Year C
 Sirach 10:12-18
 Psalm 112
 Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
 Luke 14:1, 7-14

May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth…

I’m guilty…  I’ve gotten better…  but sometimes…  when I’m invited to an open house…  a party…  a wedding…  or a family member’s Bar or Bat Mitzvah…  I wonder who else has been invited…  I compare myself to those imagined guests…  who do I think may in some way…  be better than me…  socially…  financially…  or not…  I wonder when seating assignments are made…  with whom I will be seated…  will I know them…  like them…  be able to make dinnertime conversation with them…  and about what…  ] or will I…  once the dancing starts and seats at other tables become available…  will I move over so I can sit…  at least for a time…  with someone I already know and like…  and will I be found out…  will my lateral move to another table be noticed by the hosts…  the bride and groom…  or the parents of the thirteen year old…  and will I have to relinquish my self-determined place of honor…  for what I experience as…  a lower place…

Who here has been to George Vanderbilt’s luxurious country home… Biltmore…  in Asheville, NC…  at Biltmore…  there doesn’t seem to be any place that could be considered lower…  dinner was such an elaborate and ceremonious affair…  that the event required some of the most extravagant attire of the era… women’s dresses were made of luxurious silks and satins…  adorned with their finest jewels…  men wore white tie…  and of course everything had to be spotless…

And an early inventory in Biltmore’s archives shows that there were 1,139 linen napkins and 111 linen tablecloths in the home’s collection… all of which were handmade…  and most were monogrammed by Paris’ famous needleworker Madame Dufoir…  and yes…  dinner customs of the era required seating assignments for formal meals…  often identified using hand-calligraphied name cards at each place setting…  and it was common for Edith Vanderbilt to keep this kind of record in her archive…  ] and whether for grand banquets or intimate family meals…  the Vanderbilt’s head butler and his staff attested to the grandeur of America’s Gilded Age…  and spared no finery in setting the Banquet Hall table…  spread with more than forty pieces of delicate porcelain…  exquisite silver…  and sparkling crystal per guest…  dinner often featured between six and ten courses…  including soup…  salad…  fish…  an entrée of roast and wild game…  the home-grown bounty of estate farms…  as many as five different wine pairings… dessert which included a combination of home-made confections and store-bought delicacies…   and of course…  coffee to aid digestion…

In this morning’s Gospel…  it’s the Sabbath again…  and while the Sabbath meal in this Gospel passage…  on Friday evening…  would have been prepared according to Jewish custom…  it could not of course risen to Biltmore’s level…  but Jesus is keenly aware that he is being watched…  and part of the reason at least…  is revealed in the missing verses…  vv. 2 – 6…  because Jesus is about to do…  what he’s done before on the Sabbath…  and what others say ought not be done…  he’s going to heal someone…  in vv. 2 – 6…  we read that…  Just then…  in front of him…  there was a man who had dropsy…  and Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees…  “Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath or not?” but they were silent…  so Jesus took him and healed him…  and sent him away…  then he said to them…  “If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well…  will you not immediately pull it out on a sabbath day?” And they could not reply to this…

And so Jesus…  ever the diplomat…  and aware of how people can compensate for embarrassment by at least trying to elevate their social status…  tells them a parable…  he says…  do not seat yourselves in the places of honor…   he says…  choose low…  not because you don’t matter…  but so you might be raised up… it’s better than playing by the rules by which you might be brought low… and be disgraced…

But we like those places of honor… don’t we…  maybe it helps us overcome the ways in which we are diminished by culture…  or told how unworthy we are…  but too often… too many seek the power that comes from those high places… and they Lord it over others… but in his book Mere Christianity… C.S. Lewis wrote…  true humility is not thinking less of yourself… it is just thinking of yourself less often…

And in today’s Gospel… Jesus also exhorts his host…  when you give a luncheon or dinner… don’t invite your friends or relatives or rich neighbors… instead invite the poor… the crippled… the lame… and the blind… because when you invite those who can reciprocate… and they do… your gift becomes a contract… and you have received all that you’re owed… 

George Vanderbilt may have made many such contracts…  by hosting these dinners and mingling with the social elite of his time… and we might imagine who he invited into his home… who might have sat in one of the thirty-eight banquet chairs the table could accommodate…  and just where the seat of honor might be… and who might have vied for it…  and what he might expect in return for the honor of being seated there…  certainly…  there was a pervasive desire to maintain proper social protocols…  but being socially correct…  doesn’t always mean being morally correct…

Craig Keener…  professor of biblical studies at Asbury Theological Seminary wrote…  while modern Western society is not based on honor and shame to the extent that ancient Mediterranean society was…  most of us still care about our reputation…  and one of the questions we need to ask…  is whether we want that reputation to be shaped by the world’s standards…  or by God’s…  or at least less by the world’s…  and more by God’s…  now that would be a step in the right direction…

But a mistake that some affluent people make…  is thinking that their wealth…  or their social position makes them better than anyone else…  more important than…  worth more than…  because the truth is that in God’s eyes…  we are all the same…  we are loved equally…  but we must remain mindful of… and guard against the pride about which Sirach warns us… in thinking that the good that comes… comes from only us…  because when we move in that direction… we move towards embracing that self-idolatry… and towards rejecting those relationships  which connect us to each other and to all of creation…  and when we are fed at this Table… to help us do that work… Jesus is our host… Jesus invites us… and our veils are lifted and we see that it’s really we who are the poor… the crippled… the lame… and the blind… and we are not invited because Jesus expects reciprocity… what we eat and drink here at this Table is undeserved new life… and gift…  it is not contract…  but covenant…  and there is nothing we could ever do… to repay Jesus for the feast we will receive at the Heavenly Banquet…  and for this we say…  Thanks be to God…