Table Manners

Luke 14:1, 7-14, Hebrews 13:1-8
The Rev. Sara Fischer

In the name of our loving God who is the same yesterday and today and forever. Amen.

As most of you know, I occasionally begin sermons with jokes about Episcopalians, or throw one in wherever I can find one. But there aren’t that many jokes about us. Well, not nearly as many as there are about Baptists or Catholics. And I know I’ve mentioned to some of you that Garrison Keillor is actually Episcopalian….) I think there is much love in humor; those of you who were raised in those other, funnier traditions should feel proud to have been part of a group that spawned so many great jokes.

Most of you have probably heard the one about Episcopalians and the light bulb. How many…? Three. One to call the electrician, one to mix the martinis and one to talk about how much better the old one was. You all know where that comes from….our relationship to our Prayer Book. And so today I decided we’d worship together from the Old One. It seemed most appropriate to this setting. How many of you grew up worshipping with the 1928 prayer book?

Probably the most well-known, uniquely Episcopalian joke is the one about the three people who arrive at the gates of Hell. Satan comes out to meet them. "Why are you here?" he asks a Jewish man.
"I ate pork," the Jew admitted.
"Okay, come on in," said the Devil. Then he turned to the Catholic. "What about you?"
"I ate meat on Friday, long before His Holiness said it was okay," the Catholic answered.
"All right, come in," Satan said. Then he looked at the Episcopalian. "Why on earth are you down here?"
The Episcopalian hung his head in shame, then answered: "I ate my salad with my dessert fork."

How we eat and drink has always been a great subject for religious humor because it is a huge matter of concern to the people of God throughout the vast sweep of history. There was Eve’s first bite of the forbidden fruit. There was the manna in the desert, followed by the quails in the desert. There are hundreds of Jewish laws set down in the book of Leviticus related to food preparation. Jesus ate and drank with sinners and outcasts. And a major concern in the life of the early church was whether Jewish Christians could share meals with Gentile Christians, who had different dietary practices, and still be faithful to the God of their ancestors.

Of all the gospel writers, Luke pays particular attention to this issue: hospitality and sharing meals was as much a part of Jewish life in first century Palestine as it is in our lives today. One scholar has identified ten meals of Jesus in Luke’s gospel. Can you imagine if someone wrote your biography, and in the space of seventy-five pages or so, wrote about ten dinners? That’s one dinner every seven or eight pages!

These meals are a way that Luke presents Jesus’ mission. Mealtime was Jesus’ teaching moment. In today’s Gospel, Jesus has something to say to dinner guests, and something to say to dinner hosts. To the guests he says: stop jockeying for position, and take the lowest place. You are not in charge of your station in life. In God’s eyes, everyone is equal. Your job is to humble yourself.

To the hosts, Jesus says: When you have a dinner party, do not invite the usual suspects: friends, neighbors, business colleagues. Invite the uninvited. In the Gospel, the uninvited are the poor, the maimed, the outcast. In Acts—the sequel to the Gospel of Luke, where we have lots of conflicts over table manners—the uninvited are the Gentiles, the foreigner, the Other who wanted to become a follower of Jesus but who did not adhere to ancient traditions about food. The fact that Jesus shared meals with those who were ritually unclean according to Jewish law, and that he included among his inner circle of followers those who would not normally be on anyone’s guest list, reflects Jesus’ understanding of the level of community to which God calls us.

Letting go of our assumptions about our own place in life; inviting the uninvited. Jesus uses this teaching moment not only because welcoming the stranger and feeding the poor are always good things to do, but because extending ourselves in this way, widening our circle, is the only way that we can come to know God and understand God’s will for creation. To borrow words from today’s reading from Hebrews: when we remember those who are in prison as though we ourselves were in prison, when we remember those who are being tortured as though we ourselves are being tortured—it is only through this level of connection with the Other that we understand how wide, how deep, and how broad God’s love is for us and for all creation. It is only by sitting at the lowest place at the table that we learn that God’s love has nothing to do with our rank or station in life. It is only by inviting the uninvited into our fellowship that we learn that God’s love does not recognize the divisions that we see.

Now most of us Episcopalians are not as good at this kind of inviting as some other folks are. There are a lot of reasons for this. Part of it is a kind of reserve about sharing the good news of our faith and our tradition with people different from us, that same reserve that is probably responsible for the lack of good jokes about Episcopalians. We worry that we might offend someone if we tell them about our church or, heaven forbid, ask them to come to church with us. And then, if by some miracle someone comes to church for the first time of their own accord, without being brought by someone, we worry that we will offend them if we welcome them too vigorously. I’m aware that we probably have guests today and I hope you feel just the right amount of welcome, and if we welcome you too vigorously or too reservedly, I hope you’ll forgive us and come back again anyway!

It is of course no coincidence that Jesus’ last gift to us was at table. He took bread, gave thanks, broke the bread, and shared it, and asked us to do the same. This table ritual of bread and wine is at the heart of all that we do, wherever we are, and whichever prayer book we worship with. The fact that so many Episcopalian jokes focus on eating and drinking—and on table manners—perhaps confirms what many of us suspect: the Episcopal Church is the true church, most faithfully connected through history to the ancient church. Joking aside, as we prepare to celebrate this Eucharist, this ancient ritual of table fellowship, let us give thanks for God’s undiscriminating love, let us offer prayers that we may bring the uninvited into our midst, and let us celebrate.