This sermon was preached at Incarnation Tallahassee on Sunday, August 14th, 2016.
About halfway through my time at Trinity, I started working with an organization called Church Army USA. Church Army’s mission statement is “to reach the least, the last, and the lost with the Gospel of Christ; and to bring them into the life and ministry of the church.” This mission takes on many forms. In the late 1800’s, when Church Army first started in England, it occurred in pubs and on street corners, where evangelists shared the gospel with those otherwise deemed unworthy. Today, the base in Hartford, Connecticut takes the form of an underwear ministry, where evangelists collect underwear and socks, then give them out to the homeless across the city. They also go to an HIV/AIDS facility, to people accustomed to being avoided to pray with them, and hug them, and tell them that they are loved. They become friends with these people others would call “service projects” or back in the first century, “unclean!”
The Church Army base I’ve been working with is located in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. Aliquippa is about a 35 minute drive north of Pittsburgh. In its best days, it was a thriving city whose residents found work at the local steel mill. But in the 1980’s the mill closed, and the city was hit hard. Everyone that could afford it moved out, leaving only the poorer residents behind. Drugs and violence became issues, and racial segregation tore the city apart. A Church Army evangelist came into Aliquippa in the early 2000’s and spent three years in the city talking with the people, asking what they would like to see in the community. They all wanted a place to gather that was safe and friendly. This evangelist decided to start a cafe. I’ve worked for the last year at that cafe, called Uncommon Grounds. At Uncommon Grounds we make sandwiches and sell fresh ground Colombian coffee at fifty cents a cup. If someone can’t afford it, we have different tasks they can do around the cafe to earn a drink or a meal. Everyone on staff is required not only to work behind the counter, but also to spend time in the cafe hanging out with our friends who come in. There are many regulars, some who come in every day. Not everyone orders food, and not everyone wants to help out. But they come in, they talk, they laugh, and they share moments together. Our goal at Uncommon Grounds is to let the people of Aliquippa know, just like at every Church Army base, that they are loved. I am on a first name basis with almost everyone who walks through the doors, some of whom I greet with a hug. We sit together and talk. We open up about our struggles and pray for one another.
On Saturday nights, a group meets at the cafe that call themselves the Church in the Margins. Staff members from the cafe cook a dinner, and open the doors for anyone who wants to come in. There’s no charge to share in the meal, and first time visitors aren’t allowed to help clean up afterward. They eat together, and a question is always provided to guide discussion over the meal. It could be something as simple as “what’s one good thing that happened this week?” Or maybe, something deeper, “what does it mean to love your neighbor?”
Sharing a meal together is one of the most vulnerable things one can do with a neighbor. There have been times that people eat the food but then leave without saying a word. There have been other times where people have criticized the host for not doing something a certain way, or even just for being different. There’s also vulnerability in coming to a meal hosted by someone else. Allowing others to provide for us goes against the way we’ve been taught to act as a culture. We live in a payback culture. If you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. I can’t owe you anything. I’ve sat through many arguments over who will pick up the tab for lunch, usually ending with the ultimatum, “okay, but I’m paying next time.” That’s why people aren’t allowed to help clean up at the Church in the Margins their first visit. And, usually aren’t even allowed to help at all until they have been coming for a month or so. It’s to help instill the understanding that you are allowed to receive love without being expected to offer anything in return.
The reading from Luke has a lot to do with this idea. It’s about honor and dishonor based on the outward appearance. In other words, it’s about deserving or not deserving love. The passage begins with the healing of a man and ends with Jesus giving a teaching on taking the seat of honor at a table. I want to look at these two instances out of order, because I think understanding the issue Jesus is teaching about will help us understand the situation surrounding the man who is healed.
The passage begins, “one Sabbath, [Jesus] went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees.” These Sabbath meals were a big deal to the first century Jews. All of the food on these Sabbath meals had to be cooked the day before, and stored in very specific ways, since it was forbidden to work on the Sabbath day. This means that only those with the resources to keep the food were able to host these meals. Because of this, Sabbath meals became notable times for the social elite to display their wealth. Being invited to these meals was considered a great honor.
Luke writes that Jesus “noticed how [those who were invited] chose the places of honor” at the Sabbath meal. In those times, there was more honor to sit near the host of the meal, so each person deliberated their social standing to decide where they should sit along the table. Not one to miss a teaching opportunity, Jesus tells the guests of the meal, “when you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place.”
Remember, the Sabbath meals were meant to show honor and prestige to those invited. By giving this teaching, he is essentially telling the people at this meal that they have been doing things backward. He is saying that everything they are doing, the very reason that they are even together that day, is wrong. If you ever wondered why a lot people didn’t like Jesus back then, this is it. He openly criticized and contradicted the traditions and practices ingrained in the lives of those around him.
In this case, he is criticizing a very foundational piece of their society. He is bringing into question the notion that one should be concerned with their standing in social circles. Many of you probably have an Instagram account like I do. Instagram is a social media tool for letting others know how awesome your life is. You can use a photo filter on the food you eat to make it look good. You can take pictures at just the right angle to make it look like you have the perfect hair or the best view. And instead of finding the highest seat, we judge our social status by how many likes and followers we have. If any of you remember MySpace, there was actually a feature where you could have your top 8 friends appear on your profile page. In high school, I remember people actually getting into arguments over where they were on their friends top 8. The problem is that all of these things are based on outward appearance. I can update my Facebook status with something profound, witty, or sympathetic. I can make my profile picture look like a model’s head shot. I can even re-post news stories that make it look like I care about social issues. Without actually doing anything to change my life, I can appear honorable. I can make sure everyone else around me knows that I deserve honor.
The problem with fighting over seats at a meal isn’t that honor is bad thing. Jesus even uses honor as the motivation contradicting this act. He says, “But when you are invited, go and sit in 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 table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Honor is a good thing. But if we are so concerned about appearing honorable, we can actually be so caught up in that appearance that we forget to actually be honorable. Jesus, for example, was honorable. And he was at this meal for that reason. But he also went to meals with sinners and allowed prostitutes to honor him with oil. He didn’t let outward appearance keep him from acting with honor. When the deadliest mass shooting in American history happened in Orlando, many Christians double-guessed whether to show sympathy because the victims were gay. And a lot of it was concern with how others might interpret that sympathy. “If I give my condolences to the gay community, others might think I agree with their lifestyle.” Or, “if I do give my condolences, I have to be sure to qualify it with a statement about these other issues.”
Jesus wasn’t concerned about these things. Concern with the perceptions of others isn’t seeking honor, it’s seeking admiration. Jesus ate with tax collectors and spent time with with sinners. The Pharisees used that to defame him. They said “look at this man who associates himself with sinners and tax collectors! He can’t be a true prophet of Israel!” But Jesus knew that how others perceived him didn’t matter if he was acting with real honor. Real honor is caring for those who need care, no matter how others might perceive it. Many of us, like the Pharisees, miss doing the honorable thing in order to look honorable. But looking honorable is just admiration. Because someone might interpret me as dishonorable, I do not associate myself with dishonorable people. But dishonorable people need God just as much as honorable ones. Dishonorable people need love just as much as honorable ones.
The Church has dealt with these issues of honor since its beginning. In the first letter to the Corinthians Paul writes to them, “when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you … For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?”
The rich, who did not need to work, would arrive to the church gathering early where the Lord’s Supper was going to be served to eat and drink their fill. The poor, who had to work to earn their day’s wages, would then arrive and there would be nothing left. Those who are eating first have enough to provide for themselves. The meal was meant to be a fellowship and communion with one another, but they used it to get drunk and horde the food for themselves. Because they would have been considered ‘honorable’ people, and ‘more deserving’ than their poorer counterparts, they didn’t bother to think about saving enough for those arriving later. The Lord’s Supper became the same thing as this Sabbath meal that Jesus is criticizing. A show of luxury and honor at the expense of the lowly. As a church, we can’t show favoritism or preference. We must choose the lower seat.
There is a risk involved in taking the lowest seat. Yes, there’s a chance that the host will ask you to move into a higher seat of honor, but there’s also a chance that the host won’t do that. Taking the lowest seat means willingly submitting to that risk. Is it okay if everyone here sees me in that lowest seat? Am I willing to show my “lowness” when it has no external benefit for me?
Paul’s letter to the Philippians outlines how Jesus showed this lowness when it says he “emptied himself, by taking on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” If Jesus was worried about his appearances, he would not have died for us. Death is unbecoming. Dying for those who don’t deserve it is even worse. “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person,” Paul writes to the Romans, “though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die– but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The Good News of Jesus is that he was willfully dishonored in the eyes of the world around him. He did not need to prove himself, but took it upon himself to go the the absolute lowest place in his death even though, being very God of very God, he deserved the absolute highest place of honor at the right hand of the Father in heaven. We must be willing to let others go before us, because that is how we love. We love as Christ loved, by laying ourselves down for others. When we create personas on social media or in the world, we fool ourselves into thinking we are setting ourselves up for places of honor.
God warns us in Jeremiah, “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches.” These things, however great they might be, cannot bring real honor. They can only bring admiration. If I really want to be honorable, I wouldn’t boast about my great talents, I would use them to help those around me. I would use my wisdom to instruct those who lack wisdom. I would use my might to help those who lack might. I would use my wealth to provide for those who lack wealth. True honor does not need to be announced. Jesus didn’t announce his good deeds to bolster himself. Everything he did was for the glory of God.
Now, I want to look at how Jesus enacted this principle at this very meal among the most honorable guests of the ruler of the Pharisees. “And behold,” it writes, “there was a man before him who had dropsy.” Dropsy is a swelling of soft tissues in the body that is caused by an excess of fluids. It causes deformation, and is obvious to anyone who sees it. The Pharisees were watching him carefully because they were waiting to catch him in a trap. They wanted him to do something they can point to and say, “aha! We knew you were a false prophet!” Jesus reads this in the room, and before he does anything, Luke writes, “Jesus responded to the lawyers and the Pharisees, ‘Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?’ but they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away.”
The difference between Jesus and the Pharisees is how they interact with a man such as this. The Pharisees, should they even allow him to stay at the meal, would at least make sure that he take the lowest seat. They would set him down where he can be constantly reminded of his lowness while the others fight over who can be most honored. Jesus doesn’t do this. Instead, he allows himself to be associated with this man, bringing himself low. Then, he heals the man, lifting him higher. Jesus is not concerned with his own honor, but with honoring those around him.
After he heals the man, Luke writes, “he said to them, ‘which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?’ and they could not reply to these things.”
This, I believe is the most important verse in this passage. Jesus equates his healing on the Sabbath with anyone who would save a son or an ox on the Sabbath. But not just any son or ox. He says it is their own. “Which of you, having a son or an ox.” They are not simply walking by any trapped child or animal, but their own. Jesus is saying, “you would help your own possession who needs it, and I also must help my own.” When Jesus heals, he does so because we are his. God heals because the love he has for us is the love of a father for his child. A father doesn’t take his time helping his child out of danger. He rushes to his child and pulls that child up with everything he has. God’s desire to bring us healing comes from a place of ownership. He has created us and we are his. If we are God’s, and God’s desire is for us, then where you sit at a table can’t define your honor. How great you look in that Instagram photo can’t define your worth. What those people are saying behind your back, can’t define your purpose.
The passage from Jeremiah continues, “but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight declares the LORD.”
Your honor is yours because God honors you. We boast that we know God because he is our source of worth and dignity. He alone practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. He alone is truly honorable. He is the host of the wedding feast for the his Son and his Church. We are invited to this feast, and he has chosen to honor us when we arrive.
Jesus took the low place. That low place is rightfully ours. The man with dropsy had no hope of gaining honor for himself. He was deformed beyond being able to hide it. We need to accept that we are deformed. I can try to hide my sin beneath these layers that I’ve created. Behind my social media accounts. Behind my outward religiosity. Behind my wisdom and might and riches. But if all of those layers are peeled away, it would become apparent that I belong with the dishonorable. I am a sinner. But, Jesus knew that. He took us up from our seat at the end of the table and has said, “move up higher.” If you want to receive that honor, then get up and let Jesus take your seat. You don’t have to search out honor from others. You don’t have to earn that honor with your wisdom, or your might, or your riches. You can’t earn it. He has lifted me up and made me new. He has freed me from the burden of trying to find my honor anywhere else. Before I could do anything, while I was yet a sinner, he had already taken the lowest place. He died for us. And as he rose again from the dead, he exalts us, if we would just let him sit in our seats of shame.
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