The Character of the Kingdom
The Rev. Canon Frank Logue preached this sermon at St. John’s Church in Savannah, Georgia on September 23, 2018.
The Character of the Kingdom
Luke 14:1-11
“It is not in the most distinguished achievements that men’s virtues or vices may be best discovered; but very often an action of small note.”
Plutarch made this observation about the character of a person, noting that we don’t always see best someone’s true character in the big actions. Plutarch would go on to clarify, “A casual remark or joke shall distinguish a person’s real character more than the greatest sieges, or the most important battles.”
How one acts when he or she thinks no one is noticing speaks volumes about the person. As Father Dunbar challenged in a recent video, we choose to “live by the flesh in greedy self gratification” or “to live by the spirit in God’s glorifying gratitude.” Put more simply, “To live by fear or live by faith.” And I would add that especially in our actions when we think no one is noticing or cares, we reveal how our faith is forming our character.
Jesus tells us in our Gospel for this 17th Sunday after Trinity that in our actions both great and small, if we are exalting ourselves, we shall be abased, while “he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”
Jesus says this while speaking as a guest in the home of one of the chief Pharisees. For those of us reading along in Luke’s Gospel, this is no surprise. Luke tells of 19 meals in the 24 chapters of his account of the Good News. Table fellowship was both an important opportunity for Jesus to teach and an important symbol of the coming communion in the Kingdom of God.
Jesus use of meal times also fit within the Greco-Roman and Jewish cultures in which he lived. In the Greek and Roman culture, meals were very important indicators of social status. The person hosting a meal was looking to improve their standing in the community with a fine meal. The people who came to the meal were both those higher up the social ladder who could make the host seem more important and those lower on the social ladder who were looking to the host to improve their standing. If you accepted a dinner invitation, you would be expected, obligated, to reciprocate.
Jesus would have been an exception to the rule. As a Jewish teacher, Jesus would likely have been offered a place at the table to show the host as generous, while offering an opportunity to learn firsthand about this Rabbi who excited the crowds.
While Jesus is often the guest acting as host when dining with tax collectors, prostitutes, and other notable sinners, this meal offers a more sinister setting. Luke told us in the first verse of this chapter that both the guests and the host were closely watching Jesus. The Greek word used here (paraterounmenoi which also in Luke 6:7 and 20:20) means literally to watch from the side. It implies “hostile observation” as it was used to describe someone watching you out of the corner of his or her eyes to catch you doing wrong. As if they have Plutarch’s challenge in mind, they want to trip up Jesus on some inappropriate action of small note while he thinks no one is looking. They show no concern for the man with the dropsy who receives healing, but only for catching Jesus in error.
It is in this setting that Jesus, characteristically, does the unthinkable. Jesus gives advice on how to handle social situations and in doing so, he would have shamed both the host and the fellow guests he had seen vying for places of honor. Their jockeying for position seeking ever more honor is the very picture of living by the flesh in greedy self-gratification. They miss the deep gratitude for God that would have come naturally for the man healed in their midst.
Jesus offers the practical tip that you should take a lower seat and then you’ll look all the more important when the host elevates you to a seat of honor. Yet he is not playing the role of a First Century Emily Post or Miss Manners. For if we read on just past our passage for this Sunday, Jesus goes on to say that the host should not invite people to dinner who can reciprocate the invitation, saying:
When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.
In these two linked sayings, Jesus first warns guests not to try to claim honors for themselves, then he goes on to suggest that when acting as a host you should invite those who can do nothing for you in return. The people seeking their own honor through the patronage system will take little or no note of such a party, but real character is revealed in such acts.
What exactly is Jesus teaching here? Jesus often taught in ways to jar the hearer into a new way of seeing the world, a new way of thinking. Jesus describes the world as God sees it. The Kingdom of God will look like a grand feast with all the faithful gathered around the table. Yet, God does not invite the best and the brightest to this feast. God invites folks not deserving. I know this because God invites you and me to the feast.
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Our collect for this Sunday says, “make us continually to be given to all good works” even as this passage and its setting reveals that the good works are for our sake, not God’s. Continually doing good works builds us up to become more Christ-like over time. Good works are not what we do to impress God.
Some of the Pharisees felt as if they deserved God’s favor for being so holy. Jesus warned that that sort of posturing never impresses God. Of course, God loves you far too much to leave you where you are and so opens the way to repentance, forgiveness, and amendment of life. But this amazing grace isn’t something you deserve. Forget the reward, you didn’t earn it anyway and neither did I.
This fits with stewardship as well. We don’t give back to God through our tithes and offering to the church in order to earn God’s favor. We give in gratitude for all God has done for us. In the Gospel Jesus heals on the Sabbath, but defends this action others see as against God’s law by noting that anyone present would rescue an ox that had fallen into a pit, even on the Sabbath. Jesus cuts through the letter of the law to the spirit. He does the same with our offerings.
While we do take the Bible very seriously, we don’t tend to fundamentalism in our Anglican tradition. Yet it could seem like we become literalist in a stewardship campaign as we unerringly point to the tithe as the biblical standard. We can sound quite legalistic at times.
There are only two problems with the tithe as the standard of giving: The first problem is that we don’t do it, we don’t give ten percent of our income to God through the church, at least not in large numbers. Giving by faithful church goers averages 2-3% according to studies. The second and larger of the issues is that Jesus’ clear and consistent teaching is that the Son of God expected not 10% but 100%. We are to live our whole lives in gratitude for the gifts God has lavishly bestowed on us.
I should note that I am thoroughly convinced to my core that what we do with our money matters and is vitally important to our spiritual lives. If we are truly seeking God’s kingdom for ourselves, for our church, and for our neighbors, we will need to consider well how we chose to prioritize our giving to our church alongside other giving. My wife, Victoria, and I have tithed for many years, offering ten percent of our earnings to the church as first fruits, to be given off the top. We live on the rest.
I remember a Bible study I attended in which a woman told of a life-changing conversation. She was very involved in the life of the country club. On Sundays, as soon as church was over, her family would be at the club. Everyone would eat and then change clothes. The men would golf, while the women and children would lounge by or swim in the pool.
One Sunday morning, a friend confided that this would be her last Sunday at the club. The dues had recently been raised and she could not afford to pay those dues and also increase her giving to the church so that she would offer the church more than the country club. It was a line this second woman could not cross. She could not give more to the country club than to church. For the woman who related this story, it was a revelation. She had never seen the country club dues and giving to the church as related in anyway. She said that she realized that she gave the church a bit of her time and money as if doing God a favor. It would not have occurred to compare that time and money with any other area of her life to determine what her actions revealed about her priorities.
The poolside encounter caused her to question her own actions. She did not change her giving patterns for some time, but she began to study scripture, to spend more time at the church. She began to invest in her relationship with God. By the time I knew her decades later, she was a woman of faith who I looked up to, as I observed her trust in God a revealed in little, daily actions. The character she demonstrated showed me that the conversion of her pocketbook started with that poolside discussion had over time made its way into more and more areas of her life.
Now, I want to return to the text with all this in mind. Jesus’ point seems a bit clearer. Jesus watched as people exalted themselves, jostling for seats of honor, looking to move them selves a few rungs up the social ladder. He also saw the same problem in how the host had motives behind who he did and did not invite to his home for dinner. Jesus cut through all that nonsense and reminded his hearers that all of them, all of us too, are the lowly ones invited to the feast by the creator of heaven and earth. Rather than living out of greed ever striving for more, we can chose “to live by the spirit in God’s glorifying gratitude.”
Want a quick self-test for how you are doing on the collect for this Sunday’s challenge to be continually given to good works? Notice what Plutarch would call your “actions of small note.” In the mundane decisions of this week, when no one notices or cares, do your word and actions reveal a hidden desire to exalt yourself in the eyes of others? How might your words and actions instead match Jesus call to humble yourself, putting your trust in God and not in what others think of you?
I have to admit that this self-test concerns me. I am as likely as many folks and more likely than some to want to want to be seen as better than I am. I know by preaching on this, I will face some test in the coming week. Likewise, you have listened to this sermon. You too will have chances “to live by the spirit in God’s glorifying gratitude.” God will love us the either way, but I pray that we will let the love of God shine through the choices we make, even in the actions of small note, as well as in our weightier decisions.
Amen.
