Sermon: 14th Sunday After Pentecost

September 2, 2007

14^th Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 14:1, 7-14

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely. When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, 'Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."
He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

Bring Your Milking Stool

I love the first song that we sang this morning: “Let Us Go Now .” Vamos Todos is the Spanish title, and the original title. Just like a book that is turned into a movie, the English translation of this song just doesn’t seem to do it justice. “Let us go now, to the banquet, to the feast of the universe. The table’s set and a place is waiting, come everyone with their gifts to share.” It’s beautiful in English, don’t get me wrong. But the Spanish includes a little phrase that I think is so important for understanding the underlying radical meaning of this song.

The Spanish version doesn’t just say that the table is set and a place it waiting. It tells you to bring your stool. The word taburete is translated as “stool,” and it’s not like a bar stool or even a bench stool. Taburetes are little stools, ones that you would use for sitting close to the ground, like when you milk a cow or a goat. Taburetes are lowly stools and so when this song talks about the feast being ready and a place waiting, it’s telling you to leave your cushy BARCO loungers at home, to forget your Adirondack chairs…to forget your thrones. All you need to bring is your taburete, your milking stool, because that’s what we’ll be sitting on at the feast of creation, the feast of the universe.

And what might this feast of creation, this feast of the universe look like? Jesus gives us a glimpse of it in today’s gospel reading. In advising the Pharisees on how they should conduct themselves, he’s not just giving them sage advice on how to appear humble at a dinner party. Jesus is painting a picture for those Pharisees, and for us here.

Imagine yourself at a dinner party. Imagine you show up, and all the guests are just standing around the table. Where will you sit? Naturally, I think most of us would want to sit by our friends, or sit next to someone who seemed interesting and might strike up good conversation. If you attended a dinner party in ancient Palestine, you would probably try to sit close to the host because it was a visible sign that you were friends, and that you were important. This kind of seating arrangement still takes place today in some circles of society, and definitely is still present in politics.

But for most of us here today, I think most of us would just try to sit where we could have a nice conversation. That would mean, though, that even as you would look for someone interesting to talk to, many of us would also try to avoid sitting next to a number of people. We would probably try to avoid sitting next to that person who is boring, who won’t talk, or who won’t let you talk. What about that person who smells funny, who has bad table manners, who is uneducated, or who is too educated? What about the person who is gay, who is promiscuous, who is a pagan, or who is too religious? What about those who are a different ethnicity, a different gender, who drink too much, or who don’t drink enough. What about your ex-girlfriend, ex-boyfriend, ex-wife or ex-husband. Or what about your current wife or husband? Would you sit next to them, or look for someone different to talk to?

Yes, at today’s dinner parties, at today’s feasts, we don’t always try to jockey for the seat closest to the host, but we are no less picky about where we sit. Humans are picky, and we’re not always picky for the right reasons. I think we could all probably nod our head in agreement saying that we’d rather not sit next to some of those people I just mentioned. Likewise, I think we could all probably nod our head in agreement that we are some of those people I just mentioned, and would be offended, hurt, angry, or confused at the thought that some people would intentionally not choose to sit next to us at a dinner party.

We are a picky people, even though we long to be picked.

And this, this pickiness is at the heart of what Jesus is saying to us today. Why are we so picky when it comes to who we eat with? Because eating is where fellowship is had, and we want to be able to choose who we associate with. We want to be associated with those who sit at the head of the table, not with those at the foot. And so we are picky, and prideful.

But Jesus gives us a glimpse of a new table, a new kingdom. It’s that place where pickiness and pride have no place at the table because they get in the way of fellowship, they get in the way of the healing purpose of the kingdom, the wholeness-restoring purpose of God’s kingdom. It’s that place where when you find yourself at the foot of the table, you also find yourself at the head; and if you find yourself at the head of the table, you also find yourself at the foot. Why? Because at this table, at God’s table, there is no head and no foot; there are only places for little milking stools to fit.

You know, another reason why I love this song Vamos Todos that we sang this morning is because it’s familiar to me. This summer I spent a week in Mexico with a group of High Schoolers from across the United States. We were there on an immersion trip, which meant we stayed with the people in Mexico City, worked with the people, and learned the challenges facing them, hearing it from their own mouths.

One family I visited with lived in a place called Las Estacion, which basically translates into “The Station.” The name is a reference to the old railway tracks that crisscross the ground on which this settlement sits. It’s a squatter settlement. The people that live there have no right to the land; it’s just where they happened to end up.

At Las Estacion I walked down a short, steep embankment and ducked into a small cinder-block house to meet a woman named Refugio and her family. She lived there with her sons Moises and Danielle, her daughter Flora, and she welcomed us into this cramped space with a wide smile and open arms. She pulled out some small plastic chairs for us to sit on, and she took a seat on her taburete, her low stool. She used the stool for her work, which was to pick hominy corn and separate it from the hard nub at its base so the fleshy part could be used in Sopas. She made basically 20 pesos, or two dollars a day for doing this.

I don’t speak much Spanish, and Refugio didn’t speak any English, and so we stumbled through conversation with a translator. She told me and the six High Schoolers with me about her struggles with the government, with her job. Her son Moises couldn’t find work and had to pick up a new job every day to earn anything. Her two younger children wanted to continue in school, they loved math, but they would have to stop in two years because High School was too expensive.

I sat there and spoke about my own family, as did the other students, and we basically shared our life stories together. There was no meal of food for us to eat there, although I’m sure Refugio would have whipped up something should we have asked, but there was a feast: a feast of openness, of life stories, of fears and hopes. We sat and talked there for close to an hour, hugging before we walked back out into the hot sun.

As we walked out of “Las Estacion,” our hearts burned within us just like those two disciples walking to Emmaus after they encountered Christ along the way. We had encountered Christ that day in the hospitality, in the fellowship of that woman who sat on her taburete. And as a result of the encounter the students began to open up in a new way. One admitted that they were nervous and were afraid they wouldn’t know what to say walking into that dark house. Another student admitted that they were afraid that they would feel guilty being in there with her family that had to little by our standards, but that they felt empowered and blessed now by her generosity. And I realized, at that moment, that we had just had a taste of the kingdom. Our anxieties were wiped away, the chronic fear present when we consider the prospect of taking a place that might be uncomfortable, that might stretch us, that might place us next someone we wouldn’t ordinarily choose was healed in that encounter.

Would I have sat down next to Refugio at a dinner party? I have to admit that I probably wouldn’t have: we didn’t speak the same language, we came from different worlds, and her poverty worked at a place of guilt within me. But now, having tasted that kingdom, having tasted what it feels like to sit on a taburete, that place where hospitality and wholeness come before position, where the meal and the fellowship is more important than honor and pride, I think I’d seek her out.

We’re a picky people. But the good news is that Jesus has envisioned, has created a kingdom where it doesn’t matter who you are because whose you are provides the place at a table with no head and no foot. You are Gods. You are God’s beloved, God’s child, one of God’s gifts to this world. And as you look around this room, knowing that about yourself, you’ll begin to see that image of God, that Imago Dei in the others that have come to this feast. So it doesn’t matter where you sit because wherever you sit, you’ll be sitting next to a child of God, a special creation. You may not speak the same language, you may not like the same movies, you may not even like each other, but you are God’s, and that is reason enough to feast at this table, this table low to the ground where we all take our seats on milking stools, where we all have the lowest, and therefore the highest, position.

So, when you attend a party, take a seat on your taburete, feast at the table of God’s grace and be surprised by the child of God sitting next to you. God in Christ has made each of us important, each of us unique, each of us to sit on taburetes. You may just find your heart burning within you as you enjoy the hospitality of another’s presence, unexpected as it is. And, as you know, you are welcome here at this table of grace, joining Christ as he sits on his own taburete, a taste of the feast to come. Amen.