An Open Table - All Are welcome

Luke 15:1-32

 

Driving through south-western Victoria recently, I became aware, in a way I had not been before, of Australia as a fenced country. Ownership of the land is defined and marked out by fences, fences of all types, stone and rock, wood and wire, roads and rivers. It occurred to me that fences speak about where we place people in the geography of our country, the value we place upon them in our economy and the lingering presence of past definitions and practices.

 

Our gospel reading opens a window into the slurs and asides spat at Jesus by his detractors and opponents. ‘“This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” In shame based societies proper conduct in public, keeping appropriate company and not keeping inappropriate company was all about keeping up appearances. You kept company with those of a similar status as yourself or made the effort to engage with those above or beyond your class. You did not keep company with those deemed to be below you – not consorting with the servants, slaves, prostitutes or drunks.

 

Table fellowship, whom you ate with, was the place this was most obviously evident. When people challenged Jesus about who he was with, it wasn’t a comment about his open and generous nature or his willingness to include everyone, it was about how radically he disregarded the sacred nature of table fellowship. Jenks suggests “the slander is more a marker of social conflict between Jesus and his opponents rather than an index of his personal values and conduct.’

John Dominic Crossan writes:

“In the first as in the twentieth century, a person might create a feast for society's outcasts. The could easily be understood even or especially in the honor and shame ideology of Mediterranean society as a benefaction and one of extremely high visibility. No doubt if one did it persistently and exclusively there might be some very negative social repercussions. But, in itself, to invite the outcasts for a special meal is a less socially radical act than to invite everyone found on the streets. It is that "anyone" that negates the very social function of table, namely, to establish a social ranking by what one eats, how one eats, and with whom one eats. It is the random and open commensality of the parable's meal that is its most startling element. One could, in such a situation, have classes, sexes, ranks and grades all mixed up together. The social challenge of such egalitarian commensality is the radical threat of the parable's vision. It is only a story, of course, but it is one that focuses its egalitarian challenge on society's mesocosmic mirror, the table as the place where bodies meet to eat. And the almost predictable counteraccusation to such open commensality is immediate: Jesus is a glutton, a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and sinners. He makes, in other words, no appropriate distinctions and discriminations. He has no honor. He has no shame.”

 

Jesus was pulling down fences and breaking the sacred nature of table and the rules set up to protect it. Jesus simply doesn’t recognise those rules and lives with little regard for social ranking in terms of who one eats with. One may in fact include many people from many different social rankings thus causing confusion about what is and is not acceptable.

 

Here is a principle worth considering  by the world and by the church.

 

Australia, we are told is a classless society, one in which everybody has equal opportunity to be well fed, well educated and to be happy. There are no privileged classes and there are no underprivileged classes in the telling of this story. Yet we know that this is not true. A recent article suggested that good looking students get better grades than not so good-looking children and we suspect this also applies to university entrance and job success. We know that if you go to a private school you will have better resources, better social networks and that more opportunities may indeed come you way. We know that certain suburbs and types of people are to be avoided if you wish to live amongst your own social class. Aspirational people seek to live closer to schools with a good academic record to give their children the best chance, value education and tutoring and avoid their children mixing with the wrong peers.

 

Social ranking matters. Symbols of social ranking matters, Houses in the right suburbs, children in the right schools, overseas holidays, right labels on clothes and the right badge on the care all matter, otherwise why would people incur great debt to achieve them

 

Once we have arrived at such social acceptance we avoid those we have left behind. We move on and begin to look for the next plateau in the social ranking game.

 

Jesus sets the challenge in this story. His behaviour is radical and anti aspirational. He spends time with those he likes, those he befriends, those who enable him to be the fully engaged human being he was. He is not stifled by societies expectations but takes social, intellectual and spiritual stimulation from the most interesting and alive people he knows, those without expectations and fences, those outside expectations and fences. He challenges us to let go of our dependence upon our class aspirations and become classless and at home with whoever we wish to share table with.

 

For the church this is another great taboo, who shares table with us? Is this life-giving table available to all or only to those who are like us, come from our class and share our world view? Over the recent years the church has had to, and continues to be challenged to redefine who is welcome, including slaves, non-whites, women gays, trans-genders, believers from other denominations and people of other faiths. What was once only a denominational practice, open only to those who believe like us, is now challenged by the diversity of our understanding of who are recognised as persons (slaves, indigenous,LGBTI people and women and children). Our Archbishop, in a press release Friday reminds us all to be open to the possibilities with in the upcoming plebiscite on marriage equality and that we, as reflective people, are to exercise our consciences on this matter.  Our church, the Anglican Church has had to face this because of its historical attachment to the establishment and has come rather late to practice a welcoming hospitality to all, at least to some degree.

Who is welcome at this table – there is no limitations based on class, gender or race; there is no fence built to keep people away. All are welcome. This is the church and the society Jesus speaks up for and challenges the table based social ranking of his time. This the church and society we are to speak up for and challenge the fences built to keep people in or out of our own safe places. Amen. 

Living The Way To The Cross

Luke 14:25-33 

I have always wondered what it would be like to be a celebrity and be pursued 24/7, to have an entourage of devoted followers at your heels waiting to catch a drop of wisdom, a look or even a touch. I guess when fame and fortune first hits one may think, “Wow, how wonderful it is to be so popular, to have so many people hanging on my every word, watching my every move and checking out my figure for signs of over indulgence!” 

By about day three I think the novelty would wear off. Get these people out of here! Can’t I have one moment alone? 

Today’s Gospel opens with the recurring words ‘large crowds’ were travelling with him’. Large crowds are a stock feature of the synoptic Gospels, by the lake, at the synagogues, on the mountains and wherever Jesus seemed to be. Even when he is seeking silence and stillness for a little time out they turn up, 5,000 in the sermon on the mount and 4,000 at the sermon on the plain. 

So I am not surprised that this time he turns around and gives them a serve, not a get lost you lot serve but a reality check. Ok folks, the school excursion is over, now down to real business. If you keep following what I say this won’t end well, are you up for it? Families, villages, careers, relationships and ordinary everyday living will be disrupted and turned around if you go where what I say will take you. 

D Mark Davis comments "…… this call to discipleship is radical, implying that those who follow Jesus are not going to be making decisions based on 'what’s best for me,' or even 'what’s best for our marriage/family/children.'" There is no clear indication that there is such a decision for, if one looks at the examples Jesus gives, an outnumbered army or an over committed builder, the decision seems simple, no. In the case of the army, negotiate; the house builder, rent; the other option in both cases most likely won’t end well. 

Jesus then says "Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” This is not a reference to the cross of Calvary but is not the act of a later editor putting words into Jesus’s mouth it appears in Mark, Matthew and the Gospel of Thomas as well as here. 

Also Epictetus a Greek speaking scholar is quoted in the Discourses by his pupil Arrian as having said the following: 

If you want to be crucified, just wait.  

The cross will come. 

If it seems reasonable to comply, and the circumstances are right, 

then it's to be carried through, and your integrity maintained.  

The inference being a certain way of life will lead, inevitably to conflict and if such a life is to have integrity one is to follow that life to its predictable end. Epictetus and Jesus both are saying, if your live outside the accepted norms of society and value what is at odds with such a society you will, in a Roman occupied country and a modern democracy, arrive at the cross. 

Now that may not be what the ‘large crowds’ wanted to hear. They were looking for peace and freedom from the oppressors not more violence and angst, especially from those they know and love. A counter-cultural philosophy of love your enemy, give help to the despised and reprimand to those in power is not the way one goes about making friends and influencing people. Yet the teaching of Jesus stood at odds with society then and still does today. 

Emerson Powery writes, "Today's contemporary Church has to wrestle with the reality of following a radical, counter-cultural prophet." 

Now this is not only a social justice question, it is a spiritual and religious question: what religion do you follow? The religion of the ego self and narcissism where I do everything for myself and those within my immediate purvey? Or is it the religion of capitalism, which says to the rich there will always be more, to the rest the leftovers. Or is it the religion of consumerism where enough is not enough and more is insufficient? Or is it the religion of self preservation, save our own bacon, call the lawyers and hard luck to the rest (a position often taken by the churches in reference to child abuse claims). 

Powery poses the challenge in just the way Jesus did, it is not a foregone conclusion that the large crowd or the contemporary church will indeed take up the religion of Jesus and live a radical, counter-cultural, prophetic role in the modern world. There is too much to lose. Our place in the power structures, our hard fought for exemptions and options, our buildings and our money, not to mention the fancy dress and valuable silver ware. To live a life of sacrificial compassion for others, including the whole of creation of which we as human animals are but one of many will mean a radical rethink for the church and for each of us individually. 

• It will mean preferencing justice in all our actions and our words, not just saying what is right but doing what is right, despite the cost. It will involve speaking prophetically into the public space and challenging long  held views or those opinions we described last week as being like haircuts, everyone has one but not all are worth considering. Integrity in word and action takes great courage but is the task we face. 

• It will mean preferencing the poor and not just the poor in terms of other human beings but the poor meaning the birds of the air, the flowers of the fields, the animals of the forests and fish in the sea. These make up the world along with humanity that God so loved. This will challenge how we consume, how we find ourselves entwined in the economic devaluation of resources and how we hoard up riches for ourselves at the expense of others. It is indeed very challenging and may well be too much on either an individual or a societal level for all of us. 

• It will mean preferencing a life built on enough – our daily bread – our ordinary job – our enough house. Simplicity in being without the urge to always seek more. Science tells us that there is a default point for happiness. Despite the lure of more, once one arrives there and gets over the excitement, science tells us we fall back to our default level of happiness. As happy as your are now is probably how happy you will be regardless of more. 

• It will mean preferencing a different God than the one we learnt about in Sunday School and came popular in response to the Enlightenment.This is a God is beyond all definitions yet knowable, beyond all boundaries yet personal, outside our world yet fully engaged in the experiences of our world, a God with a preference for all of Creation and not just human beings. Here is Mystery sitting in our muddle, our pain and our despair bringing hope to brighten our darkness. 

Jesus is a radical countercultural prophet who calls us and the church to a life which place us outside the accepted social contract. We cannot do it alone. We do it together and we do it together empowered by God’s ever-present Spirit. It is the only way we can take the road to the cross. In the end it was the only way Jesus could too.