“A
God with Open Arms—in MCC” 6-8-13
God,
Father and Mother of us all, You created us to dine with You at Your holy banquet. Keep us on our toes, always alert to
participate in the coming of your reign of justice here on earth. Let us grow together as Your church and as
Your children. We ask these things in
the name of the one who taught us what loving You looks like. Amen
When I began my study of this
week’s element of MCC beliefs and values, the choice of scripture seemed
obvious. A “God with open arms”--almost
nowhere is it more obvious than in the parable of the Great Banquet that God is
eagerly waiting and wanting us, just as we are to come to God’s table and feast
on the riches of justice and peace.
Let’s take a look at our story.
Jesus has just finished a story about being willing to be last in God’s
kingdom, in order to be first. One
rather perceptive listener states the obvious, “What a blessing it will be to
be seated at God’s table.” Jesus agrees
with him and then tells the story that is the focus of our study today. It seems a king (aka, God) had prepared a
great feast. The king sent a servant out
to gather all those who had been invited.
One after another, they begged off, citing reasons that were really not
very plausible and sounded pretty lame.
The king (aka, God) was angry.
After all, it had taken a lot of work and a great deal of expense to
prepare such a meal. So the king (aka,
God) sent the servant back out to round up all the folks who would never expect
to be invited to the king’s house for a feast—crippled folk, poor folk,
sinners, all those who had been shunned by the polite society of the day. The servant helps then all find a seat and
then he returns to tell the king (aka God) that there is still more room. The king (ok, you get my point) tells the
servant to go now into the country side and invite anyone who didn’t get
invited the first time. The king
declares that no one who turned down his first invitation should get a second
chance. The king only wants those who no
one else would want at the banquet.
Approximately two
years ago, I and several of you, began praying that God would send to Open
Circle all those folks that no one else wanted—and that we would become a safe
haven for people who don’t fit in any other description of “church”. I think that God has honored and continues to
honor that prayer. What is really a
miracle is the way God changes us when we accept the invitation to the great
feast of God’s riches. Listen to the
purpose of MCC that we are studying today in light of the story of the “great
banquet”: “At MCC, we come as we are to Christ
and are changed by what we find. We experience a God with open arms,
inviting all to take the sacred journey of faith and transformation... We
are one of the many voices of God that, until now, has been lost in the margins!”
For whatever reason, many of us
would have been among those people who were invited only after the wealthy and
well-to-do turned away from the invitation to spiritual transformation and
faith. And, I am proud to be among those
thought less desirable by society, because I know I am, therefore, among those
most desired by God. I think both the
parable and the stated purpose of MCC has much to say to us today. We may think that the wealthy and the
well-to-do are fairly easy to identify.
I, for one, am ready to jump on the bandwagon and determine that the
Jerry Falwell’s , the Anita Bryant’s, the Westboro Baptist Churches and most of
the Evangelical Religious Right are among those who God invited first. I had to tell myself that this is too
easy. God intends for us to look
deeper.
As always, it is important to
look at the context or the occasion where Jesus is telling this story. He has been invited to a luncheon given by
one of the Pharisees. Now, before we
settle into an “Oh, how nice” mindset, we must remember that everything the
Pharisees did was to try to trick Jesus into violating one of the Jewish laws
so that they could prove he was not from God.
This time they were trying to trick Jesus into healing a man on the Sabbath. Jesus, on to their intentions, turns the
table, so to speak, on them. Not only
does he heal the man, he ridicules their attempt to trick him by asking them
what they would do themselves if someone desperately needed their help on the
Sabbath. Their protests were quickly
changed to mumbles and frustration.
Showing them to be the hypocrites that they were, Jesus then talks about
humility—the kind of humility that is obvious in those who do enter God’s
reign. After his discourse on humility,
he reminds them that only those who have that kind of humility will see God’s
final glory. In words, that probably
sounded very strange to them (and very treasonous), he told them that they must
have humble hearts if they were to actually inherit the resurrection of the
righteous. Now the Pharisees and the
scribes were sure that they were the righteous.
Weren’t they the ones who lived up to every tiny little letter of the
law? (It doesn’t take much of a leap to
begin to see who the modern Scribes and Pharisees just might be.) In Jesus’ time, and today as well, some who
viewed themselves to be the most righteous were those who gave up or appeared
to give up much for the kingdom of God.
Jesus walks in and turns their view of themselves and those far under
them upside down.
And, then, Jesus goes for the
jugular, so to speak. In his second
story about banquets, Jesus tells us of the banquet that ends up being full of
the lowest of society—those unaccepted, those shunned, those rejected by
“proper society”. Jesus is not the first
to compare God’s reign to a banquet. The
prophet Isaiah described it in the same way.
"The Lord of hosts," verse 6, Isaiah 25, "will prepare a
lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain. A banquet of aged wine, choice
pieces with marrow and refined aged wine… The Lord God will wipe tears away
from all faces, remove the reproach of God’s people from all the earth.” All of this should have helped them
understand what Jesus was saying. But,
instead, they scorned his words.
It is not entirely their fault that they could not or
would not understand what Jesus is saying.
They were raised this way—society confirmed that they were right. It’s beginning to sound all too familiar. But, Jesus says,--not now, not here. The first will be last and the last,
first. Jesus saw, as part of his work on
earth, the need to shatter false religious hope. He was quick to say, “things are different
now, and you better get with the difference, or you will not be among those who
inherit God’s reign of justice and peace.”
Jesus talked of honest religion—of faith where all are considered equal
heirs of God’s grace.
Here’s what I think of when I
hear this parable. Now, when I was in
elementary school the lunch tables were long tables in long rows with benches to
sit on. In my particular sixth grade
class, middle schools still being pretty far into the future, the really cool
kids sat at “that” table. The next
coolest sat at the next table and so on.
Let’s just say, that I was pretty far from the seats of childhood
“honor”. I was geeky because I was
studious, I wore glasses, and my body had already shown its resistance to
anything remotely athletic. I made my
first foray into counseling because of my despair over failing to be awarded
one of the six seats at “that” table;, and, while the counselor tried her best,
I was never going to get the whole “it’s better to be yourself than to fit in
with the carbon-copy popular girls”. Now,
just a wee few decades later, I get it.
This is what Jesus is saying and what MCC is saying as well.
That geeky little sixth-grader
would have loved what Paul said in his letter that we read today. For it basically says that the world’s
judgments are off and that they don’t matter for “But God chose the foolish things
of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame
the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the
despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so
that no one may boast before [God].”
But we are not left off the hook just because we may have
been unwanted elsewhere. Let us hear it
again, “At MCC, we come as we are to Christ and are changed by what we
find. We experience a God with open arms, inviting all to take the sacred
journey of faith and transformation...” So,
we—you and I—come as we are to the banquet table but we are changed by what we
find when we get here. As one of the
voices that were formerly marginalized, we now have the opportunity, perhaps
even responsibility, to be changed by the love and acceptance that we find
here. We cannot help but think of those
who remain “lost in the margins”. And we
cannot help but reach out to give them an invitation to the great banquet of
God. Amen and amen.
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