Pentecost 12C - Sunday, September 1, 2019

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Josép Reinaldo Martínez-Cubero, OHC
Pentecost 12C - Sunday, September 1, 2019

Sirach 10:12-18
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Luke 14:1, 7-14

Click here for an audio version of the sermon.

If we wanted to get a packed church this morning, all we had to do was put a sign at the top of our driveway that read: “Jesus... Pharisee... Meal... Join us this Sunday at 9AM. You don’t want to miss this juicy story of controversy only found in the Gospel of Luke. There will be provocation. Jesus will not disappoint!”

It is clear that Jesus annoys the heck out of the Pharisees. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ first Sabbath controversy appears in chapter 6. Jesus’ young disciples are hungry, and start plucking heads of grain on the field, and the Pharisees get all bent out of shape. On another Sabbath, he cures a man with a withered hand… in the temple! In chapter 11 he is invited to another dinner by another Pharisee and chastises the group for being so focused on outward appearance, and for loading the disadvantaged with burdens and not lifting a finger to ease them. And in chapter 13 he again heals on the Sabbath, a woman who had been bent over for eighteen years unable to stand up straight.

Christians of the US American persuasion tend to be comfortable with the Jesus who is the Son of God, the Word Incarnate, the healer with the gentle touch, the sage (or teacher if sage makes you uncomfortable, it’s too liberal, let’s say teacher), or Jesus the prophet. But what about Jesus who ate in unclean hands and hung around the “undesirables”. What about the Jesus who was called a glutton and drank more than his enemies considered acceptable. And what about Jesus the radical loud mouth, who said out loud what the privileged did not want to hear? That Jesus is not as easy to stomach. It is no wonder that a lot of what is known as Christianity in this country blatantly ignores Jesus’ teachings such as the one in today’s gospel lesson.   

Jesus is invited to a dinner party on the Sabbath hosted by the leader of the Pharisees. And Jesus is clearly controversial. “They were watching him closely.” Immediately after he arrives (in a passage omitted from today’s reading), he sees a man with dropsy (an illness that causes severe swelling) and he heals him, in the presence of the Pharisees. Let us remember that the Pharisees followed a strict interpretation of Jewish law, and according to their interpretation healing on the Sabbath was forbidden.

This is immediately followed by Jesus rebuking everyone there for their focus on honor and status. To those seeking the most prestigious sitting spaces at the table he tells a parable and ends it with the well-known aphorism: "For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted". To the host he says, “When you throw a party, don’t just invite your friends and relatives and rich people. Invite the poor, the blind, the lame, and the crippled; people who can’t ever return the favor.” This is a radical critique of the social and political practices of that time and place.

The Ancient Middle East culture was focused on honor and shame, and this meant every move people made was calculated to increase their honor and decrease their shame. This was especially true about dinner parties. It was a big deal who was invited and who got to sit where. These details dictated the guest list and the seating arrangement of the next party. Every interaction was calculated to benefit one’s reputation. Jesus challenges the host to do something radical: to go outside the circle of influence and patronage and to invite those who could never return the favor, and who could never, according to social norms, adequately express their gratitude.

Ancient Rome was structured politically like a pyramid, with the emperor at the top. Everything good flowed from the emperor, and there was very little left by the time it reached the masses at the bottom. Gifts, mostly in the form of economic benefits, flowed down, and gratitude, both in the form of appreciation but more often as taxes, flowed up. We would like to think that these social issues are things of the first-century world of the New Testament and not problems of the western democracy of our time. But social distinctions do matter far too often in our time, even in Christian communities. What was explicit in the ancient world is implicit in our contexts.

Democracy was initially meant to offer a fair, more equitable alternative to systems of patronage and feudalism. But as commercial interests have overtaken democratic ideals, things have changed. Politicians in this nation, for instance, are bound to lobbyists, political action committees, and corporations that give them millions and millions of dollars to run their campaigns. Politicians are then much more likely to vote for the policies those groups want. Our country’s founders hoped to create a society that operated differently, but we have ended up with yet another pyramid culture in which power and money are concentrated at the very top.

And that is why this story in the Gospel of Luke is still so relevant today. Jesus calls us to seek to live by a different social system marked by radical inclusion. Jesus calls us to reach out to the poor, the blind, the lame, and the crippled. And who are these people in our day? They are those are the margins of society: the LGBTQ teenagers who are thrown out of their homes by their “religious” parents because of their sexual orientation; the margins of society: the transgender person terrified of how government policies will impact their life; the margins of society; the immigrant who has lived in this country for decades, working hard and now lives in fear of being deported; the margins of society; the asylum seekers who are being treated like they are less than human by our nation’s government; the margins of society: the person of color who has been profiled and wrongly imprisoned; the margins of society: the Muslim person who is looked upon with suspicion, prejudice, or even rage.

Jesus calls us to promote the Reign of God he founded here on earth; a reign for which the currency is humility, not arrogance; generosity, not avarice; hospitality, not fear. Jesus calls us to the God who reverses our priorities, hierarchies and values. The banquet at Jesus’ table is the banquet of the God of infinite mercy and love. A mercy and love that is available to every single one of us. No one is excluded.

¡Que así sea en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo! ~Amen+