Sermon — August 28, 2022

The Rev. Greg Johnston

Lectionary Page

In every wedding planning process and at every wedding reception, there is a moment that has the power to distil and clarify decades-long relationships into a single decision: the seating chart. For months, the happy couple (or maybe just one of them and an in-law-to-be) have spent hours standing around the kitchen table, moving tiny names around the map as they factor in every variable. We’ll put the college friends over here, they say, and the neighbors over here, and the really strange second cousins somewhere over there. The bridal party goes here at the head table, and our immediate family right next to us, and—wait, wait, wait! We can’t put Uncle Jim next to our old high-school friends. Not after last time.

And then on the other end of the process, there’s the moment when the guests walk into the reception dinner and find their table numbers and sit down, when they finally see exactly what their friends or family think of them. Which table are they at? And, perhaps more importantly, who else is at it? You can tell pretty quick when you’ve ended up at “Random Family Friends Table #4” rather than in the place of prominence you think you deserve.

(This is one good reason to do what we did, and follow Alice’s family tradition of a stand-up reception, with a few tables scattered around for the grandparents.)

In Jesus’ time and place, wedding banquets worked a little differently, but there was just as much room for drama. From his words in the Gospel today you may be able to imagine the scene. At a typical classy event in the ancient Mediterranean world, the guests wouldn’t have been seated at separate tables, but reclining on their sides couches in a large U shape. The host would be seated at one end of the U, with places of honor on either side. If you were way down at the other end, not only would it be hard to participate in conversation, but you’d be facing away from the host and guests of honor.

One can imagine that in such an honor-focused society, the seating at many events was assigned. But Jesus describes a banquet with no assigned seating. You can imagine that when you entered the room, you had to think: am I the most important guest at this banquet? Am I the third-most important? The tenth? If you guessed too high, you’d embarrass yourself. Because if you walked in and took a great seat, and then someone else came in who was the real guest of honor, you’d be bumped to the first empty seat, which would most likely be the worst seat in the house.

So, Jesus gives some very practical advice: Go in and sit in the worst place instead, so that when the host walks into the room, he says to you, “Oh come on, scooch in a little closer,” and rather than being embarrassed, you look important and cool. (Luke 14:7-11)

It’s a neat trick. I’m not sure I’d call it a “parable.” (But we’ll get back to that.)

Then Jesus offers up a second piece of strategic dining advice, and this one is counter-intuitive but straightforward enough. When you throw a dinner party, he says, don’t invite your friends or siblings or relatives or your rich neighbors, because then they’re going to invite you over for dinner, and they won’t owe you anything anymore. (Luke 14:12) Instead, invite the people who can’t repay you, the ones who are poor, or who are living with various physical impairments. (14:13) And because they can’t repay you in this life, you’ve successfully tricked God, who’ll be forced to repay you in the next.

I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but to me this just feels a little… icky. The Gospel today reads like one of those click-bait ads at the bottom of a webpage: “Pastors hate these two easy ways to get into heaven.” Shouldn’t our motives be a little purer than this? Does Jesus really need to give us advice on how to fake humility so we look good in front of everyone else? Shouldn’t we extend our hospitality to the people who need it most because it’s the right thing to do—or maybe because we might be entertaining angels, as Hebrews says! (Heb. 13:2)—but not just to store up points in St. Peter’s account book? Can’t we be trusted to be good for goodness’ sake, and not out of self-interest?

Well, just to pause there for a second: What Jesus describes would be as remarkable in our culture as it was in his. When those of us who have more money host a dinner or a lunch, we really do tend to invite our friends or relatives, or neighbors who are more or less like us. We don’t really invite the people who can’t afford to pay us back. When those of us who don’t have much money are invited over for a meal, it’s not typically an invitation from the super-rich. In our society, we institutionalize a certain amount of generosity through non-profits and charities and a social safety net, but there’s very little real face-to-face encounter across our various divides; and in fact, outside a select few neighborhoods, most of our world is structured so that people who are poor and people who are rich don’t even see each other, don’t even live in the same place, let alone share a meal together.

And so if this sermon inspires you to “let mutual love continue,” to “show hospitality to strangers,” (Heb. 13:1-2) to host a radically diverse banquet and to choose the least prominent seat, then… Jesus would be pleased! We should probably do more of that! Maybe not for the self-serving reasons Jesus gives in his advice, which is so focused on our own honor and our own salvation. Maybe because it would be a beautiful enactment of so much of what Jesus teaches about the kingdom of God.

And in fact, I think there’s a little more going on here. It’s not so much that some of us, who are rich in possessions, should give banquets and invite others of us, who are poor, out of the goodness and generosity of our hearts. It’s that Jesus himself, rich in spiritual abundance beyond our wildest imaginings, is inviting all of us, who are poor, and hungry, and blind, to his wedding banquet. Luke calls this a “parable.” (Luke 14:7) Mere practical advice on how not to look like a fool isn’t a parable. A parable is about how God relates to us.

And in Christ, in Jesus’ very own life, God chose the humblest place. Jesus gave up the riches of heaven to become a simple, fragile human being. And he went beyond the lowest seat at the banquet into the most shameful places in the world, onto the cross, into the tomb. And when God said, “Friend, move up higher,” (Luke 14:10) he did, and brought us with him on his way. We are the poor, all of us, whom he invited us to feast on the riches of his grace, and we have feasted, and we cannot repay him. But we can turn around and invite other people to celebrate with us and to feast at his table.

So, yes, choose the humble place, not so that you will be exalted but because the One who humbled himself for you has chosen to exalt you. Yes, share a meal with those children of God with whom you might not otherwise come face to face, because the One whom we do not yet see face to face is even now inviting you to share in the holy meal of his Body and Blood. “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have,” as Hebrews writes, “for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” (Heb. 13:16) Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for God has shared God’s whole being with you, and he has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” (Heb. 13:5)

Even if you find yourself sitting at Table 17.

Sermon — August 21, 2022

The Rev. Greg Johnston

Lectionary Readings

Shame tends to sear things into your memory. I can tell you about the time I hugged the wrong dad’s hairy legs at a barbecue with family friends when I was maybe three or four years old, and how embarrassed I was to be pointed to the right one. I can tell you about the time I couldn’t figure out how to flush the toilet in the middle of the night at a sleepover, and let my friend’s parents blame it on his little brother in the morning, while I said nothing. I could tell you about the time the same friend’s snoring kept me up all night, and I was so exhausted in the morning that I threw up at the breakfast table. You may have some similar stories of your own. Shame is a powerful emotion, and it creates powerful memories, because our mind is desperate to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.

So you can probably understand the Psalmist’s prayer. “In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge; let me never be put to shame.” (Psalm 71:1) Nobody wants to be ashamed. And in fact, the world might be a better place if nobody ever felt any shame.

That doesn’t mean we should all act “shamelessly.” When we call someone “shameless,” we mean that they act “shamefully” without feeling any “shame.” We mean that they go around acting badly without feeling any kind of remorse. And that’s certainly not a good thing. But what a “shameless” person should feel isn’t quite “shame.” It’s more like “guilt.”

If you’ve studied psychology, or if you have the good fortune to be married to a therapist, you might have heard someone make this distinction before. To put it simply: guilt is about what you’ve done; shame is about who you are. Guilt is saying, “Wow, I really messed that up.” Shame is saying, “Wow, I’m really messed up.” Guilt is important, when you’ve done something wrong. It can be very productive. While it’s not easy to own up to our own misdeeds, guilt has the potential to draw us out of ourselves: we feel bad, we want to make amends for what we’ve done, and so we go to someone we’ve harmed, and apologize, and are forgiven. But shame is unforgivable. If it’s about who we are, then there’s no way to make amends, nobody to whom we can apologize, nobody who can forgive us. And so instead of drawing us out of ourselves, shame drives us into ourselves. We hide, because we think that surely—if they could see us for who we really are—they wouldn’t want to have anything to do with us. If you’ve done something wrong, and someone shames you for it, it drives you further into yourself, it makes you less likely to reach out and apologize. That’s exactly what we see at the end of our Gospel reading: while the crowd rejoices at Jesus’ teaching, those who had criticized him were not just proven wrong, they were “put to shame.” (Luke 13:16) And that shame, I’m sure, only hardened their resolve to see him put in his place.

That feeling of shame is a little like the prophet Jeremiah’s response when God first calls him. “Ah, Lord God!” Jeremiah says. “Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy!” (Jer. 1:7) Jeremiah’s anxiety isn’t about his ability. It’s about his identity. It’s not just that he doesn’t know what to say. It’s that he doesn’t think he can say it. Now, God and does respond on the level of ability: the Lord reaches out and touches Jeremiah’s mouth, and says, “Now I have put my words in your mouth.” (Jer. 1:10) But even more than that, God had already preempted Jeremiah’s shame about his own youth with those powerful words: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.” (Jer. 1:5) Before you were even in the womb, God says to Jeremiah, I knew you. And I loved you. And I chose you.

That combination of intimacy, vulnerability, and love is the antidote to shame. If shame is, in a sense, the fear of being “found out” (or having been found out) then to be told that you are known, truly known for who you are, and nevertheless loved, is a powerful thing. When Jeremiah says, “You can’t be calling me; I’m only a boy,” the most reassuring thing God could possibly say is, “I know you’re a child; I’ve known you since before you were even born; and I am calling you.”

It’s that same closeness that you see in the psalm:

In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge; *
                      let me never be ashamed.
In your righteousness, deliver me and set me free; *
                      incline your ear to me and save me.
Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe; *
                      you are my crag and my stronghold.
I have been sustained by you ever since I was born;
from my mother’s womb you have been my strength; *
                      my praise shall be always of you. (Psalm 71)

It’s as though the psalmist is wrapped in God as in a cloak, nestled and nurtured within every fold of God’s being. He’s protected by God, as if he were in a castle, behind a fortress that is sturdy enough to withstand any assault, and yet has sustained him from the days when he was in the womb. The psalmist is known and loved. Jeremiah is known and loved. You are known and loved.

These words are for you, too, after all. God has sustained you ever since you were born. God was your strength even in your mother’s womb. God is your strong rock, a castle to keep you safe. Before God formed you, God knew you; before you were born, God consecrated you.

That’s not to say that you’ll never again feel the icy-hot spread of shame as it oozes through your chest. It’s a natural enough emotion to feel. And it’s not to say that you’ll never again feel guilt—and in fact, there will probably be times in your life when guilt is the healthiest emotion for you to feel.  But God knows you. And God delights in you. And when you’ve done something wrong, you can shamelessly apologize, because you are not someone wrong. You are not the sum of the things you have done, or the sum of the things done to you. You are the beloved and fiercely-defended child of a God who loves you so much he would lay down his own life for you, and he is calling to you, with the most important message you could ever hear: “Woman”—Man, child— “You are set free.” (Luke 13:12)

Sermon — August 14, 2022

The Rev. Greg Johnston

Lectionary Readings

These are hard readings, this week: verse after verse of judgment, suffering, division, and despair. They seem to be starting out with something nice— “Let me sing for my beloved my love-song!” (Isaiah 5:1)—but things quickly take a turn. Oh, I’ll sing a love song, all right, Isaiah says, about a vineyard. “I will remove its hedge!… I will break down its wall!” It shall be “devoured” and “trampled down!” “It shall not be pruned or hoed,” it will not receive a drop of rain, “I will make it a waste,” and “it shall be overgrown.” (Isaiah 5:1-7) Not quite romantic.

Then Hebrews reminds us of the stories of the great heroes of the Old Testament, of the judges and kings and prophets who led their people to freedom and to victory—and of the martyrs who were “stoned to death, sawn in two… killed by the sword…” who were “destitute, persecuted, tormented,” who were driven from their homes and lived in holes in the ground. (Hebrews 11:32-38) And this encomium to faith is more than a little intimidating. Would any of us really be willing to do the same?

But thankfully, as we do everything Sunday, we finally get to the Gospel reading, and Jesus always has something nice to say. Right? “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! … Do you think I came to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but division! … Three against two and two against three… father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother… You hypocrites! Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” (Luke 12:49-53, 56)

Just in case you didn’t get enough strife and division in the newspaper from Monday to Saturday: here’s an extra Sunday-morning dose. Of course, a part of me secretly relishes this kind of thing, because we are divided—in our nation, in our communities, in our families—and I know, as we all do, that my side is right, and it’s those people who disagree with me who are hypocrites. Right? And to be perfectly honest there’s just a little part of me that’s glad that the lectionary puts all these readings in mid-August, and not on “Welcome Back Sunday!”

Today’s lessons make for grim reading. But I want to suggest to you at least one way of making sense of them as “good news,” as a reassuring word from God to the people of God, because each of these readings comes out of the anguish of a bedraggled and discouraged minority, desperately trying to hold onto hope in a world that seems to be burning down all around them. So let’s start from the beginning.

The prophet Isaiah lived in the city of Jerusalem in the 8^th century BC, in the shadow of the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians were a mighty and merciless power. Isaiah would watch them conquer and destroy the northern kingdom of Israel, scattering ten of the twelve tribes of the Israelites into exile. He would see them come for Jerusalem, nearly destroying that city, too, and they nearly did, in a siege that only ended with what the Israelites saw as a miraculous divine intervention. This was a terrifying thing; conquest wouldn’t have been a casual change of government, but would likely end in death or enslavement for most of the population. But it was a religious crisis as well. The Israelites were God’s chosen people. Wasn’t their God strong enough to protect them?

Isaiah’s prophecy subtly shifts the blame. It’s not that God is too weak to protect the city, it’s that the people have created a social order that’s so unjust, so unequal, that God just might allow it to be destroyed. He closes with a cutting Hebrew pun: “God expected mishpat and found mishpach; he expected tzedakah, and found tze‘aqah.” God expected that the people whom he had led into freedom would build a city based on his divine law of love, and he found bloodshed instead. God imagined they would practice tzedakah, charity—and he found tze‘aqah, outcry.

It’s not Isaiah’s prophecy that’s grim and scary. His people’s actual lives are scary. And you may or may not like his theology, but Isaiah offers hope: the hope that if they change their ways, if they reorganize their society, if they practice law and charity instead of cruelty and outrage, God will return to the people she loves and tend their vineyard again.

The Book of Hebrews comes from a similar place. We don’t know much about the author of the letter—he or she never names or places herself—but we do know that the early Christians were a persecuted and misunderstood group. In good times, they could hope to be treated like most of us would treat door-to-door proselytizers: strange people with strange ideas who you kind of want to avoid in polite society. In bad times, the simple statement “I am a Christian” could be punishable by death. Hebrews looks to the great heroes and the great martyrs of the Bible, and blends them together as exemplars of faith. It makes no distinction between the kings and prophets who achieve great success, and the ordinary men and women who suffer and die in failure. And this is grim, and it’s depressing, but it’s comforting, too, in its way. Hebrews reminds these early Christians that, with all due respect to Isaiah, their suffering is not a sign that God has rejected them. It’s not a sign of divine punishment. It is, in fact, what Jesus himself had endured, like generations of faithful people before him and generations  since. And more than that: Jesus’ own failure and death were the means of his ultimate triumph and our ultimate redemption, because it was Jesus, the “pioneer and perfecter” of our faith, who had “endured the cross, disregarding its shame,” and through his own death had destroyed the power of death.

And so we come to Jesus’ words in Luke, dividing households and families and nations against themselves. For what it’s worth, we know that Jesus’ own family were less-than-enthusiastic about his ministry, at times. (Luke 8:19-21) And we know that his movement did in fact divide families. Some whole households would convert, to be fair, and join the Jesus movement. But it was much more common for one or two members to become Christians, and we have ancient stories about the breaks this could cause with parents and siblings and the retribution angry fathers could take. Now, that’s very different from our own, modern Christianity, in which so many people are born into Christian families or even Christian nations, where a kind of casual cultural Christianity is taken for granted. But there’s some similarity, too; there’s comfort and hope for us in Jesus’ hard words, because they mean that the early Christians weren’t letting Jesus down when their churches struggled to grow, when the people around them didn’t just accept their message and join in. Jesus knew that what he was trying to do wouldn’t be popular, he knew it would cause division and conflict, and he did it anyway, because it was the right thing to do.

We live in very different times. And yet they’re not so different, in some ways. Our families are often divided—sometimes even by religion! Our churches, in this country, are not persecuted, but they are struggling. Our city is not besieged by a mighty army, but sometimes it does feel like the world is falling apart. And if you look around, it’s easy to find bloodshed where there should be justice; a cry, where there should be righteousness.

Isaiah, and Hebrews, and Jesus found hope in the midst of it, in their very different ways.

So where do you find hope?

I can’t speak for anyone else. But for me, there’s something comforting about Hebrews’ idea of the “great cloud of witnesses” who surround us. Human beings have been on this earth for ten thousand generations or more. There is no joy and no sorrow we can experience that has not happened before, and there are ancestors and friends, visible and invisible, bearing witness to our lives, all around us. And in Jesus, our very God suffered, and wept too. Wherever we are, whatever happens to us, it has happened before, and God loves each one of us still. God is faithful to us, even when our faith begins to fail, and is leading the way for us through all the turmoil of life into a better future for this world.

So then, “since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.” Amen.