Lower Seat
Luke 14: 1-14


September 2, 2001

There's nothing about Labour Day in the Gospels, but since this is the last long weekend of the summer, there have to be some good meals. When Jesus was invited to the Pharisee's house for a big Sunday afternoon dinner, it probably was Labour Day, an auspicious, prestigious, important occasion. Everybody who was somebody was there, and jockeying for position. Everybody was watching everyone else, a tightly choreographed exercise, in which you had to know your place and your manners precisely.

As we were preparing to leave for England, we drilled our children about the necessity for good table manners among the British. A high standard would be expected of them in that rarefied college atmosphere. Weren't we surprised when after a few meals we realized that the average British person ate with manners characterized by both of our mothers labeled as "uneducated." Apologies to the many English members of our congregation: our concern for manners was on a parallel with those Pharisees looking down their noses and down the table at Jesus, watching him closely.

There is a woman who circulates around the continent conducting seminars on "Table Manners for Executives." How you go about eating can distinguish you positively or negatively to your tablemates. That can mean big business for some people. One must never appear to be out of place.

The reason Luke keeps finding Jesus eating at meals is because these are never neutral events. We aren't just eating for the sake of nourishment.

One of the great social revolutions by which we have all been afflicted is the rise of the fast food restaurant. Food needs to be fast because we are hungry and busy, and so do not have the time to linger over a meal. Linger, that is, with other people.

Go into McDonald's and people sit anywhere in no particular order - unless it's the senior citizens playing bingo! You can and probably have sat next to the elite and the least elite of society. Usually, we sit in McDonald's as if in isolation booths, but occasionally something else happens and you or your neighbour pick up on something said and the two of you start talking. The world changes a little when you don't know your place.

Jesus was not eating in a chirpy McDonald's. The other guests were just plain hostile, so the food must not have tasted very good to Jesus. Somehow a man with dropsy appears in front of Jesus, but it's not a simple matter of healing him. Jesus knows what the arrows piercing his back are about - it is against the Torah to work on the Sabbath, and healing is work. He looks at those staring back at him, "Isn't it all right to heal someone on the Sabbath?" Absolute silence that declares an absolute No.

Jesus is not intimidated and he offers a helpful parable, except that they did not want help. "If you are invited to a wedding banquet" - which means that the kingdom of God has happened - "don't try to sit in one of the places of honour, for just imagine the humiliation you'll experience if the host brings in someone more important and has to throw you out of your seat. Instead, why don't you sit in the lowest seat available. Then the host will most likely come along and invite you to come up and sit in a more honourable position. It's always better to be moving up than to be forced to move down." Good, clever answer, but the same deadly silent response.

What Jesus is suggesting is not the abolition of all seats of honour and placement, but a different measure of honour. You acquire honour by being unhonourable.

Jesus isn't finished. There's a new way to eat meals together. Don't bother with inviting your friends and people of influence you want to influence. Invite the people who can't repay you: the poor, the lame and crippled, the blind, the welfare recipients. When this kind of banquet is gathered together around the coffee table and the potluck line, the kingdom of God has become a reality.

Is it any wonder that back when the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's invented the "sit-in", it was sitting in a segregated lunch counter or restaurant? If you eat next to someone, you admit that he or she is an equal human being to you. That's saying a lot for a Big Mac.

A number of us are familiar with Fred Craddock, a Disciples of Christ minister and professor of preaching from Atlanta, now retired. He tells of the time he was in Winnipeg, stuck in Winnipeg actually, during an early October snow storm. Supposedly, he went into a crowded bus depot cafe for breakfast and was able to find a seat at a booth when someone graciously scooted over to give him room.

A man with a greasy apron came over and asked him what he wanted. Fred apparently hadn't eaten at too many Manitoban restaurants and asked to see a menu. "What do you want with a menu? We have soup." "Then I'll have soup," said Fred, soup for breakfast.

The soup was brought out and it had an unusual gray colour, the colour of a mouse, according to Fred. He took a taste and it was awful and he pushed it away, perfectly upset with his fate in the world, stuck in Winnipeg. Would you blame him?

A woman came in the door and was also allowed to scoot over into the booth. "What do you want?" "A glass of water, please." The water was delivered, but the man brought out his pad and asked again, "What do you want?" "Just the water."

"Lady, you gotta order something. I've got paying customers here waiting for a place, now order." "Just the water."

"Order or get out!" "Can I stay here and get warm?" "Order or get out."

So she got up to go out. However, the people at her booth all got up as well. The people who had let Fred sit at their booth got up to leave also, and so did Fred.

"OK, she can stay," the man with the greasy apron relented. He even brought her a bowl of soup.

"Who is she?" asked Fred of the man sitting next to him. "Never saw her before, but if she ain't welcome, nobody's welcome."

Then all that one could hear were people eating that gray soup. Fred decided if they can eat it, so can I. And he did. Good soup. Ate all of it.

Fred said it was still a strange soup, yet it seemed familiar. As he left the cafe, he remembered. It tasted like bread and wine. "I wish that had happened in a church," he said.

Next Sunday, we are going to come forward and gather around a not-too-elegant banquet table and for a sip of grape juice and bite of bread feel the world and all its children become a honourable place.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan