MANNERS AT THE ROYAL TABLE

Proper 17C September 2, 2007

Luke 14:1-14

There was a funeral for an Englishman that lived in the US for most of his adult life, a prizewinner journalist and peace activist. He used to come to the noon service in Spanish, language he mastered. The funeral was not fully formal by any means. However, a good number of people came dressed in black, both men and women. The people in attendance one could say was as in any funeral a mixed bag, but I will be tempted to say that mostly were middle class and educated. At the end of the funeral and interment, there was food and we have to serve it in the yard due to the construction in the parish hall. The weather was perfect, the sun was slowly setting in the horizon, and people were engaged in friendly conversation. When all of the sudden I see, horrors of horrors, the people of the Spanish Alcoholic anonymous emerging from their meeting and going directly to help themselves, somewhat hesitantly, others not so hesitant, of food and drink of this gentleman’s funeral meal.

I was uncomfortable, they did not belong there, there were out of place, chattering loudly in Spanish and mingling with the fury of life with a very different crowd. For a moment, the English group looked upon them with curiosity and surprise, although not for long, they returned to their conversations, elegant, quiet and interesting. While crisscrossed by Hispanics talking to each other not about the meaning of life and death, Bush and Hilary, but about parties to go to, anniversary dinners, others meetings and family problems.

I stepped back to watch, to observe the different reactions, just in a few cases, the boundaries between the two groups were open and exchanges took place, but for most each group although mingled physically, remained separated both socially and culturally. Each of the groups assuming that the other was suffering from some form of social autism and therefore incapable of communicating.

In Driving Miss Daisy, Hoke (Morgan Freeman) the black driver of this Jewish white educator (Jessica Tandy), two social rejects themselves, drives his boss to a dinner offered by the progressive, educated classes of Atlanta to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to listen to him speak. Miss Daisy rationalizes why Hoke, the black driver, should stay in the car while she, a white woman, comes in to listen to this leader of the disenfranchised blacks. He surely will feel uncomfortable. He will be out of place. She does it for him, to avoid him trouble.

Very liberal white Canadian theology school classmate of mine, now a priest, invited both Adria and myself to dinner on Thanksgiving, that was our first year in the country and we were not missing anything because we knew nothing of the occasion. By the way, Hispanics in the US call Thanksgiving Turkey Day -El Dia del Pavo- and a story has developed in which a turkey saved the first pilgrims, warning them of an Indian attack. In Thanksgiving, the savior turkey then becomes food, in a Eucharistic way, but I digress. During this very traditional dinner, with pumpkin pie, horseradish, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and gravy.

Back to my liberal white schoolmate, he was lecturing me on things I will need to be in the lookout for during our stay in Canada. He suggested that I should buy plastic boots for winter weather. At this point, his wife interjected and asked him. Will you wear them yourself? That was a rhetorical question, which she answered herself, no, you will not. Then she proceeded to tell me what kind of shoes we would need for the winter, regardless of their price.

We never felt so uncomfortable and hurt, in Cuba, we were second-class citizens because of our faith; we were second-class in Canada because of our social class and ethnic origin. It was the first time –we had arrived in September and Thanksgiving in Canada is the second Monday in October- and it has stayed with us not with resentment, since I realize that, my schoolmate was trying to be helpful while simultaneously not able to help to feel superior.

Teenagers at school live in a constant popularity contest, group exclusion and inclusion is one of the sources of power in an otherwise powerless situation. School divides along clear lines of power, adults are in charge and students are not. Teachers stand, while students sit.

If you find yourself on a bed in a hospital, you have relinquished control to the medical profession, who stands while you try to make sense of what they are saying about you, lying on your back.

Not only we are all in power relationships, but these are also acted out, played out in smaller theatricals units, improvising in the societal microcosm, larger “texts”, and larger politics of exclusion. These rituals not only reinforce but also contain the inherent and obvious inequality on the power balance, helping in its perpetuating.

This morning Gospel is not about good manners at the table, but quite clearly, about the nature of the relationships of power in the Kingdom, in the rulership of God, in God’s government if you like. The table at which Jesus was seated, hostile by all records, he turned into a map of the Kingdom, of the Reign to come, the one we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer, your Kingdom come, your will be done in heaven as on earth.

Theocracy is a bad word this days, and all examples we ever had of it has end up always doing the opposite of they proclaim, does not matter which religion. We religious people have consistently twisted the words of our scriptures to justify violence and policies of exclusion. Richard Dawkins has argued, with historical evidence at his disposal, that religion breeds hatred, because religion by necessity needs to exclude. That is, two truths could not co-exist, either one is correct and the other wrong.

I prefer to talk about the Kingdom, the Reign of God as an eschatological, that is -of the last things-, the end of the world- event that places in the horizon of history and avoids our intervention and therefore our control of its meaning. I become troubled when I hear both right and left speaking of bringing the Kingdom about or hastening its coming. For me it rest in the initiative of God over which we have no control. Jesus spoke of it as eschatological event and as something that erupts among us, which takes places within the cobweb of our relationships.

What we have of the Kingdom is what Jesus preached about, mostly in metaphor and image, escaping the precision of ideas confided to text and liberating it into the world of images, far more flexible and with greater possibilities of sustaining hope.

One of my problems with Dawkins is that he teaches at Oxford, I presume with a good salary, that allows him to ponder meaning and allows him to engage the world without a Utopia, since his paycheck or pension are secured. For two thirds of the population of the world that is not an option. The presumption of Dawkins is that all can be resolved, that the actual root cause of all is the holding of ideas, even in the form of Cartesian clear and distinct concepts. I believe that outside the Eurocentric paradigm that is as foreign as it could be. The embodiment of belief is not simply a textual creed that is subscribed to, but rather a far more complex and rich interaction of ritual, culture and art. I cannot think what will be more helpful to the Market, whose law of offer and demand is one of the few left intact in the post-modern world, that a world without hope. A world was finally –having- is all that matters, and –being- is just a lost memory.

In Israel, the meal table played a very important role, not only in the family, but in society as well. When an Israelite provided a meal for a guest, even a stranger, it assured him not only of the host’s hospitality, but also of his protection.

Also in Israel (as elsewhere), the meal table was closely tied to one’s social standing. “Pecking order” was reflected in the position one held at the table. The meal was one those theatrical instances where power relationships were played out, the meal therefore partook of the policies of exclusion agreed by all.

Let us examine the passage in question today, Jesus is not among friends –leader of the Pharisees- and –watching him closely- will give it away. The parable is said as the result of Him seeing the guest, violating norm, helping themselves to the seats of honor, instead of waiting to be invited to be seated by the host - he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor-. The parable then is rather a not so oblique insult to his table companions, and Jesus does using Scripture Proverbs 25:6-7 advises: “Do not put yourself forward in the king's presence or 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 a noble”.

The second portion of the text is mostly advice to the host, in terms of his guest list. In the first portion, he shames the guests, in the second he embarrasses the host. In a way, -you had it coming- by the crowd that you invite, instead of inviting - friends, brothers, relatives or rich neighbors- you ought to invite - the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind-. If you notice, the guests offered by Him intentionally are equal in category number to the ones that the host has invited, as no leaving any doubts about his demand for a total replacement.

This was no ordinary meal, this is the Sabbath meal. Meals of this nature were special, were influenced probably by the symposium, a Hellenistic gathering of males, of high upbringing, and educated who gather after a meal to listen and to talk about the arts. Equality of its integrants is very important, through this form of bonding, the Polis was controlled from Homer onward and its influence was widespread in the Mediterranean.

Therefore, it is to this symposium of Pharisees, well versed in Scripture, righteous males, educated and perhaps relatively well off whom Jesus disqualifies and introduces societal scum as the would-be members. It is like Julie inviting the winos of Athena Park to her daughter’s birthday party. What they will be doing there? How could they converse about the Scriptures, politics and society? What they would know? I mean the lame, the blind, and the poor? What would they contribute to this gabfest of the spirit? The symposium will be effectively terminated, ended.

The Kingdom as Jesus conceived it will be -tabula rasa- as flat as the table, where social conventions of exclusion will be ignored, where the purpose of meal sharing is the sharing of people themselves, not what they can contribute, not what they can bring. Whether it is power, riches or intelligentsia.

That the sick, the lame, the blind, the poor are not so because God willed, but rather because we did.