When I imagine the calculating moves of the community leaders
as they try to gain honor for themselves at the Sabbath meal in our reading
from Luke’s Gospel, I think of Hyacinth Bucket, pronounced “Bouquet,” of
course, on the old British comedy series, Keeping
Up Appearances. I can see poor, ridiculous Hyacinth, dressed to the nines,
weaving her way frantically through the crowds to place herself right next to
the distinguished host. I can imagine her planning which of the important
guests she will invite to her next elegant “candlelight supper,” angling frantically
to get a return invitation from the most prominent guests. I can see her
all-consuming desperation and the sorry tangle of misunderstandings and
rejection that will follow her every manipulative move. I imagine Jesus
watching the Pharisees’ posturing the way we watch Hyacinth’s foolishness on
TV, frustrated and compassionate at the same time.
Scholars explain that, in the
Greco-Roman world, the values of honor and shame ruled conduct and lives.[1]
In a hierarchical, communal society, where one sat, and who one invited to
one’s dinner party, were more than just matters of etiquette. They were calculations
of life-giving importance. One’s very worth as a human being was determined by
one’s place in the community. This honor-versus-shame system that rules the
dinner guests’ lives in our parable is making them miserable, frantic, and
foolish. Jesus’ remarks to the guests and host at the banquet are meant to free
them from that system, if only for a transformative moment. He wants to break
through their ingrained thought patterns, to shock them into a new way of
thinking, to allow them to see themselves and the world the way it really is,
the way God sees it.
First, Jesus pushes
the guests’ foolishness to the extreme. “If you want to plot and scheme, here’s
a scheme for you,” he says with irony. “Try sitting in the lowest places.
Indeed, the host might make a big deal in front of everybody about inviting you
to move up higher, and look how important you will seem in everyone’s eyes.”
Just imagine Hyacinth naively agreeing with Jesus’ tongue-in-cheek remarks, excitedly
going to take the worst seat, and waiting with growing dejection all evening
for the host to come and invite her to move up, while we, her audience, begin
to understand the futility of her schemes and the ridiculousness of the whole
contrived system.
Then, in our reading, Jesus delivers
his final blow to the system with his shocking inclusivity. Many Jews in Jesus’
day would have said that it was the shamed and outcast ones, the poor, the blind,
the lame, and the crippled, who were specifically disqualified by God from the
great divine banquet at the end of time.[2]
By making them the honored guests, Jesus breaks open that belief with a
blessing. He wants his listeners to understand that this framework by which
everyone is living, this framework centered on human status, on “those who are
in” and “those who are out,” is all wrong. God is the giver of all true gifts,
and there are no outsiders with God. God invites us all to the only feast that
matters, and we can participate in that feast only by throwing the doors wide
open. In God’s eyes, there is no group or individual so full of “shame,” so
excluded by society, that they are not welcome at God’s table.
What are the
pivotal values in our culture today,
I wondered this week. What values absorb all of our attention? What are the frameworks that rule our lives, that make us
frantic, that keep us from the love of God and neighbor? I believe that, rather
than an honor-versus-shame-ruled culture, we have a security-versus-vulnerability-ruled
culture right now in this country. We are frantic, as individuals and as a
nation, to increase our security and to avoid vulnerability. Everything, from
terrorist threats to global instability to the prevalence of crime to the
volatile stock market, makes us afraid, and we clamor for man-made security. I
know that I was taught as a child to value safety and security above all things—even
above love. I grew up in a sturdy brick house with a burglar alarm on the
streets of a city that was then named the “murder capital of the country.” I
was carefully taught the life-or-death importance of locking doors, avoiding
parking garages, not going out alone at night, and constantly looking over my
shoulder. Security, to me, represented welcome protection from dangerous
“others.” It was a necessity for keeping my beloved possessions and a powerful
anecdote to feeling vulnerable and alone.
Now, as an adult, I was recently
shocked to find that, in the airport, I am so accustomed to the constant
reminders over the loudspeaker that “Security is at a high level,” that I don’t
even notice them anymore. And packing my toiletries in Baggies, obediently
taking off my shoes and jacket at metal detectors, and hauling my computer in
and out of my carry-on bag have all become so familiar that they are second-nature
to me. Think about it this week as you go about your business: In how much of
our lives, without even realizing it, do we live for security and to avoid
feeling vulnerable?
If Jesus’
parable were addressed to us today, in our security-driven culture, I propose
that it might go something like this:
On one occasion, Jesus was flying from
Damascus to New York, and everyone in the airport was watching this
controversial Palestinian closely. When Jesus noticed their fearful spying and
whispering, he told them a parable. “If you really want to be safe, don’t just
put your liquids in plastic bags and take off your shoes at the checkpoints.
You need to start by taking off all of your clothes and standing naked before
the security guard and before everyone else who is going to board the plane, so
that everyone can see that you are innocent, and no one needs to feel
vulnerable anymore. Also, you need to send your bags, even your carry-on bags,
on another special plane, a plane just for baggage. That way, you can fly
secure to your favorite destination. For all who wrap themselves up in clothing
and luggage are vulnerable, and all who are naked and vulnerable will be
secure.”
“And when you are in charge of boarding
procedures for a plane, don’t try to check the identity of those who are getting
on the plane with you to make sure that you will be safe. Let everybody on,
beginning with foreigners and the people without passports. And you will be
blessed because God invites us all into the Kingdom.”
Do you hear the
absurdity of his advice? Nakedness? A world without passports? Of course I am
not literally suggesting that Jesus wants us to strip down in the airport or do
away with airport security. But just as Jesus reminds his first century
audiences how God’s love transcends their honor-versus-shame culture, he would remind
us that our true security does not lie in our ability to remove all danger from
our lives. True security lies in knowing that we all belong to God and that we depend,
at all moments, on God’s grace alone. As God laments in our Old Testament
lesson for today: “my people … have forsaken me, the fountain of living water,
and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.”[3]
In relying obsessively on our own systems and frameworks for life, blessing, and
security, we ignore God’s constantly flowing fountain of living water, the
abundant love that never dries up, that covers us all with life. True security,
the kind that matters in the long run, can only be found in opening our arms to
God--and to each other. It can only be found in relationship. We come from God
and we are going to God, and in this security, we bend down to wash one
another’s feet, like Jesus did, in relationships built on humility and love.
The call to relationship with God and
with one another brings us back to the banquet hall, back to the feast of bread
and wine, body and blood, back to the Eucharist that holds us in God’s secure
and loving arms while making us vulnerable in love for one another. There is a good
story about a mentally challenged young man who talks to his pastor about the feast
of Eucharist:
“I ate in church today,” he exclaims
with excitement.
“Do you know what that is called?”
asks the pastor pedantically… “It is called communion. Do you know why we do
that?”
“Yeah … but you tell me,” answers the
young man.
“Jesus lived a very special life,”
begins the pastor. “And he died on a cross ….”
“No! Not that,” interrupts the man.
“Tell me the part about us ALL doing it … I ate with everyone else in church
today …. Tell me the part about all of us doing that together.”[4]
The vulnerable understand. Even the incorrigible
Hyacinth is forced to embrace both her vulnerability and her imperfect family at
the end of each episode of her show. It is the acceptance of our vulnerability that
will lead us into God’s Kingdom--our true security, our life, and our only
salvation. Amen.
[1]
Richard B. Vinson, Luke (Macon, GA:
Smyth and Helwys, 2008)
[2]
Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke (Collegeville,
Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1991), 227.
[3]
Jeremiah 2:13
[4]
William Gaventa, “Tell Me the Part About Us All Doing It All Together,” in Journal of Religion, Disability and Health
13:2009, 330.
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