"Table Guests"

Dr. George R. Sinclair, Jr.
Pastor

September 2, 2007

             I like to eat.  It’s not just that I like good food, which I do, but I like to be at a table -- not that I always eat at tables.  Most nights, now that the kids are gone, Paula and I sit on the couch and eat.  We save the table for guests or for when our children are home.  Of course you don’t have to eat at a table to have a meal.  Some of the best meals I’ve ever eaten were not at tables. 

             Once, a few years back, I ate what may have been the best meal I ever had. Sean and I had spent a winter afternoon fishing on the beach.  That night we cooked fish over a charcoal fire on a deck overlooking the Gulf.  I say “we,” actually Sean did the cooking, so you know it was good. It was cold that night so we had on our heavy coats and ate around the fire with our fingers as I recall.  There’s nothing like eating fish only a few hours caught. And there’s nothing like being at table.

Growing up I was taught certain table manners—don’t eat until everybody has their food was one; put down your knife and change to your fork was another; don’t talk with your mouth full; don’t assume but rather ask for seconds; when passing dishes say “please” and “thank-you;” wipe your mouth; don’t smack your lips; no burping or other bodily noises. These rules were routinely observed. Of course there were other rules when company came, maybe not other rules, but enforcement was no longer optional, and violators were prosecuted.

Jesus apparently thought you could tell a lot about a person by observing them at table. The Pharisees apparently thought the same thing. Luke says the Pharisees “were watching closely” that Sabbath when Jesus ate with them in the house of one of their leaders. Seems they both had their eye on each other. According to Luke, when Jesus noticed where the Pharisees were seated, he told them a parable. Right away we know Jesus is not talking about any old supper, but the Great Feast of the Kingdom of God when the Son of Man welcomes the elect to his Table.

I have been to a few of those—wedding parties, that is. At some, the guests ate fried catfish, at others brie and caviar. At some, the guests wore blue jeans, at others white tie and tails.  I’ve been to weddings where DJ’s provided the music and others where better than average cover bands jammed the night away.  While some parties may have draped crape paper and balloons, and others were decked out with ice sculptures and obviously arranged flowers, all had one thing in common—they were joyful. They were celebrations, full of life. Everybody had a good time.

Jesus wants everybody to have a good time. At his party, at the great heavenly banquet, he wants everyone to have a good time. So when he invites us, he gives us a few rules. We know Jesus is not talking Emily Post. He’s talking kingdom ethics. And kingdom ethics are fundamentally grounded by always remembering we are Invited Guests. We do not have a right to God’s Table. We have an invitation to God’s Table.  Our presence is not a privilege of birth. It can not be purchased, earned or otherwise negotiated.  It can only be received as a gift. 

God invites you to God’s Table. God invites you to the Great Heavenly Banquet, to the Wedding Feast of his Son.  God says, “Come, you are my guests. Sit at my Table. Let us eat and be glad.”

Have you ever been to a wedding you didn’t really want to attend?  Don’t answer that.  You know, you had to make an appearance. You felt obligated because your friend came to your child’s wedding. They spent a ton of money or they went out of their way and you had to return the favor and you really didn’t want to?  Ever been to a wedding like that? 

Or you go and you get stuck with someone you really don’t want to be with? That happens, usually at rehearsal dinners—you get stuck with Aunt Sue and Uncle Jack who either talk too much or not at all.  Two hours with Uncle Jack and Aunt Sue can be a very long time.

That’s the thing about invitations or about accepting them—we don’t set the terms. We don’t get to choose our table mates. When you accept an invitation you’re stuck with whomever your host puts you near. That’s the thing about accepting invitations, especially really big ones—you never know who you’re going to be with. 

Now I got lucky not long ago. I was invited to give the invocation for a big anniversary down at the Battle House. I sat at the Head Table with the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Boys and Girls Club. Governor Riley was there and he called me by my first name. Mayor Jones was there, and the Chief of Police. It was big and I was at the Head Table. It felt good to be at the Head Table looking out at all of the “little people!” I got lucky that night. But you don’t always. Sometimes you get stuck with Aunt Sue and Uncle Jack who either talk too much or not at all.

It’s hard always remembering you’re a guest. I mean it shouldn’t be but it can be whether you’re at the Head Table or stuck with Aunt Sue and Uncle Jack.  You know, when you start feeling entitled you can forget you’re a guest. You’ve paid your dues. You’ve made your mark. You’ve bought expensive gifts.  You’ve scratched backs—so you feel like you belong, no--you do belong; you’re entitled. You’re in the club.

You know me well enough to know I exaggerate to make points. And the point I’m trying to make is that we are never entitled to God’s Table. We’re always invited guests. And there’s never a time when we’re not guests. In fact, there’s no other way to sit at God’s Table except to be God’s guest.  And if we ever forget that we’re guests then faith starts getting all mixed up with privilege and exclusivity. It gets mingled with spiritual arrogance and laziness, which are the inevitable consequences of privileged thinking. 

Jesus wants us to remember that we can never take it for granted that we are guests. We sit at God’s Table because God does the inviting. And that’s a good thing because if it were up to us we’d never make the cut. Paul, quoting the Book of Job, says it this way in the profound conclusion to his essay on election in Romans 11, “Who has given a gift to [God], to receive a gift in return?” 

Thank God we get to the kingdom by invitation only or none of us would get there. Thank God we’re all guests. The pressure is off.  We don’t have to worry about our invitation.  Jesus is the only invitation any of us ever needs or will need.  There is no other way to the kingdom than to arrive as God’s guest.

As I said, Jesus thought you could tell a lot by observing people at Table. He also thought you could tell a lot by observing who is and who is not seated at Table.  “When you give a luncheon or dinner,” he says, “do not invite your friends or 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 (and notice that eschatological, kingdom word banquet) 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.”

The people at our table should be like the people at God’s Table. And like the people at God’s Table, the people at our tables can not repay us. They can only accept our gifts.

Life, Jesus is saying, is not “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours,” not at all. Life is giving and gifts can’t be repaid. That’s the whole point of giving. We don’t give gifts in order to get gifts.  Jesus liberates us from the market of quid pro quo. Life is not the art of the deal. 

Jesus wants to lift us off the hook of negotiation.  He says to us, “Look, God loves you for who you are. How about loving others for who they are?  How about loving them the way I love you? And I don’t love you because you’ve fooled me into thinking you’re somebody you’re not. Give yourself a break by giving up your hyper vigilance, the dark pretense that you think keeps you from being found out. I’ve already found you out and I like what I see. How about giving the person next to you the same break?  Love them for who they are and not for whom you want them to be. And let’s see what love will do.”

In the early 1960’s Eugene Peterson who is the author of some 20 books, including a widely hailed translation of the Bible, was finishing his PhD while working as an associate pastor for a Presbyterian Church in White Plains, New York.  Eugene already had degrees from New York Theological Seminary and Johns Hopkins, but was struggling over his ultimate career path. He was torn between higher education and the church and ultimately decided to be a pastor, so he accepted a call to a new church development in Bel Air, Maryland. Eugene ended up staying there 29 years and over that time the church grew to 500 members.

Viewed from the outside, Eugene seemed to have the best of both worlds—he not only got to be a pastor but he was also a very successful author.  But things are not always as they seem.  Eugene says his career was marked by two profound struggles. On the one hand, he says he was driven by ambition and on the other he was terrified by boredom. Writing helped his boredom, but did not address his ambition. “I was in an obscure place and nobody seemed to be noticing me,” he wrote. “I just thought, ‘Well, I’m forty years old—I’d better make a move so somebody notices me.’”

Eugene says he was saved from his “need to be noticed” by a spiritual director who as truth speakers are apt to do, told him the truth: “Eugene, you’re not that great.” 

Peterson said it was one of the most freeing things that ever happened to him. He said he was saved from the “need to be noticed.”  He realized he was already noticed.  He had an invitation to God’s Table and accepted it.

Accepting our seat at the Lord’s Table is freeing. Among other things, we can do away with hyper vigilance which is all wrapped up with being noticed.  Accepting our seat allows us to give up the pretense of perfection, but accepting our seat, while freeing us from that and many other negative things is not without risk. 

Imagine a thirteen year old sitting in her American History class.  She’s near the back of the room. She always sits toward the back and not because she hasn’t studied. She has studied her lessons. She knows all fifty states by heart. When the teacher asks for the capital of Alabama, hands fly up all over the room, all except hers.  She lays lows. How about Georgia? Nevada? California?  The girl knows, but she can’t bring herself to raise her hand. Finally, the teacher asks about Nebraska. Again she knows, but another student pipes up, “Omaha.” And now she’s dying inside, “It’s Lincoln, silly. Omaha was the territorial capital. Lincoln’s the capital.” But she can’t raise her hand to tell what she knows to be true. Something deep inside keeps her from being noticed. She would rather die than be noticed.

Here’s the thing, sitting at God’s Table means we’ve been noticed. When you’re invited to the Big Table you’re already noticed by the only One whose notice really matters.  And while that notice lets us off the hook for many negative things, it puts us on the hook for some really important other things. We now represent for God. We stand for something, for some very big and very important ideas, kingdom ideas which are not just ideas but God’s truth for the world. And God doesn’t want us to simply sit on our hands but to act out his way in the world.

God invites us up higher because God wants everyone, God wants the whole world to know what a great day it will be, what a beautiful and joyous day it will be when the Wedding comes and we sit at Table, all of us guests, in the Kingdom of God and of our Savior, Christ the Lord.  Jesus says, “Accept my invitation and come up higher.” Amen.