Proper 17c 2025; 31 Aug.
Luke 14:1, 7-14; Jack Hardaway
SYRUP ALL OVER
Faith is a strange place inhabited by the unlikely and the discarded.
Faith is a visitor with strange manners.
Faith is uncompromising hospitality.
Faith is catholic.
Catholic like in the Creeds, the Apostles and Nicene creeds, the holy catholic church.
Not Roman Catholic, not big C or little c.
Universal. That kind of Catholic.
The Church belongs to everyone kind of Catholic.
It is silly the somersaults we go through to make catholic mean something else, making universal mean something that isn’t universal.
Jesus is at another dinner party today.
A leading Pharisee’s home, on the Sabbath, for a meal with other guests.
What could possibly go wrong?
I have nightmares about Jesus coming to dinner at my house.
Everybody on edge.
Everybody watching each other, waiting to mess up.
And then the story gets put into the Bible for all of history to appreciate…
So Jesus mocks his host and his fellow guests.
He makes a parody of the event.
At first he gives some conventional advice straight from the Books of Proverbs about how to avoid shame and embarrassment and win honor, to fake humility in order to become more important. To get attention by avoiding attention. Playing the society game.
But then the mood changes and an ominous note is introduced to the social banter, he says that all who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Suddenly the shallow social game becomes about final things, ultimate meaning, purpose, and God’s wrath.
And then he turns on his host for inviting the wrong people, his hospitality is wasted on gathering the important, the fun and the useful. Rather invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind.
It is a vision of God’s banquet, that is especially for those who are left out, who are difficult, unpleasant. It is a vision of a party that makes a parody of the event. It is a vision of the consequences of the resurrection and the reversal of fortune between the fortunate and the unfortunate, the doorway of invitation, being open to some but not others.
It is a catholic moment, where the strangeness of faith and the otherness of God unsettles us.
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, is one of those stories that is always coming back to me, haunting me with humor, beauty and horror.
One scene in particular has been coming back to me lately, Jem invites Walter Cunningham, who is extremely poor, malnourished, stunted, to dinner, which is lunch, and at the dinner table Walter asks for molasses.
Calpurnia brought the syrup pitcher and Walter poured syrup all over his vegetables and meat with a generous hand, and he probably would have poured it in his milk glass if Scout hadn’t asked what in Sam Hill was he doing.
Calpurnia then requested Scout’s presence in the kitchen, where he scolded Scout and in her fury she told Scout, “That boys yo’ company and if he wants to eat up the table cloth you let him, you hear?”
Now that is Catholic.
Calpurnia is the example of what it means to be truly catholic, to practice uncompromising hospitality with fury and passion.
This is a vision of the Universe that is contrary to how many perceive, counter to how many live. It is a vision that judges how we live, table cloths and all.
Who do I invite?
Do I play the game of shame and honor?
Or does resurrection have consequence to my thoughts and actions and words?
Faith is strange.
Faith is a strange place inhabited by the unlikely and the discarded.
Faith is a visitor with strange manors.
Faith is uncompromising hospitality, furious and passionate.
Holy and catholic.
Jesus is the strangeness of God pouring syrup all over our dinner and in the milk glass and the table cloth. What in Sam Hill?