Table Manners
The Rev. Samuel Schaal
First Congregational Church of Wauwatosa
Sept. 2, 2007

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Psalm 81:1, 10-16
Luke 14:1, 7-14

I am a fan of British comedy and one of my favorites is Keeping Up Appearances. This is the story of Hyacinth Bucket. Though her name is spelled b-u-c-k-e-t, she pronounces it not “bucket” but “bouquet.” It’s the story of her deep need for the trappings of upper class British life. She is constantly throwing one of her “candlelight dinners” to impress her guests, which inevitably ends in disaster, as often her working class and crude sister and brother-in-law crash the party at the wrong time. Hyacinth is concerned only with the surface things of life and each episode ends with her failing once again, in her losing battle with the bad manners and plebian tastes of others.

The show is an exaggeration of polite society, to be sure. In polite society, at the nicer social dinners, there are rules on who sits where and especially rules, most often unofficial but real nonetheless, on who is invited.

Well, if Hyacinth Bucket had been one of the Pharisees at the particular dinner in our gospel lesson this morning (and that is a bit difficult to think of and is perhaps mixing metaphors more than I should), she would likely think that Jesus doesn’t have good manners. He isn’t a very good dinner guest because he does not follow the social conventions. In that age, Palestinian social gatherings, reclining couches were arranged in groups of three, with the center grouping reserved for persons of wealth and prestige. It’s not a lot different from our notions of a head table at a function. So Jesus suggests that guests should first take a position of lower prestige to avoid embarrassment if someone of higher prestige comes in.

This is good advice and this is good etiquette, to this day, to affect a humble manner. So what he is saying here is not particularly earth shattering. But in verse 11 we get the theological thrust of all this: “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” He is no longer suggesting mere manners, but he speaks in the voice of the prophet by predicting a radical change. This saying turns the world upside down. It is a polar reversal—north is south and south is north. Not only should you be humble, you will be humbled by a God of justice who will usher in a new age of mercy for those who have had little mercy in the dominant and domineering culture of the day.

Then he offers a little bit of practical advice given this new theological point of view. When you throw a party, invite the poor, crippled, lame and blind. And for this you will be blessed. So it turns out in the emerging new age of Christianity, it is good manners to invite the disenfranchised. A Christian power lunch is with the poor, crippled, lame and blind! So it turns out that God’s table manners may be different from ours, for the least and the lost are invited in.

Of course, this is just one of many such passages in the Gospels and throughout the Scriptures that expresses such notions of deep hospitality. Hospitality to strangers was a foundational idea in the Jewish tradition and it was carried forth into the Christian tradition. Hospitality continues as an imperative in our tradition because we, too, were strangers in Egypt, says Deuteronomy (10:19).

One place that hospitality continues to be expressed in the Christian tradition of our day is with some of the monastic traditions, notably the Benedictines. (Our own Dr. Peay was a Benedictine.) The writer Kathleen Norris writes (in Amazing Grace) that she used to teach a writing workshop every summer that happened to meet at a Benedictine monastery. She said that many of her students had never been to a monastery before and always had lots of questions on the first night that had nothing to do with writing but had to do with life in the community of the monastery. Often they marveled at how the brothers offered such excellent hospitality to strangers – not just to Catholics nor necessarily even to Christians, but to all those who had wandered in to take a writing workshop.

But Norris reports that one student didn’t have that experience:

“One year on the second day of class a shy, soft-spoken student told the group that she had gone to the abbey visitor center to ask some more questions. But the monk had been short with her, saying, finally, “I don’t have time for this; we are trying to run a monastery here!” She felt bad and wondered if she should go apologize for having bothered him. I responded by saying that what she had experienced was an aberration, and she might simply let it ride for the time being. As I expected, the monk, a man recently professed, soon tracked her down and apologized profusely. All in all, it was a useful exchange. The guest discovered that monks are human; and the monk came to his senses regarding Benedict’s Rule on the reception of guests.”

“Leave us alone, we’re trying to run a monastery!” How about: “Leave us alone, we’re trying to run a church!” Luckily the discipline of the place was such, the orientation toward famous Benedictine hospitality was such—that the monk soon came to his senses.

Many churches, unfortunately, don’t have the discipline of hospitality like a Benedictine monastery. And yet the church stands in the world as a place of hospitality, perhaps one of few modern institutions to do so. It is true that there are many places you can go in the world and be treated very, very well. When I travel I see this a lot. If you are an elite flyer, they have a separate line for you at the ticket counter, where you go straight to the head of the line while the rest of the folks are slowly herded through the roped-off labyrinth. When most passengers board the plane they might have to walk past first class to the back of the plane, “behind the curtain.”

You also get treated really well at a number of other places in our society: a high-end department store, a first-class restaurant. But all these examples are examples of hospitality given in exchange for a price. The church is one of the few places in our culture where one can walk in as one is and be accepted into God’s family. Where hospitality doesn’t cost you anything. Not because you are dressed well, not because you pledge a lot, not because you agree to donate your talents to the cause of the church, not because you’re smart or good looking or have money, power or prestige. But because you exist in the Grace of God and the church is the institution that carries out that grace, that takes that grace seriously and passes it on to others.

At the very least, today’s lesson calls us to be other-directed, to be concerned more for others than for self. We are to welcome the stranger for we have been strangers. We are to host others as we have been the guest of our master host, Jesus Christ. Today we go to the table to again experience Christ’s ministrations to us, empowering us and emboldening us to then go and be Christ for the world. Today is our day when again we experience the receiving of God’s hospitality, when Christ models again for us what it is like to be his guest at his table, to be the recipient of God’s grace.

And then to reflect that grace, that hospitality, that love, to others.

An old story is told from the Jewish Midrash that responds to the question, “How is God known?” When the world was young, according to the Midrash, two brothers shared a field and a mill, each night dividing evenly the grain they had ground together. Now, one brother lived alone, the other had a large family. The single brother thought to himself one day, “It isn’t really fair that we divide the grain evenly. I have only myself to care for, but my brother has children to feed.” So each night he secretly took some of his grain to his brother’s granary.

But the married brother said to himself one day, “It isn’t fair that we divide the grain evenly, because I have children to provide for me in my old age, but my brother has none.” So, he began every night to take some of his grain to his brother’s granary.

Then one night they met each other half way between their two houses, suddenly realized what had been happening, and embraced each other in love. The legend is that God witnessed their meeting and proclaimed, “This is a holy place – and here it is that my temple shall be built. And so it was – that the first temple was constructed in Jerusalem. For God is known where human beings discover each other in love.”

I would add to this midrash: If God is known in the affection of two siblings, how much more is God known in the affection of welcoming those who are often unwelcome, of offering hospitality to others? As Hebrews instructs, “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

For if truth be told, each of us has been at some point the stranger, the one who is unwelcome. And we have found, somehow and somewhere and at some time, welcome in this house—a mere human reflection of the incredibly deep grace of God in Christ, a grace we can have difficulty really understanding. But today, we need not understand it—only experience it.

Amen.