sex and sexuality and stop dehumanizing LGBTQ people?
?      If you worship the God of creation, why are you not doing more to defend the earth from destruction in the name of corporate greed?
Jesus was politely invited to this gala, watches how things are being done, and promptly offers unasked-for advice all the while he knows full well that he is offending every social grace of the day.  He saw how everyone there jockeyed for the best seats near the dais where they can see and be seen by the important people of the day.  He butts into the conversation and offers an alternative reality for those who are driven by status:  Humility. 
“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;”
Don’t assume you are the best. Don’t assume you have the only correct vision of reality.  Don’t seek out the recognition of others for your correctness. 
That’s an alternative reality butting against the face of a culture that does not want to hear it.  It’s impolite to raise a different perspective of reality to someone who benefits from the current culture; surely the Pharisees and those present in that dinner party expected to measure Jesus by their culture, their understanding of the world, and their standards of expected behavior.  And that did not include humility.  And it certainly did not include inviting those of lesser social status to a meal!
We too face this dilemma.  Our cultural system is at its core in favor of the dominance of EuroAmerican, white, English speaking, “Christian” power structures.  We live in a culture that is as resistant to changes in this structure as the Pharisees were in their day – after all, it favors us, it shapes us, it therefore reflects us.
In Waking Up White, Debby Irving relates a story. 
My family believed that if you don’t have anything nice to say, you don’t say anything at all.  The resulting behavior showed up as silence or swift change of topic in mid-conversation.  People who “pushed” the conversation were thought of as poorly raised and ignorant.  By being socialized not to seek out or listen to perspectives that might conflict with mine set me up to shut out or shut down the experiences of people of color as told by people of color.  Meanwhile, throughout my life the image of happy, thriving white people set against struggling people of color repeated itself in books and media.  The imbalance fed and fed again my misinterpretation of what as normal and superior.”[ii]
Indeed, Jesus is now seen by the host and the religious leaders as poorly raised and ignorant.  They too were socialized to NOT listen to perspectives that conflict with their own – to shut down the experiences and perspectives of people different from their own.  And, having been raised in that culture, they had grown to see it as normal and superior.
And we are in the same boat when it comes to our innate White Privilege.
In August 9th’s Christian Century, William Lamar puts it this way:
{Humility} is a profoundly un-American impulse. 
I'm going to interrupt this quote.  In using the term "American," Lamar is showing ethocentricity. America goes from Canada to Argentina. We are Americans, but so are Mexicans and Brazilians and Canadians. It is less ethnocentric to say USAmerican. To say we're American and Mexicans are not is an over extension of our nationalism. So I'm going to edit this quote as I read it.  
This nation is not humble. USAmericans assume that USAmerican political, economic, and foreign policy prescriptions will fix a world much older and often much wiser. Many USAmerican churches—which often seem more USAmerican than Christian—lack humility as well. Chauvinism animated their theological forebears to take the faith of the wrongfully convicted Executed One and use it as a tool for plunder. A similar chauvinism is evident in their own dog-whistling around Muslims, immigrants, sexual minorities, and black and brown people. God knows USAmerica and many of her churches need Jesus’s unsolicited advice.[iii]
Why does Jesus have to stir up trouble? Why does he criticize people who invite him into their homes? Why can’t Jesus leave a pleasant enough dinner party well enough alone? It is because Jesus understands what is at stake. For him, the reality is that the rectangular table around which the culture of the Pharisees have created their culture excludes the very children of God that they were called to center their life and ministry upon.  The reality of a cultural system that by its very nature elevates some and excludes others is unjust and does not reflect the realm of God. In the culture of God’s realm, there is no need to jockey for position, because all are equally welcome. There are no throwaways when it comes to human beings. Christians are to honor the least among us—the poor and marginalized. The very culture that the Pharisees created -- and that then defined reality for them and their identities -- seeks to exclude those who don’t fit into the created culture. 
Jesus spoke a different reality, gave unsolicited advice on how to turn the dominate culture into God’s preferred reality.  Of course it wasn’t heard with open ears – too much was at stake!  Of course it was not practical – because rationality is based upon the culture from which it is derived.  Jesus turns the reality of the Pharisees on its head.  For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
Rev. LaMar writes,
We need the imagination to see beyond what exists. We are not called to be practical. We are called to be the vanguard of a new world, a world where humility is the means of exaltation and quid pro quo is replaced by sola gratis.[iv]
As disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, we are commanded to examine carefully the culture we call “normal.”  We are commanded to seek out, listen to, and seek to understand the narratives of those who have a different perspective, a different experience of reality, a different identity – and to reconcile our “normal” with the vision of God’s round table.  
Ask the questions:
?      Why do we attack people who don’t believe as you do?
?      Why do we kowtow to the whims of this or that political party? 
?      If we follow a person who claims that God is love, why are we not speaking out against hate crimes?
?      Why are we silent about gun violence, injustices against people of color, degradation of women?
?      Why don’t we deal with our fear of discussing sex and sexuality and stop dehumanizing LGBTQ people?
?      Why are we not doing more to defend the earth from destruction in the name of corporate greed?
?      Why are we acting as legs to hold up a rectangular table instead of welcoming all to God’s Round Table?
Our General Minister John Dorhauer put this more explicitly.  Look at the back of your bulletin.  Read. Imagine.  Be the Church.
(Posted as Graphic below the endnotes)



[i] Source unknown, possibly David Lose.
[ii] Debby Irving, Walking Up White: Finding Myself In the Story of Race,  Cambridge MA:  Elephant Room Press, 2014;  p65.
[iii] William H. LaMar IV, LIVING BY THE WORD  August 28, 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Christian Century, Aug 09, 2016, accessed online: http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2016-07/august-28-22nd-sunday-ordinary-time
[iv] Ibid


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