Musical Chairs

September 2, 2007     Proper 17 C

Jeremiah 2:4-13             Psalm 81:1, 10-16

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16         St. Luke 14:1, 7-14

In Jesus'Mediterranean world meals were very powerful means of communication. Above all, meals affirmed and gave legitimacy to a person's role and status in a given community.

For this reason, most meals in antiquity were attended by people of the same social rank. The fact that the ruler of the Pharisees invited Jesus to dine at his house indicates that the Pharisees accepted Jesus as a social equal.

The host and his guests were "watching" Jesus closely. The word used here and elsewhere in Luke (6:7; 20:20) implies "hostile observation." They hope to catch him in a shortcoming of some sort. The apparently "honorable" invitation is actually hypocritical.

Behavior at these meals is very important. Everyone watches whether one washes (11:38); who eats what, when, and where (6:4); what is done or omitted at table (7:38, 40, 44, 49); who is invited  (14:12-14); where people sit (14:7-11); with whom one eats (15:2); and in what order persons of different rank come to the table  (17:7-8).

Jesus responds to this hostile observation by telling them a parable. Luke (Gospel) has Jesus responding to an invitation to dine at a leading Pharisee's house and on the Sabbath. The other invitees are watching quite specifically to trap him violating their religious expectations.

During the meal Jesus notices the pharisaical practices of these religious rigorists. They have been jockeying for places of honor and recognition. It is as if they have been playing musical chairs with the prize being the best seat, the seat of honor. Jesus heightens their interest in him by relating a little parable intended to indicate their hypocrisy.

Though it is about table manners and where one should sit upon entering the place for dining, it is much more about how one sits at the table of life.

The parables read here (vv. 7-11) and the ensuing exhortation are connected by their common context in a meal of Jesus. The parable looks like a piece of prudential advice on how to behave at a dinner party so as to avoid embarrassment.

But since it is a parable, it must not be interpreted as a piece of worldly wisdom or even as a lesson in humility, as usually understood. It deals rather with an aspect of one's relationship with God.

God, in the person of Jesus, is inviting all people to the messianic feast. The only way to respond to this invitation is to renounce any claim or merit of one's own.

The Pharisees expected the best seats as a reward for keeping the Torah, but, like the outcast, they have to learn that salvation has to be accepted as an unmerited gift, otherwise known as humility.

The ensuing exhortation is likewise not a piece of worldly advice but a parable, its point being that people's final acceptance at the messianic banquet depends on their acceptance of others now.

In other words, forgive and God will forgive you. Thus, humility in the Christian sense is not purely a passive virtue; like faith, to which it is closely akin, rather it is highly active.

The invited to life are to remember they are in fact invited and have no entitled rites other than to eat what is placed before them and sit where they find themselves.

The Inviter to the feast of life will bless those who have eaten well and thankfully for the whole meal. This blessing is the Host's words, "My friend, move up to a higher position."

The "higher position" would be a place of honor, which, in Luke's way, means a place of distribution to the needy of the even more gifts received at God's table. This image is made more clear as Jesus then turns to the host of the dinner and speaks to him about whom he should invite to such dinners.

Accepting an invitation to dinner in the ancient Mediterranean world obligated a guest to return the favor. It was not uncommon for guests to decline the invitation, especially if they realized that returning the favor was more than they could or cared to handle (see Luke 14:15-24).

Crass as this may seem to modern Western believers, this practice of reciprocity was a key factor in the economic life of equals in Jesus' day. I do you a favor; you do me a favor, endlessly. This basic rule of behavior guided every host in drawing up the guest list.

Jesus' advice to his host (v. 12) is not only rude and insulting but also shocking. It is extremely bad manners for a guest to tell a host how to be a host! Moreover, inviting people who cannot return the favor is viewed as cultural suicide. Such guests, the poor, crippled, lame, and blind  (v. 13), are clearly people of a lower social status than the host. To associate with such is to dishonor one's own status. One's social equals will then shun future invitations, and a host of means will be socially ruined.

Jesus, however, paints another picture of "true" honor. It is not human judgment, the return invitation that determines honor. God determines true honor, and at the resurrection of the righteous, God personally will reward and honor the host who has been gracious to those unable to return an invitation.

Jesus' parable portrays people in a musical chairs parody, seeking the place of honor who are eventually asked to move, now blushing, to a lower place. "What you should do when you have been invited is go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host approaches you he will say, ?My friend, come up higher.'"

This seems like a bit of advice from Dale Carnegie on how to win friends and influence people: If you want to look good, put on the mask of humility. But it is clear that Jesus is not offering mere courtly etiquette. He is talking about an existential reality. Those who exalt themselves, whether covertly or openly, will be humbled, and all who humble themselves shall be exalted.

It is not only guests who have the problem of ego-enhancement. The host does too. Elite house parties, whether hosted in Greek and Roman times or our own day, are honored by the best and brightest who attend. Such worldly wisdom is reversed as well. It is better, Jesus says, that we invite the unwanted and discarded to our dinners and be happy when they cannot repay us. For our payment will be in heaven.

This poses a still deeper paradox. Is Jesus suggesting that we act humbly only for the reason that we might be exalted? Is he advising us to use the poor as our stepping stone to heaven's highest places?

I think not. Jesus is speaking to a group of people who set traps to catch him, who seem to understand only the logic of self-enhancement. Even on their own terms, their tactics are self-defeating. No matter what tactic of self-promotion they try, they will fail.

Pretending to be the least will not yield greatness in the kingdom of heaven. Luke is not presenting a stratagem to win approval. He is describing again something already expressed by Mary herself, that God routs the proud of heart, dethrones the worldly prince, and exalts the lowly. In such matters, faking it will not do the trick. Musical chairs is a fun party game for children, but has no place in the adult world of living in the sight and service of God.