The table, an inanimate object, which easily becomes
cluttered with the everyday, but it is the object which stands at the focal
point of our sanctuary. Here we have the table. But why a table? Well what is
it that we use a table for, apart from, as in my case, a dumping ground?
Predominantly we gather round the table to eat, and we strive to do this as
often as we can. When I started at Westminster one of the only expectations
that was made of me was that I would aim to eat lunch in college everyday. For
lunchtime is an important time in the daily life of the college because it is
the time when the fellowship of the community can be built up, because it is
the point in the day when most of us are around whether we are student, staff,
sabbatical or visitor. It is around the table we are most at ease to welcome
those strangers into our midst, as well as leave behind the distinctions that
exist outside the dinning hall. It is where people get to know people rather
than it being a place where one tries to out wit another with some piece of
knowledge or prove they have learnt something in the past week; although that’s
not to say that sometimes conversations won’t enter in to the realms of
theology. And so it should really not come as any surprise that we find Jesus
sitting around a table eating a lot in the gospels, particularly in the gospel
of Luke. The table, as we have heard, was a place that not only provided Jesus
with the opportunity to teach, but, probably more importantly, was a place
where Jesus found that fellowship could be established and maintained. For
Jesus, as it should be for us, the table was a place where a community could
come together and bond, simply because they were all involved in the same
activity—we all have to eat. It is around the table that we learn what Jesus
was getting at in his parable to the guests and his subsequent comment to the
host; for the table is a communal place where all can come together and where
ultimately all can be welcomed, because it is a place where no distinctions
should be made.
So we have reached another point in the gospel of Luke when
it is time for Jesus to once again sit down to a meal. However, this time it is
not with his usual crowd of social outcasts and undesirables, but with, well,
people you just wouldn’t associate Jesus with. He was in the house of the
leader of the Pharisees just about to have dinner with society’s most
desirable! Did he get the wrong address? Or did he randomly pick a house on a
street and decide that was where he was going to eat on the Sabbath? No, Luke
implies Jesus was invited. Invited? Not what you would expect from a Pharisee,
but Luke does tell us that there was an ulterior motive—the Pharisees wanted to
keep an eye on Jesus (14.1). And how could Jesus refuse the opportunity for a bit
of ‘table-teaching’ with such an esteemed host and guest list. If only he
hadn’t been so obscure with his choice of words; for he told a parable which
wasn’t exactly like Jesus’ other parables, but its construct was, according to
the definition of the word ‘parable’, a parable! It was a statement being used
to convey meaning. Jesus, as in many of his parables, set about to illustrated
a point that needed to be made if the kingdom of God was to be realised. But
what was Jesus’ point, for personally on my first reading of the parable, it made
very little sense, but then I am not versed in first century Palestine
etiquette. Jesus had been sat doing a bit of social anthropology—observing the
social behaviour of this group of people he was dinning with. And this led him
to come out with a story about which seat to choose when invited to a wedding
banquet. Now, Jesus’ words could quite easily just have been heard as words of
wisdom and the indirect point Jesus had been attempting to make missed, because
the story echoes the wisdom of Solomon, particularly the two verses from
Proverbs 25 about it being better to be invited into the presence of the
king than to put yourself forward. Jesus’ words could quite easily have been
interpreted to mean that he was encouraging the social etiquette that was being
practiced, but was that really what Jesus was doing or was there something more
subtle he was observing? Was Jesus just pointing out that if a person chose a
seat in the lowest place at the table, then the host would recognise this and
give them a place of honour, or was he trying to address the attitude in which
one chose that lowest position at the table? If one sits down in the worst
chair expecting to be invited to sit in a better chair, then that is no better
than sitting in the best chair to start with. But if one sits down in the worst
chair not expecting to move, then one has acted humbly and is worthy of being
offered a better chair. Jesus’ parable was questioning the guests understanding
of what it means to act with humility and was once again challenging human
nature. He was challenging that underlying need that we have and will all feel
at one time or another, that need for recognition, for approval; that ‘well
done’ we all continually seek. Humility is not just about our actions, but
about our attitude in those actions—we can put on the persona of humility, but
are we really acting with humility if we are actually seeking recognition for
our actions? That was Jesus’ challenge to the guests at the table and is one of
the challenges Jesus posses to us at the table through this passage in Luke.
But that was not the only challenge Jesus’ table-talk raised.
Jesus didn’t just address the guests at the table, he also
addressed the host. Obviously, at the dinner party which seat the host should
sit in was not in question, but his reasoning for his guest list was. Did he
invite the old priest, Shaphan, to dinner because it was the Sabbath and he
knew Shaphan had no one else to eat with? Or did he invite him because he knew
that this would mean an invite to the old priest’s house and his housekeeper
makes exceedingly good cakes? Acting with humility is still at question here,
but the challenge has been widened. What does it mean to act with humility in
the context of hospitality? Hospitality is something the Jewish people pride themselves
in; it is bound up with the Law and in living in the footsteps of their
ancestors. Their scripture places great importance on providing for the
stranger within their midst, especially as the stranger may not just be a
stranger, but as in the story of Abraham, an angel. But there is hospitality
and there is hospitality. One can fulfil the law by doing the bear minimum or
one can act with humility, ignore all social boundaries and share all that is
available to share without any expectations. This is the hospitality Jesus is
getting at in his words to the Pharisee, the type of hospitality Jesus wasn’t
seeing, for Jesus was really the only guest who wasn’t within the bounds of the
Pharisee’s social group. The hospitality Jesus is calling for in the words he
speaks to his host at this Sabbath meal is radical hospitality and what God
requires, even from within in the bounds of the Torah, because this is what God’s kingdom is about. When the gospel
writers talk of Jesus eating with the social outcasts and undesirables they are
showing us Jesus putting this radical hospitality in to practice. That is why
the early church continued to live with radical hospitality being an important
part of their ministry, even when it was most dangerous, and why in some of the
Epistles the church is reminded of it, as in the letter to the Hebrews. Because
the Church is acting for the good of God’s kingdom, it should be a place of
radical hospitality and therefore reaching out to the margins of society, to
the poor and the needy, and welcoming them to come and eat at the table.
Fred Kaan, a
URC minister and hymn writer, wrote these words:
The church is like a table,
a table that is round.
It has no sides or corners,
no first or last, no honours;
here people are in oneness
and love together bound.
a table that is round.
It has no sides or corners,
no first or last, no honours;
here people are in oneness
and love together bound.
The church is like a table
set in an open house;
no protocol for seating,
a symbol of inviting,
of sharing, drinking, eating;
and end to ‘them’ and ‘us’.[1]
set in an open house;
no protocol for seating,
a symbol of inviting,
of sharing, drinking, eating;
and end to ‘them’ and ‘us’.[1]
Here we have a table—a table which we gather around because
it is a place where we can join together in community and build up our
community. However, here we also have a table which symbolically stands for
what the church should be—a place where it does not matter where you sit,
although you are always welcome at the front; a place where it does not matter
about nationality, ethnicity, sexuality or social standing; a place that
welcomes friend and stranger with the same mutual love; a place which witnesses
to the fellowship between God and humanity and where fellowship with God and
humanity can be found.
The church is like a table,
a table for a feast
to celebrate for healing
of all excluded feeling,
(while Christ is serving, kneeling,
a towel round his waist).[2]
a table for a feast
to celebrate for healing
of all excluded feeling,
(while Christ is serving, kneeling,
a towel round his waist).[2]
Amen
