Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
“Places of Honor” — Rev. Brent Gundlah
First Reading (Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16/NRSVUE)
Gospel Reading (Luke 14:1, 7-14/NRSVUE)
As holidays go, Thanksgiving is my favorite. I mean, what’s not to like about it: Food, family, friends, football and, when I was younger, four consecutive days without school. And while I’ve had many memorable Thanksgivings over the course of my life, 1987’s definitely takes first prize.
I’d flown home to New Jersey from Chicago (where I went to college) for the long weekend, which, sadly, wasn’t as long for me as it was for other people. My alma mater was pretty stingy with time off — I had class until three pm on Wednesday so didn’t get to my parent’s house until late that night, and I had an exam on Monday morning and work that afternoon — so needed to fly back first thing on Sunday.
At that point in my life, I had neither much money nor a credit card to my name, so after telling my father the dates I could travel, he kindly and generously purchased my plane ticket over the phone and mailed it to me. I didn’t need to give any of it a second thought — but, in retrospect, I should have. You see, while my father is kind and generous, he’s sometimes not the best listener — a fact about which I was reminded when I arrived at the airport on Sunday morning.
This was long before those self check-in kiosks were a thing, so I made my way through the crowded airport to the gate and handed my ticket to the agent. She looked at it, then looked at me, then looked at it again and looked back at me with a confused look upon her face. “My, you’re early,” she said.
As someone who’s always taken great pride in being punctual, I stood up a bit straighter and said, “Yes, I am. I figured it would be a good idea to get here a few hours before my flight.”
“Young man, you’re here twenty-six hours before your flight.”
“What?”
“Your flight doesn’t leave until ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”
At which point my blood began to run cold as the reality of the situation sunk in.
Yup, my father had bought me a ticket for the wrong day. And now I was going to miss my exam and my shift at work; I was going to fail my class and lose my job. To nineteen year-old me, it seemed like my life was suddenly in ruins. Happy Thanksgiving!
The agent saw the sudden change in my demeanor and tried to give me some hope; she said, “You can always try to fly standby, but… (there’s always a “but”) it’s Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, so you’re probably gonna be here for a while and I can’t promise you that you’ll get out of here today.” Left with no other options, I put my name on the list and took a seat to wait.
About twenty minutes before the flight I thought I was supposed to be on was scheduled to leave, they announced that it was full and all of the standby passengers quickly moved on to jockey for position at the gate from which the next flight was departing — well, except for me that is. Feeling overwhelmed and defeated, I just sat there. And, as it turns out, it was a good thing I did.
A few minutes later there was a big hubbub among the employees at the gate. The door to the ramp suddenly opened and one of the passengers emerged — looking kind of… ill; it was clear that he was, for whatever reason, in no shape to fly.
The gate agent saw me sitting there wallowing in self-pity and yelled over, “There’s a seat open if you want it but you have to board right now.” Suffice it to say, I’ve never moved so fast. I looked back over my shoulder as I ran onto the plane and thanked her. “No problem,” she said. “And it really is your lucky day: you’re sitting in first class.” And sure enough, I was — for the first and only time in my life.
There I was, at the ripe old age of nineteen, wearing jeans with holes in the knees and a worn out sweatshirt, with a tattered backpack under the seat in front of me, enjoying more legroom on a plane than I’d ever thought possible, but also acutely aware of the fact that I didn’t really fit in (I knew that I, the product of a working class family, wasn’t exactly first class material).
Maybe I was just imagining it, but I kinda felt as if I were being judged. Was my seat-mate thinking, “Hey, I paid for my first class ticket and this kid gets to sit up here for free,” or “Look at the way he’s dressed. Doesn’t he belong back in coach?” I don’t really know, but it sure seemed like it to me. I was grateful for the opportunity I’d been given, but I also remember thinking that I would have been a whole lot less self-conscious if my seat hadn’t been in first class.
I sat there reflecting upon this strange and sudden change in my fortunes (while availing myself of a never-ending stream of complimentary beverages and snacks). It wasn’t because of anything I’d done to earn it; and it sure wasn’t because I looked like someone important. My newly-gained status of “king for a day” was the result of a little bit of luck (I just happened to be sitting there after everyone else had moved on) and some simple human kindness.
That agent didn’t really have to give me that open seat (it would have been easier for her just to close the door and let the plane be on its merry way); and even though I was flying the absolute cheapest level of coach possible, she didn’t ask me to pay a penny extra.
Why did she do this? I have no idea. But I’d like to believe that she just took pity on a poor college kid who was in a jam and decided to help him out. It was as if she’d taken her cue from Jesus in today’s gospel passage and said, “Friend, move up higher; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit in first class with you.” And while I didn’t exactly feel like I was being honored by my fellow passengers up front, it was pretty cool of her to do that. But at the end of the day, all I really needed was to get to back to Chicago, just like everyone else on that plane, which, thankfully, I did.
As our reading from Luke begins, Jesus has recently healed a woman on the sabbath — honoring the spirit of God’s law, but not the letter. The crowd loves the wonderful things like this that Jesus is doing, but the Pharisees, who value the letter of law — not so much.
Next, Jesus ups the ante by describing what God’s reign will be like when it finally arrives here on earth; he tells his listeners, “Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God. Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some who are first will be last.”
Now, as I mentioned last week, those in the crowd whom society counted among the last probably thought this sounded pretty good, but those whom society counted among the first (people like King Herod and the Pharisees) probably didn’t. And so they react pretty much as you’d expect them to. Indeed, we soon learn that Herod decides he’s going to kill Jesus because he finds him threatening. And, as we all know, the Pharisees, who also have a lot to lose, are soon going to join in that effort.
Yet, at the start of today’s passage, a leader of those very same Pharisees invites Jesus to dine at his house on the sabbath. Was he just being nice? Perhaps, but I doubt it. It’s more likely that they see this as an opportunity to keep an eye on Jesus and wait for him to trip up so they can justify what they’re going to do to him; as Luke tells us, “they were watching him closely.”
But when Jesus arrives at the leader’s house for dinner, he certainly doesn’t try to fly under the radar; he takes the opportunity to turn the tables on his host and the other Pharisees. Jesus, it seems, is also watching them closely. He notices how they’re choosing where they’ll sit, jockeying for places of honor at the table, and then Jesus does what he often does when he has an audience: he shares a parable.
But, it’s really not much of story; it’s more like Jesus giving his dinner companions an etiquette lesson (which is an odd thing for a guest to do). Then again, Jesus isn’t much for social norms — and that’s kind of the whole point of this “parable.”
You see, in this world in which Jesus lived, social status was really important. Things like where you sat for a banquet spoke volumes about who you were and how much you mattered, so it’s not surprising that guests clamored to sit in the so-called “places of honor.” But what is Jesus’s advice to his fellow guests here? Do the exact opposite.
He tells them that if you take it upon yourself to sit in a place of honor and someone “better” comes along you risk getting the boot, which would be really embarrassing. But if you choose instead to sit in the lowest place from the start, then there’s nowhere to go but up. And when your host comes along to offer you a better seat, “then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you.” If Jesus’s instructions here sound a little absurd, that’s because they are — and he’s doing this on purpose; he’s using the terms and assumptions of this status system to expose that system for the folly that it is.
Echoing what he said earlier, Jesus goes on to declare that, “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted,” and therein lies the rub because what Jesus is really advocating for here is a complete leveling of the playing field, an eradication of a society that is built upon a host of binaries that we’ve ourselves have created: have and have not, honor and dishonor, better and worse, worthy and unworthy — and yes, dare I say, first class and coach because, let’s face it, such binaries continue to exist in society today, as much as they ever have.
And then Jesus offers his host and gives him some unsolicited advice: Next time you throw a banquet, don’t invite your friends or your family or a bunch of rich people you hope will invite you over to their place in return (as a way of increasing your own social status); instead, invite those who are in need and who have nothing with which to repay you.
Wow, I bet those Pharisees really enjoyed hearing that; it was completely contrary to the expectations of the world they’d experienced, of the world they’d helped to construct and sustain — one where they were the haves, the honored, the better, the worthy and all that. Sorry fellas, but, according to Jesus, that’s not the way it’s gonna work in God’s reign.
Think of it like a plane with no first class and no coach — and no business class and no “economy plus” (whatever that is) and none of the other arbitrary categories we cook up in order to differentiate ourselves from one another — to differentiate ourselves from the other. On this plane, if you’re hungry, you get a bag of peanuts; if you’re thirsty, you get something to drink; and everyone get all the legroom they need. Man, what a trip that’ll be!