September 01, 2013THE LIFE OF THE PARTY
Preface to the Word
The summer break is nearly over and kids are getting ready to start another school year this week. It’s a seasonal rhythm, a pattern that has been repeated over and over for many years. This seasonal rhythm is mirrored in the church and, in these parts anyway, Labor Day weekend marks the end of the break and the beginning of another program year for us.
Next Sunday will launch us into a new year of ministry with two worship services (one at 8:58 in the Fellowship Hall and one at 10:30 here in the Sanctuary) during which we’ll consecrate our commitments to discipleship for our first Engaging Faith season. If you’re on the church mailing list, you should have received by now your Engaging Faith packets. If you are visiting, you are certainly welcomed to pick one up off the Welcome Table in the entry hall if you are curious about it.
We’re also switching our attention from Genesis, which we’ve explored some this summer, to the Gospel of Luke – probably my favorite Gospel in the New Testament. For the next number of Sundays we’ll spend time with the chapters in the middle of the Luke’s book. You might recall that the presumed author of this book was not a Jew, but a Gentile convert. His Latin name was Lucas and he was a physician. For a while he traveled with the apostle Paul on his missionary journeys and became well acquainted with both the story and the tenants of this new faith that was dubbed “Christianity.”
He researched the story of Jesus and talked to a lot of people who knew him, and eventually wrote two books dedicated to someone named Theophilus – a Greek name that literally means “Love of God.” The first book he wrote is the Gospel that bears his name and the other was a sequel that we call The Acts of the Apostles.
Most of Jesus’ three-year ministry took place in the northern part of Palestine – the back hill country known as Galilee. But late in chapter nine, Luke wrote that he “set his face to go to Jerusalem,” and from that point on, everything that is reported by Luke happens as Jesus is making his way South to Jerusalem where he will be captured, tried, condemned and crucified.
Today we’ll pick up the story in Luke 14. We’re not sure where it all happened. All Luke has said is that “Jesus went through one town and village after another, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem.” (13:22) But we do know the setting for the story we’re about to hear was the home of an important religious leader and Jesus was invited to hobnob with a group of other important people at a Sabbath dinner.
Scripture Reading: Luke 14:1, 7-14
SermonI.
- It’s Labor Day weekend. Perhaps, like millions across this country, you have plans today to fire up the grill or go on a picnic. That’s the way we do it on a Labor Day weekend. But the meal we read about today in Luke was no backyard barbecue where you have a few friends over to enjoy some hamburgers and potato salad. No, this was a formal affair at the home of one of the prominentreligious leaders in town. If it were happening today here in Roseburg, it would be in one of the big, fancy homes on the hill or at the country club in the formal dining room with the massive chandelier and the fifty-foot table. Anybody who was anybody in town would be there in their gowns and tuxes, sipping Champaign and imbibing in the polite talk of the well-heeled.
- I’m not sure why Jesus was there. The first verse of chapter 14 says that he was being carefully watched. It appears that they wanted to keep an eye on this renegade rabbi who was making a name for himself. Besides, he was becoming a “somebody,” someone who was becoming popular with the people and… well anybody who was anybody was there at the dinner.
- And Jesus certainly didn’t mind good parties. In fact, one could say that Jesus painted a picture of the kingdom of God as a party; a huge banquet where people who respond to the invitation will gather around the table to enjoy a feast of food and fellowship with each other and God. In fact, inthe next chapter of Luke, chapter 15, Luke has Jesus telling three parables that involve parties. Remember those stories? In the first, a shepherd finds his lost sheep and calls his friends and neighbors to join him in a party. “Celebrate with me,” he says, “I have found my lost sheep.” In the next story, a woman finds her lost coin. She calls her neighbors and friends to a party. “Celebrate with me,” she says, “I have found my lost coin.” And in the third story a prodigal son returns home after squandering his inheritance. What does his father do? You got it! He kills the fatted calf and has a party. That’s why the author and speaker, Tony Compolo, has written a book with the name, The Kingdom of God Is a Party.
No. Jesus didn’t mind a good party. But at this party, unlike the parables Jesus told, he is dining with people who certainly did not consider themselves lost or as losers!
- Let’s you and I pay close attention to what’s going on here. After all, if the kingdom of God is like a party, and the church is in the kingdom of God business, then we need to listen up to what Jesus is saying to these well-to-do party goers at this well-to-do Pharisee’s home.
II.
- First of all, Jesus talks about the seating arrangements. Maybe you were here a couple of years ago during Lent when we displayed a scene on this stage of a typical dinner set up in the time of Jesus. There were three low tables arranged in a square, but with one side open for the servers to serve the ones sitting at the table. Everyone sat on large pillows. On one end of the table, the host sat, with honored guests on each side of him. The more important folk sat closer to the host and the less important... well, they sat toward the other end. But the problem wasthere weren’t place cards or seating charts to let people know where they stood in the line-up. You just sized up the crowd and sorted out the pecking order. That was fine if the host agreed with you. But if the host entered the room and wanted someone else to sit closer to him, you may have to get up and move down to the foot of the table.
Wouldn’t it be embarrassing to find out you’re not as important as you think you are?
So everyone at the dinner party was sizing themselves up in comparison to others. Let’s see, in comparison to that person, I’m better than he is because.... because what? What standards do we use today to measure ourselves against others?
I am better…
because I have more money
because I have an important job
because I come from a prestigious family
because I’m white
because I’ve grown up in the church.
because I give a lot of my time to charitable work or a lot of my money to good causes
because I’m a Christian and I know my Bible and I can quote scripture
because I’m a liberal, a conservative
because I’m male
because I’ve never divorced
because I have a graduate degree.
I’m better than that other person because...
- As we gather today at the table of Holy Communion – the Lord’s table, as we come to his party, as we join in the life of the church, how do we size ourselves up? How do we decide which seat to take?
- I suppose it would be just as crazy for everyone to fight over the chairs at the foot of the table, but Jesus did say that humility is more fitting when we gather at God’s table.
Fritz Ridenour wrote a commentary on the book of Romans with the title, How to Be a Christian Without Being Religious. Considering the words written by the apostle Paul, Rindenour wrote this:
“Though we may see a sin in someone else, we often fail to see the same sin in ourselves. We can point out another’s hatred but cannot recognize our own envy. We think someone else has nerve to be bragging all the time, yet fail to detect pride within ourselves...
“Before Paul had his life-changing encounter with Christ, he was an ‘ethical’ person who looked down his nose at a bad world. But when he met Christ, Paul began to see himself as he really was on the inside. Then he realized that he was no longer blameless.
“This can only happen when Christ confronts us. It only happens when we view ourselves in His light. As long as we compare ourselves with others, we think we’re pretty good. But when we come into the presence of [God’s] perfection, that’s a different story.”
- In the early church, Paul was constantly combating a superiority complex held by church members. They jockeyed for position. They fought for power. They gobbled down the bread and wine of communion and let the poorer members of the church go hungry. Those who spoke in tongues just knew they were holier than the others.
Paul wrote a lot about this, but perhaps the most cogent statement he made was to the Christians in the church of Philippi.
“If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a [human being], he humbled himself and became obedient to death -- even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name....”
- “All who exalt themselves will be humbled,” Christ taught. “And those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Those of us who have come to the party need to remember that in relation to God we all fall short. That’s a humbling reality. Maybe we should keep this in mind when we are tempted to elbow our way to a seat of honor. This is, after all, Christ’s party!
III.
- Speaking of which, how come we don’t have more people in here to celebrate? Not just this Sunday. I know it’s Labor Day weekend. I’m talking about any Sunday. Jesus said, “When you have a party, don’t just invite your friends and relatives and rich neighbors; you know, the people who can pay you back in return. Invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind; precisely the people who are not in the position to pay you back.” Where are the poor people? The dispossessed people? How come we don’t see more colors of skin?
This isn’t a matter of keeping score. If God were interested in keeping score; if God wanted only good, holy people to come to the party, then I wonder if any of us would get that invitation.
- What I’m talking about is precisely how this Methodist party got rolling in the first place. There was this Anglican priest named John Wesley who had a powerful, life-changing experience of the forgiving grace of Jesus. He wanted everyone to know it. The problem was the proper church folk thought he was a bit too “enthusiastic.” He wanted to liven things up, open the doors to God’s fiery Spirit, invite everyone to come to the party. But the aristocratic church wanted nothing to do with it, so Wesley took to the streets and fields. People of all sorts were given the invitation and people of all sorts responded with joy.
A lot of the blue-bloods vehemently objected to this. The Duchess of Buckingham wrote to Lady Huntingdon saying that the preaching of the Methodists “are most repulsive and strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect toward their superiors in perpetually endeavoring to level all ranks and do away with all distinctions, as it is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl on the earth.”
What have we done to Wesley’s party?
- The teacher, preacher, author and now Bishop William Willimon wrote:
“’God sent his son into the world, not to condemn the world [losers that we are], but that the world through him might be saved’ (Jn 3:17). So Jesus tries to get his host to kick the habit of bookkeeping and his strategies for winning so he can start doing business the way God does business. Invite the last, the lost, the least, and the dead because they’re the types with whom God just loves to party.
“’But if I did that,’ says [the host], ‘then I’d be the loser because none of the really important, really big winners would have a thing to do with me.’
“’Right,’ says Jesus. ‘You’re not that dumb after all... You’ll then be a loser, one of my losers, with whom I just love to party. (Lost sheep, lost coin, lost boy.) Why waste your time with these dull dinners when you could let go and have a really good time with me and my people, losers all, who know how to throw the party of all parties called “Resurrection”?’
“Let go, get loose, chill down, unwind. Get down. That’s the only way I can get to you, you know. Come. Party!”
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