Nancy E. Petty
Pullen Memorial Baptist Church
September 2, 2007 – Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Text: Luke 14:1, 7-14
Learning New Table Manners
As a young kid, I loved holidays at my grandparents’ home. I especially enjoyed the times when my mother’s family gathered for holiday celebrations. My mother had four brothers and one sister which meant that on that side of the family I had ten uncles and aunts and a whole host of cousins. My grandparent’s home was a very modest wood-framed house that sat on a large plot of land that grew most of the food my grandmother cooked for all of us. I loved the simplicity of the house and the generosity of the land that surrounded it. Sitting in one of the rockers that occupied the front porch I could enjoy a magnificent view of the North Carolina mountains or if I wanted to escape the chatter that usually accompanied the front porch I could make my way to the back yard and enjoy the tree swing that looked out over the garden and pond. Even in the dead of winter, these outside places were important given how challenging it was to fit everyone inside, which brings me to the point of all this reminiscing. As much as I loved being at my grandparents’ home with all my uncles and aunts and cousins, I never looked forward to the actual meal time; the reason being that my “everyday” place of sitting on the bench at the table beside my grandfather was off-limits at holiday meals.
When it came time for the actual meal, the adults gathered around the “big” table while the children were dispersed to sit at card tables throughout the house with other children. As a child, there was nothing that I loved more than sitting at the “big” table beside my grandfather. It was known that as the grandchild who spent most of her time with her grandfather, my place at the table was beside him. But on holidays, everything changed. Here’s how the drama of those holiday meals would unfold. Someone would announce that it was time to eat. Usually we would all gather—some standing in the dining room, others in the living room and still others in the kitchen—for a blessing. After the blessing the men would sit down at the table overflowing with food while the women helped the children fill their plates. Once our plates were full we would then be sent off to make our way throughout the house to find one of the makeshift tables. Without fail, I would sneak underneath the table when no one was watching and take my place next to my grandfather. And without fail, one of the adults would, sometimes gently and sometimes not so gently, remind me that I needed to get my food and head to one of the children’s tables. Knowing that an argument would only land me in more trouble, I would leave the “big” table feeling both shame and anger not to mention excluded.
I thought of my childhood experience when I read Jesus’ words as recorded in Luke about how to be a good dinner guest as well as a good host. Jesus says, and I paraphrase: When you are invited by someone to a banquet, don’t sit down at the place of honor because just as sure as you do someone more important than you is going to walk in and the host is going to ask you to give them your seat and when that happens it’s not going to feel too good. Instead, Jesus says, it might be best just to hang out in the back of the room for a while or find a seat in the corner and wait to see where the one throwing the party invites you to sit. That way you’re less likely to get embarrassed. That’s his advice to the guest. But he doesn’t stop there. He goes on to offer advice to the host as well. To the host he says (and again I paraphrase): When you give a party, don’t invite your friends or your family or your rich neighbors. Instead, when you throw your big party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. In other words, invite those who usually don’t get invited to the party. And you will be blessed, Jesus says.
One could argue that the point of Jesus’ parable is that of testing our assumptions and the value of knowing one’s place in life. For indeed, his story cautions us to not assume we are more important than we are or to think too highly of our positions in life. And he offers some very liberating words that free us from the necessity of succeeding in our culture’s contest of power and esteem. But I would like to argue or rather suggest that in these parallel stories—one story being to those invited to a party and one being to the one giving a party—Jesus’ lesson on table manners is more about his vision for the people of God than it is about actual table manners. Indeed, Jesus’ table fellowship is a visible demonstration of his vision for how the people of God are to act. The outcasts will be accepted as equals. Discrimination will be overthrown. Compassion and kindness, not social position or the esteem of others, should be our goal. He reminds us that God does not care who is on our guest list. Instead, God cares if we have practiced the generosity and inclusiveness of God’s love in our daily social relationships.
So, if this is true—if Jesus’ table fellowship or table manners revealed his vision for the people of God—what does that mean for us? Well, I’ve thought about that and here’s what I am wondering. I’m wondering why when we had our big party in the chancellor’s yard just over a year ago we didn’t invite our back door friends to join us. How would it have been for us to say to all our friends that we minister to throughout the week, “Hey, this Sunday we’re having a party after worship and we would like for you to join us?” I am wondering why when we celebrate Sunday in the Park we don’t make more of an effort to invite our Wiley friends or our Emmaus House friends. I’m wondering why we don’t throw a big shindig for the kids that use our building on a regular basis—the kids in the Learning Together and Safe Child programs. I’m wondering why when we sit down to eat on Wednesday nights there are not more guests among us. In raising these wonderings I’m not trying to make us feel guilty about what we are not doing. This church does so much. But I am asking, is it perhaps time that we learn some new table manners. Is it time for us to consider who we are inviting to our banquets, dinner parties, programs, and worship? Each Sunday we lay out a banquet here at 1801 Hillsborough Street. Are we paying enough attention to who we are inviting to the banquet? I know that it’s not as easy as I’m making it sound. But then again I’m not so sure that being church the way God calls us to be church in the world is all that easy or meant to be easy.
The distinctiveness of Jesus’ vision of the kingdom was nowhere clearer than in his protest against discriminatory meal practices. Jesus and the Pharisees ate differently. For Jesus, meals were times of celebration and an inclusive fellowship that foreshadowed the inclusiveness of God’s kingdom. The greatest crisis the early church faced was not deciding right theology but the burning issue of with whom one ate. Could it still be true that the greatest crisis the church today faces is not right theology but the burning issue of who sits at the table with us? Perhaps it is time we learned new table manners.
Years later I can look back on my childhood experience and see how presumptuous I was to think that my rightful place at the table was always beside my grandfather. I can also look back and imagine that it was at those makeshift tables throughout my grandparent’s home where the “least of them” were dining that Jesus chose to dine. And today when we have our family holiday meals and have to place card tables throughout our home to host our guests I can make sure that the children sit at the “big” table along with some of the adults. It’s never too late for all of us to learn some new table manners.