Luke 14:1, 7-14
“Honor”
August 28, 2022
The word honor is fascinating.
An honor can be given to someone after acts of bravery, achieving a certain level of success, or being the best at something.
Think about how we honor people.
Yesterday here we honored the life of a loving and talented and kind and generous friend of ours, Elaine.
When I worked as an Assistant Dean of Students at the University of Virginia back in the 80s, one area of student life that I sometimes found myself engaged with was their Honor System which they take pretty seriously, with students empowered to levy disciplinary action on their fellow students for everything from knowingly writing a bad check to cheating on an exam.
It was separate from the judiciary system because there was a centuries old tradition that said your word was, in itself, meant to be honorable.
Starting back when any of us were Brownies (and now Daisies), with our three fingers like this (hold them up) and our most serious voice we would say the Girl Scout Promise: On my honor, I will try: to do my duty to God and my country, to help other people at all times and, to obey the Girl Scout Laws.
We bestow the title, “Your honor” on judges who are expected to make fair, sound, and just decisions and/or preside over a courtroom and hold jurors accountable for their critically important decisions.
And then there is Jesus who seems to have the knack for making meals both controversial and a learning opportunity.
Having Jesus at the table means the meal will be memorable, regardless of what’s on the menu.
Somehow, in spite of the reputation that preceded him, Jesus gets a dinner invitation at the home of one of the big cheeses in the Pharisee community and on the Sabbath, no less.
All eyes were on Jesus because the Pharisees, in extending this invitation, were probably pretty sure that Jesus was once again going to break some rule or another like we know he has such as healing on the sabbath.
The Pharisees thought that honor lay in living by the long-established laws that formed the backbone and structure of the culture.
For the Pharisees, being faithful to the law came before everything else.
For Jesus, he just kept throwing a wider net and making a bigger table for God’s people, especially the ones who the rest of the world looks down on or ignores altogether.
The Pharisees were not the only ones watching carefully – so was Jesus.
And what he sees are folks who take honor seriously but thought of it more exclusively.
There’s already an assumption that the right people will be dining with them.
So, Jesus does what he does best – uses a parable to make his point.
During this time in Mediterranean culture, the practice for men in urban settings is filled with competition for status.
It was common practice to invite to dinner one’s social peers or those who were somewhat lower on the social ladder and to refuse an invitation to dinner was an insult.
The guests, too, would be jostling to sit at the best seat which would be the seats closest to the host.
In Proverbs there is the warning “Do not stand in the place of the great for it is better to be told, ‘Come up here,’ than to be put lower in the presence of the noble.”
Humility was definitely a value then but that sometimes couldn’t compete with being seen as eating with the important people, closer to power.
Jesus cuts to the chase here and says stop with the rallying for a higher spot with greater visibility.
It’s the ones at the lower end of the room who will be honored.
It’s better to humble oneself and then find yourself exalted by someone else instead of the other way around.
There is honor in inviting one’s peers to dinner and there is then honor in being invited to their place for dinner.
Jesus is cautioning them that this is what human honor looks like.
Eternal honor comes from inviting the poor or struggling who can’t possibly invite you back.
You then are providing them with your company, your hospitality, and your food with no expectation of payback in return.
Reputation was important then and it still is.
But here Jesus is encouraging us to think less about what people think of us and more about helping those who need it.
Jesus does not abandon the idea of honor.
He just flips over who is to be honored.
He gives center stage to the folks living on the margins not to the ones who assume that they are the most important.
This is what the kingdom of heaven looks like.
This is what we strive for every Communion Sunday.
That is the meal where Christ is the host and we all eat as his guests, which we’ll do next Sunday.
We aren’t invited to the table because we are somehow worthy or it is proper manners to do so.
Our invitation is a gift.
When we accept that gift, with no questions asked of us or anyone else at the table, we are getting a taste of the heavenly banquet that invites all comers and no one gets preferential treatment.
That is eternal honor.
Let us offer up these words of prayer from the Rev. Katie Owen Aumann from Atlanta:
We long for you to sit at our table, Holy Christ. But even more than that, we long to sit at yours. Humble us, not so we feel ashamed but so that we can be blessed by the guests we will dine with when our tables look more like your table.
For none of us are worthy; yet by your grace, all of us can be blessed. For we know that it is in the breaking of bread together that our eyes will be opened and we will come to know you. In the name of our Risen Lord, Jesus the Christ, Amen.