Citizens of Heaven Week 5: Choose Your Seat Wisely

It’s (Still)The Season of Pentecost!  We're in it for a while yet, all the way to Advent, my friends.  And we are on the fifth and final week of our sermon series, "Citizens of Heaven," which coins a phrase from the Apostle Paul. 

“What did Paul mean when he said that “Our citizenship is in heaven?”  It simply means that it doesn't matter what empire, powers-that-be, nation, politics, or any other entity that is vying for or even demanding our loyalty; our first loyalty is to the kingdom of God.   

This series has helped us learn what it means to live according to the values of God’s kingdom.  

Today, we will read a story about how Jesus attended a dinner party and acted as the ultimate buzzkill with a simple truth.  

But first, let me become Captain Obvious for a moment and offer a statement. 

We live in a status-oriented world. As much as we don't like to admit it, we do.  Even those among us who tend to eschew such things have some latent tendencies toward it, if we're being honest.  

We measure things in “likes,” “followers,” or “influence.” As much as I hate to admit it, I do find myself checking occasionally to see how many views my videos have received or how many followers I've managed to gain on my social media.  

Trust me when I say this, it's always humbling, but I still do it. 

And lest those of you who don't "do social media" start to get all high and mighty.  We all have our little pecking orders, even if we’re not “elite.”  We have our family pecking orders, our work-related ones, and neighborhood ones, to name a few.  

We'll pull the seniority cards when we feel that is needed, don't we?  And we also have no problem, secretly or not-so-secretly, looking down on people who are from places we think aren't as good as where we're from.  

Like, for the life of me, I can't see why anyone would want to live in Kansas City. It's not Kansas, or Missouri, they're barbecue is substandard, and their football team is of the devil. 

But here's the problem.  This kind of insidious way of thinking can eat away at us, and keeps us from being humble.  

When we abandon humility and buy into the narcissism of the day, we begin to see one another differently, and not in a good way.  

But Jesus taught us how to live differently, and in the passage we're going to read today he used a dinner party to bring that lesson home for anyone willing to truly listen. 

CITIZENS OF HEAVEN KNOW HOW TO THROW A BETTER PARTY 

Luke 14:1, 7-14

1 On one occasion, when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely.

Jesus and His Complicated Relationship with the Pharisees.  He had a lot in common with them, but they're fanatical insistence on keeping the rules (and making up new ones) ran him afoul of them. 

In this case, they were watching him closely because it was the Sabbath and they were expecting him to do something to break it. Because he often did. 

They were watching him, but Jesus was watching right back.  

7 When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host, 9 and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place.

The walk of shame in the Greco-Roman world—choose a better seat. 

10 But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. 11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

12 He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers and sisters or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14 And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Inviting people to the table who you get nothing from—a new way of thinking in a world that was marked by status, patronage, and class-oriented elitism.   

Jesus was trying to show those gathered that when we lose our sense of humility about the grace we’ve been given, we have a much harder time showing it to others.  

What Do We Learn Here?

1. Don’t get too high and mighty, we’re all just sinners saved by grace. We're stumbling after Jesus, friends.  

2. Seeking status and recognition as a goal can lead to being humbled. Don't get caught in this trap because there will come a moment when you will be brought low. 

3. If you want to “throw a better party,” embrace a bigger kind of crowd.  Learn what it means to love and include people who are different from you, and to not expect anything from them in return. 

When the wrong people showed up at the church luncheon.  In the first church I served as a pastor, we would gather a few times a year for a potluck luncheon after worship. One day, some people who were living in their car showed up right about the time the luncheon was about to start.  

The ladies who were in charge came to me and, in hushed tones, asked, "What do we do?"  "Feed them," I said.  I felt pretty pastoral at that moment.  I'd been trying to get the church to learn what it meant to be the church outside the walls, and felt kind of smug about my answer. 

So our guests went to town, loading their plates, talking loudly, butting in front of people, and generally freaking out the poor church members who only wanted a quiet luncheon with the same old people. 

And then no one would sit at the table with them.  They overcrowded the other tables trying to avoid them.  

That was when this voice inside my head said, "You know what you have to do, big shot." I argued with that voice for a minute.  I was eager to have some semi-homeless individuals join us for lunch, but I wasn't quite as comfortable being the only one who sat with them. 

But I did.  And before long, a few other people joined us.  And then some of the church members started talking to our guests, and after all was said and done, they got loaded up with plates, bags of food from our food pantry, and were waved off, hugged off, and then went off as mysteriously as they arrived, having taught all of us a lesson.  

CITIZENS OF HEAVEN KNOW HOW TO THROW A BETTER PARTY