Fourteenth Pentecost

             September 2, 2007

     A kind-hearted businessman was walking through the park on his way to a luncheon meeting and was astonished to see an old man, fishing rod in hand, casting his line out over a beautiful bed of day lilies.

    “My, my,” the passer-by said to himself.  “What a sad sight.  That poor old man is fishing over a bed of flowers.  I’ll see if I can help.”

     So the kind fellow walked up to the old man and asked, “What are you doing, my friend?”

     “Fishin’, sir.”

     “Fishin’, eh?  Well, how would you like to come have a drink and a bite of lunch with me?”

     The old man stood, put his rod away, and followed the kind stranger to a corner bar.  He ordered a large draught and a find cigar.

     His host, the kind businessman, felt good about helping the old man, and he asked him, “Tell me, old friend, how many did you catch this morning?”

      The old fellow took a long puff on the cigar, blew out a perfect smoke ring and said, “You are the sixth today, sir!”  “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”  At least the kind businessman was not guilty of just inviting his friends, brothers, relatives, or rich neighbors to lunch.    

     Luke continues his recitation of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem.  Jesus was invited by a leader of the Pharisees for Sabbath dinner.  Luke says, “They were watching him closely.”  You betcha!  But, Jesus was watching closely, too.  He watched as the other guests chose their seats.  In that society, as in our own, where you sat indicated social status.  The guest of honor was given the seat at the center of the head table.  Invited guest, family members, neighbors, and friends would arrange themselves in a kind of pecking order.  The host would rearrange the seating of those who, because of genuine or false humility, had taken a seat lower than their station.  The most embarrassing faux pa was to assume a seat higher than ones station. 

     In the parable, Jesus appears to be taking on the role of “Miss Manners.”  It seems like he is giving out good social advice.  Digging a little deeper, however, reveals a parable that doesn’t have so much to do with good social graces as with people’s relationship with God.  Jesus would have us look at the least at three things in this series of verses.

     First, the great feast is coming.  Any time we gather to celebrate the Holy Eucharist it is but a foreshadowing of the Messianic Banquet that takes place in God’s Kingdom.  The only way to respond to his invitation is by the total renunciation of any claim of merit on our part.  The invitation to the meal, possible entrance into the Kingdom, and the eventual salvation of our souls is God’s unmerited gift to us and cannot be a matter of human pride.  When we come forward to this rail we do not do so in some hierarchal order, from the most meritorious to the least.  We come as the ransomed sons and daughters of a loving, merciful God.  If we miss the banquet, Jesus says, it will be our false pride and our claim of exclusiveness that will do us in.

     The second truth to which we are invited to look is that the best attitude to take in life is to remain teachable.  The only adequate definition of genuine humility is that we remain active and involved learners.  That calls us to be open not only to being taught by God in Christ, but also by every other human being God places in our lifelong pilgrimage.  That is especially true, Jesus says, about being open to the teaching that can come our way from the least, the last, and the lost.  It is in that atmosphere that genuine giving and receiving can best be understood.  The best reason for being committed to the Millennium Development Goals is not so much what meeting them will do for fellow human beings in developing countries, but what meeting those goals will do for us.  That leads to a humility that does not come through a grudging tolerance of those outside our social circle or station.  That means we are to listen and learn from the least, the last, and the lost.  In our generally paternalistic way of thinking we seldom listen and learn from the ones we are trying to help.  We rarely look for the face of Christ in the other.  The simple fact is that our final acceptance into the Messianic Banquet depends upon our acceptance of others in the here and now.

     Jesus said that it is the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, or any of those who cannot repay us that we are to love, be with, listen to, and from whom we are to learn.  This is not some passive virtue; it is to be highly active and needs to find expression in the lifestyle of every Christian person.

     That brings us to the final thing Jesus would have us see in this parable.  In God’s economy each one is of equal value.  Genuine humility is not sackcloth and ashes and a gloomy face.  Genuine humility comes from our recognition that our salvation is a gift from God who sees each one of us as a precious child.  We cheapen the gift when we think we deserve it, when we refuse to accept it, or claim it at the exclusion of others. 

     God’s desire is that we acknowledge that gift of salvation, share that message with others, and commit ourselves to efforts that lead more and more of God’s children to know the freedom of being in Christ.

     We are reminded again this day to put away false pride based on who we think we are or the things we have.  The writer of Ecclesiasticus, one of the books in the Apocrypha, said it best in today’s first reading: “How can dust and ashes be proud.  Even in life the human body decays.”  We are reminded to stake nothing on our accomplishments, used so often in our culture to separate people into neat categories.  It remains profoundly true that we depend upon each other’s labor far more than we care to admit.  Instead of looking down on those who labor in vocations of which we would not dream, we need to offer a prayer of gratitude that such people are willing to do what we would not dream of doing.  We might take such a person to lunch once in a while, even if we do find ourselves taken advantage of.

     We just might find ourselves in a less embarrassing position in life if we remember that a feast is coming, that we learn most by remaining teachable, and that in God’s sight we are seen as if we were the only person in the world.  Amen.  

                                                          ~The Rev. G. Thomas Mustard