Multiply It!*

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 

Luke 14:1, 7-14

St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, New Harmony, Indiana

It was about a year ago

When I first met Dr. Beth and we talked about the possibility

Of my coming here once a month

She said

NOW the ONE thing you should know

Is that Coffee Hour is absolutely mandatory!

Judging by how long it takes

for the last person to leave coffee hour

This community does enjoy

Sitting around tables together

Tables with food

And my observation is that 
Its not just that you enjoy eating together

But you enjoy energetic discussing and questioning

and maybe even debating;)

For a community whose worship

At least on every other Sunday

Is centered around that sacramental table

That is as it should be

Eating meals around everday tables or sacramental tables

is a sign of alive-ness and celebration

Jesus

Especially the Jesus in Luke’s Gospel

Can’t seem to get enough of what happens around tables

So much so that the Pharisees call him a drunk and a glutton

…especially when held up against the hunger-striker, John the Baptist

In Lukes Gospel there are 19 meals

And 13 of those appear ONLY in Luke

And ONLY in Luke does Jesus eat at table with Pharisees

These episodes are immensely important to the Lukan message

     about Kingdom Living

These meals have various themes

 Healing…hospitality…Fellowship…forgiveness

And sometimes

Prophetic CONFRONTATION

What we have today is prophetic CONFRONTATION

A couple things to notice

         It is the Sabbath

Perhaps Jesus’ unauthorized Sabbath behavior

Has leaked out

It might be a good time to trip him up

         And they are WATCHING

The Greek word implies more than simple curiosity

It is watching…with an attitude

At this meal

The confrontation isn’t about

Healing on the Sabbath

Or working on the Sabbath

This time it is about the composition of things

It is about who sits where at the table

And who is on the invitation list

First Jesus has a little something for the scrambling GUESTS

And then, I think, a bigger something, for the HOSTS

SO it is a Sabbath meal

Which is a place where discussion and debate are routine

Jesus notices the jockeying for position

And tells the parable about the Wedding Feast

It concludes with a bit of proverbial wisdom

Those who exalt will be humbled

And the humbled will be exalted

And this is familiar to us

It is echoed elsewhere in Scripture

… in Sirach and Psalm 112

And I suppose that is radical enough for this Sunday morning

I confess that when I am about the business of exalting

I'm probably counting on being exalted in return!

But there is more
Jesus’ lesson for the host

Is way way way more radical

In fact

From a practicality standpoint

I mean

Who does this!

Who invites poor, blind, lame strangers for supper…

It is so radical…its almost, dismiss-able

But its scripture…so we have to give it a good go

Jesus seems to be critiquing

The carefully constructed

honor – shame

Quid pro Quo

world of 1^st century Palestine

And isn’t this world still very much alive and well?

In fact

Isn’t it our world…pretty similar

just dressed up in different clothes?

What if

Our measure for measure world

Really is false?

Not false in the sense of --- it isn’t so

It is so…that is obvious

But false in the sense that it isn’t the way to LIFE.

It may work reasonably well as an economic reality

But as a life principle, what if all it can do is lead to death?

What if Jesus has it right?

What if our man-made world of

Eye for Eye

Tit for tat

Quid pro Quo

Still needs to be turned on its head?

If God is a God of pure gratuitous gift

Pure Benevolence

ALL GOOD

Then

Not only can we not repay God

For the gift of life and love and joy

...God isn’t at all even interested in such an economy!

So we need to ask

If Jesus is busting this open

What does he have in mind as a good alternative?

What he is busting open is

The world of reciprocity

A world that promotes insider – outsider thinking

A world with a protective coating

The parable seems to indicate that

This world of tightly wound reciprocity

Of jockeying for position

Of climbing the social-political ladder

This world tends to close in on itself

Playing this game tends to narrow one’s world

---The Dinner Guests are ALWAYS the same!!!

Jesus is sharing this with his table-mates

He seems to be inviting them…and us…

to loosen

To unwind our world a bit

So that our lives gesture outward

It is that gesture

…Jesus seems to say

That is the only movement that can handle

…real god-like hospitality

…real god-like invitation

And it is a gesture that expects nothing in return

Thursday

I heard an interview with

Jr. Shelton

The new, first term mayor of Central, LA

A town of 27,000 people

25,000 of them are flooded out of their homes

And what struck me in the interview

was the way Mayor Shelton

pointed the conversation in two directions

First he pointed to his townspeople

To their commitment and tenacity and generosity

And then he pointed further away from himself

he talked about the trucks

Truck after truck

that keep coming

And pointed out the communities that sent the trucks

From Colorado, Oklahoma, Kentucky, North Carolina…and all over

We all know how much better we are at this in times of disaster

The townspeople and the out-of-staters

Aren’t thinking about getting a return

They are living out of Jesus worldview

Pure gift

And the result

Is that all that Gratuity gets multiplied

On a daily basis

It is hard to stay there

We rationalize

         -it’s not practical

         -neverybody else seems to be behaving otherwise

         -even if I did… my little contribution

                  wouldn’t amount to much anyway

         -either way…I’m just a tiny drop in a bucket

A long time ago I heard a story about Mother Teresa

That stuck with me

She was being hounded and hounded by a very cynical reporter

He kept asking why she was bothering

I mean why bother

You pick up those 10 dying in the streets tonight

…and there will be 15 more tomorrow in their places

what good is that

why bother

And she answered: 

Well,  

Jesus just said do it. 

He didn’t throw in a lot of arithmatic. 

When we are at our best

When we reflect a little of Mother Teresa or Mayor Shelton

We know that it does matter

It all matters

Life matters

It matters to us as individuals

And it matters to us as a part of the human family

…even our little drop

This gesture that moves outward

This move that goes against

You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours

This move…Will take me out beyond my own life

It will take me out

where I just might meet the lame and the blind and the poor

And there, in that meeting,  I will be humbled

And I will be blessed

And the whole world

Will get a little bigger

And a little friendlier

A little less tightly wound.

That, my friends, is the gospel promise

God has gifted us with life and joy and freedom

God has done so as pure gift

He has done so outside the world of tit for tat

How---do---we---respond?

I hear Jesus saying in our gospel this morning:

Multiply it

Multiply the gift

The gratuitous gift

Multiply it

Do it like I do it

Without expectation of return

Do it

And see what happens