Lowest Seat, Highest Grace

If you feel compelled to take a selfie, you must do so at the bar before joining your party.

If you're meeting new friends, a few minutes late is fine.

If it's work, be on time. If it's your boss, be early.

Butter knife, salad fork, second course fork, soup spoon, meat knife,

first course knife Can you order two courses?

Really, it's best to follow the lead of the person who extended the invitation

But of course, always leave some for mismanners,

I learned these tips, among others, from a curious person, William Hansen Who,

and I didn't know this was a job,

is an etiquette coach And host of something called The Luxury Podcast A weekly

show who opens each episode by stating,

If you want to be so much better than your neighbor next door Then this is the podcast for you.

It is evident, then, of course, that the etiquette of polite society is at clear

odds with the etiquette of Jesus.

And today, that incongruity is made especially clear as our gospel passage takes place where?

At a sort of dinner party.

Our friends at the Luxury Podcast now would say that calling it a dinner party

is what they call common, and instead to say candlelight supper, but I digress.

So for the second consecutive Sunday, our gospel involves some kind of faux

pas around the observation of the Sabbath.

In last Sunday's gospel, from Luke's 13th chapter, Jesus heals a woman crippled

by a spirit that had tormented her for 18 long years.

Healed immediately by Jesus, readers are surprised by the response of the crowd Rather than amazement,

onlookers are indignant The leader of the synagogue even rebukes Jesus,

saying There are six days on which work ought to be done Come on those days and be cured,

and not on the Sabbath day.

Now today, we fast forward to Luke's 14th chapter, and we again find ourselves on the Sabbath.

But this time, Jesus is not on his way to heal, but instead to eat.

Our selection opens, Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees

to eat a meal on the Sabbath.

This shared meal would be a quintessential activity to mark the beginning of

the Sabbath, or what we might hear referred to as Shabbat.

These aren't just dinner parties, but they're ritual meals.

A meal like this usually begins with song and the lighting of candles while

reciting the following blessing.

Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has commanded us to

kindle the Shabbat lights.

Then comes the Kiddush, a blessing made over a cup of wine before lifting the

covering over the challah bread and having each guest eat a slice.

This, apart from going to synagogue, which wouldn't have been normal practice

in that day, would have been an essential Sabbath practice.

So Jesus enters the house of a leader of the Pharisees, and it is quite readily

apparent that he is not the guest of honor.

Our narrator remarks they were watching him closely.

We, of course, can read into this any number of ways,

but to me it signals they were paying close attention to how Jesus will either

honor or disrupt the traditions and the customs involved in this Sabbath observance.

Jesus' opening parable is perhaps

a consequence of noticing his status as persona non grata at this meal.

And so he channels his own inner etiquette coach and offers advice regarding the seating chart.

Rather than sitting at the place of honor, Jesus suggests to seek out the lowest

place, so that they do not get asked to move when a guest of greater honor arrives.

On the surface, this seems like a morsel of advice that we might find on something

like the Luxury Podcast.

But Jesus quickly reverses course and upends any notion that he adheres to this

ethic of polite society.

He goes right ahead and gives advice to the person who invited him to their home. And he says.

He says,

There are a number of ways that we can interpret this.

The most obvious interpretation is simple, and it's literal,

and I think it's quite right.

In this sense, Jesus offers us a very clear and material commandment.

Our companionship and our hospitality is not some kind of tool.

It's not transactional We don't offer hospitality because of what our guests

can offer us We offer hospitality often in spite of that fact,

Understanding and even encouraging our guests,

To be friendless or lonely or hungry,

We might think about our own lives and the dinner parties that we throw or attend

and this passage might cause us to measure these events up against the radical

ethic that Jesus presents before us.

And we too might consider the ways that we have exemplified this ethic,

whether we've invited our widowed neighbor to Thanksgiving or bought Christmas

presents for foster children or volunteered to serve a meal for the hungry at Church of the Advocate.

And while we are unmistakably called to do these things, I'm not sure that's

what Jesus is ultimately getting at.

I'm skeptical of us cultivating an ethic whose natural conclusion places us as the hero,

doing good for those who have little to nothing to offer us,

making ourselves in this parable vessels of Christ's love for the needy and the broken.

It is far more comfortable to imagine ourselves as the one called to prepare

dinner to curate a holy guest list than it is for us to imagine ourselves as poor,

crippled, lame, blind with our survival entirely contingent on the goodwill of others.

We do not imagine ourselves, I don't think, limping to the table with bowls

empty and praying for a seat even at that table's furthest edges.

We don't envision ourselves as persona non grata at the dinner party.

But if our ritual meal is the Eucharist, our version of the Sabbath is the Eucharist,

then our place at the table becomes much clearer.

Jesus' actions on the Sabbath make our relationship to God clear.

In healing the crippled woman, Jesus demonstrates to us that healing is not

the labor and work of man, but a gift from God.

And in his Sabbath meal declaration, Jesus demonstrates that we can show up

at God's table just as we are and be received as the guest of honor.

In God's economy and at God's table, there is no stratification.

Each and every one of us is beloved equally.

We each in our own right are poor or blind, and yet God's favor is unlimited,

eternally available to us, without needing to be earned.

Or, as the prayer of humble access in our prayer book proclaims,

we do not presume to come to this thy table, O merciful Lord,

trusting in our own righteousness, but in your abundant grace and mercies.

The sacrament of Holy Communion makes that materially evident for us,

gathering us all together at Christ's table to receive the gift of God's grace

in Christ's body and blood, made real and present in bread and wine.

And in this we are strengthened and we receive a foretaste of the banquet that

is to come, the heavenly banquet.

So let us all come before the table, each and every one of us,

with all that we are, with our holiness and our sinfulness,

knowing that even empty-handed, we always come with enough to experience the

fullness of God's love and grace, and that we are all seen as one in the eyes of God.

That is the etiquette of Jesus. Amen.

Thanks for listening to 60 Church Street, a podcast of Trinity Episcopal Church

in Asheville, North Carolina.

Now, go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

The Homily was offered by the Rev. Mike Reardon.

Introduction and closing reflections were shared by the Rev. Amy Peterson.

Musical contributions were performed by Dr. Kevin Seal.

Sermon audio was prepared by Nanette Popa. Production was guided by Karen Marie Frederiksen.

Thank you.