Luke 15:1-32
May 3, 2009; Third Sunday of Easter
We are resurrection people. That is the proclamation of Easter, of the whole Christian faith, really. It’s not always clear what this means, but one thing I think it implies is that we reenact the resurrection whenever we are together as the body of Christ in this world, alive and moving in concert with each other to live out the ministry Jesus began 2000 years ago.
So each week during the Easter season, we are looking at how we might be Christ by seeing Christ as a verb – as action in this world. Last week we looked at how our eating habits can affect our ability to feed others. If we eat or consume things in such a way that there is none left over after we have had our fill, then feeding the hungry, whether in body, mind or spirit, will be impossible.
This week we return to eating habits – but from a slightly different angle. Last week Christ was in the verb “feed”, this week we find Christ in the action of “eating”. Of course, really, it’s not so much how and what we eat, but with whom and how often and in what spirit we eat.
Today we hear Jesus tell three parables: the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son. These parables are all tied together because they form the response Jesus made to an accusation levied by the religious elite in his day. The accusation was that he ate with sinners.
We live in a food-saturated world. It is everywhere, available in every imaginable form: fast-food, ready-to-eat, partially cooked, raw, organic, processed, canned, frozen. We have more variety to choose from than is even remotely reasonable. Food is a given for us. We have it, we can get it, and we can eat it whenever we want. Not so with the Jewish people in Jesus’ day. The Jews were not, by and large, starving or dying of hunger. But food wasn’t a given. Hosting a meal cost something in a time of scarce resources. So choosing to eat with others was not a small thing – it meant something more than it probably means to us most of the time. Meals were significant symbols of togetherness, especially meals beyond the immediate family circle. Eating practices were very reflective of social systems and relationships. The people you ate with were like family, a part of your intimate group that lived together, worshipped together, forged life’s ups and downs together.
Among the Jews, meals also often had an added sacred layer, and were ritual acts meant to symbolize communion between God and God’s people. Those present were a part of God’s family. Tithes were taken, and rituals done to reenact the exodus and other foundational faith stories. Meals solidified their identity as God’s children – chosen, loved, and freed. So being accused of eating with the wrong people was the same as being accused of worshipping with the wrong people and with choosing the wrong people to be a part of the Jewish family.
Most of us can remember back in grade school that dreaded time each day: you have gone through the lunch line and have your food and you pick up your tray and turn to face… the sea of tables: the concrete reminders of the stratification of grade-school society. There was an encyclopedic sized book of unwritten rules about where you sat in the lunch room. In general, the system was ordered first by grade. Then it broke into large categories of the ‘ins’ and the ‘outs’. And those were further broken down into how “in” and how “out” you were. In the world of pre-teen callousness, some were definitely outcasts. Sometimes the outcasts would find one another and eat at their own table, but all too often someone would eat entirely alone.
This last outcast, of course, is the sheep separated from the flock and the coin the woman lost. For whatever reason, they have been deemed unworthy, or see themselves as unworthy, to be a part of the “in” crowd. Lunch rooms can be terrifying places for the outcast. But that was nothing compared to being one of the outcast living in Jewish society under Roman occupation in the 1st century. To be separated from any group of people – out there on your own – could be a life or death matter. People cared for their own. And Jesus is redefining who we should understand as “our own”.
Eating with people was not a sideline to Jesus’ ministry – it was central. Over and over we find Jesus sharing food with people in ways that upset the religious and social order of the day. And we often find amazing things happening when Jesus eats with people throughout the gospels; water is turned to wine, people are healed, sins are forgiven, people completely change their lives. Eating is no small matter to Jesus, and so who he eats with is of no small concern. That is the set up for these parables: Jesus hears people talking about him saying he is upsetting the religious cart by eating with the wrong people – and so he explains himself. He tells three parables.
In the parables of the lost sheep and coin, the assumption is that sheep should be back with sheep and coins should be back with coins and the good shepherd or the owner of the coins are right do whatever they can to make this happen. The analogy is that God’s children should be back with God’s children, so any one not in the fold is to be sought out and brought back.
Can you imagine what this would look like in a grade school lunchroom? Someone who sits comfortably among her friends would walk over to the one sitting alone and invite them to join in the group. All of us know, sadly, the disruption this would cause the system and that many would react negatively. And some would actively resist such a change in the system because it would, genuinely, threaten what they have. They might start another table and exclude the offender – the one who tried to change the rules. In my day, the repercussions of lunch room social violations spread far beyond the lunch room.
Eating meals with sinners was a bold move meant to bring those who are on the margins of society into the Jewish fold and care for them like family. Jesus says, “Come to the table. You are one of us, you are welcome to eat with us.” At the same time, he tells the insiders, “Open your door, move over and set extra places. We must make our resources stretch farther and we should joyously welcome these family members that have been separated from us for far too long.”
The parables tell us he sought the outcast, like a lost sheep, and brought them into the fold by inviting them to a meal and sharing God’s table with them. But in practice, Jesus was more likely to go find the outcast and, instead of inviting them to his table, he would plunk down right there and create with them God’s table in their midst – a table where people became family through the sharing of bread and wine. Jesus made the outcast the center of religious life – they were the honored guests at the banquet of God.
It’s like the most popular girl in the lunchroom picking up her tray of undercooked macaroni and cheese and leaving her friends completely to eat at the table where the outcast sits. Now it is not a matter of whether the “in” group will choose to include someone. Her move has shifted the question completely. Those left behind now wonder, “Is she saying that now the “in” table is over there? Is she saying that we have to come with her?”
The third parable, the prodigal son, brings it all home, so to speak, by ending not just with a meal shared with sinners, but with the glorious banquet where the sinner is the honored guest. We know the story well: The younger son demands his inheritance early and leaves his family to go sin his little heart out. At some point he finds himself not only not invited to eat at someone’s table, he has no food at all. In desperation, he heads back home. And we know that once the son comes home, the father insists on a great banquet with the finest food to welcome this no-good guy back to the family.
In all of these parables, Jesus answers the accusation of the Pharisees by saying, “I eat with sinners because they are part of the family. It’s that simple. Sheep need to be with sheep, coins with coins and brothers and sisters need to be with their family. And we are all brothers and sisters. Any good Jew – like any good shepherd or any good father – would do exactly the same.” No doubt the Pharisees were not placated by these parables. In fact, Jesus predicts their response in describing the reaction of the older brother – the good one. The older brother knows good and well what it means to eat with someone. It honors them and declares they are a part of the “in” crowd, a part of the family. So what is his response to this? He is appalled; he doesn’t eat; he skips the banquet. Like the Pharisees who cringe at the thought of eating with the people Jesus declares to be part of the family of faith, they miss the meal – they become the ones separated from God’s banquet – from God’s family.
In the end, not only does Jesus eat with sinners, but he turns the tables completely on the religious insiders by claiming that because they do not do the same, they are the ones missing out on the meal. They are now the outsiders in God’s family and must choose to join the feast in its new location with its new guests if they want to be a part of the family again.
This (our communion table) is God’s table, or rather it is a symbol of God’s table. It is what we would imagine God’s table to be like. Every time we gather for communion, we become a part of these parables. Just like the three parables, we and those around us, are lost in different ways and for different reasons. Sometimes we are like the sheep, wandering but in no particular direction. Sometimes we are like the coin – completely powerless to move from our stuck places. Sometimes we are like the lost son; we know the way home, but we just haven’t hit the bottom hard enough yet. Sometimes we’re the outcast, and sometimes we’re the ones who cringe at the disgusting riff raff Jesus wants us to eat with. Sometimes we come because we feel invited by the one we follow, but other times we find ourselves here gathered around this ordinary table and then are stunned to see that Jesus has invited himself to join us here to eat with us, wherever we are, and as we are.
This table, this ritual, gives us occasion to ask ourselves the profound questions raised in these parables: Who is present at our table? Who is missing? If I come, even though I am lost, doubting, ashamed or guilty, will Jesus really eat with me? Do I have a place at this table? How is my relationship to each of you changed because we have shared this one common loaf and one common cup?
This is a ritual of eating. The hope of this ritual is that as a sacrament we are transforming this space for a brief moment into God’s banquet hall. We act out a drama that imagines what the world would look like if every table were set by God and every table had Jesus sitting in one of the chairs. In this drama, we declare with words: All are welcome. All are forgiven. Even though we know we don’t yet live up to those words. We give life to a possibility, to a reality that contrasts deeply with the rituals we participate in all the time that work against God’s banquet. Our daily routines become rituals that separate, stratify, segregate, clarify boundaries and borders. Rituals that demean others and demean us. These are the things we do – most often without thought – that reinforce the social structure we already have.
This table defies that. When we gather and claim that we eat together with the one who ate with sinners as a way of life, we tell a story so different from the one we hear so often – that we are better than others, that we are the insiders, that we need to keep up appearances, that being good is what matters. Just the possibility of something else is enough to see another way. Every month we have a momentary experience – however imperfect – of eating with Christ, being welcomed without condition and with abundant grace to this table prepared for us. It is also a momentary glimpse into a promised future that we can’t quite grasp, but can never stop reaching for. In this promised future, we all belong together – just as all sheep belong to the fold no matter how far one might have strayed, all of God’s children belong to the same community no matter what has kept us apart until now.
We come for different reasons and from different places, and when we arrive at this table we are met by the living Christ, welcoming us into the fold, reminding us that we are an honored guest at God’s table. Then, in the wonderful equation of the resurrection, though we arrive as individuals, through this transformative experience of possibility, we leave together as the body of Christ to eat with people, to seek out those sitting alone at a table in the corner of the lunchroom, or those lost, or those too afraid to even move and too ashamed to even ask to sit with us. We leave to take this meal – this table – into the world to share it as Jesus shared with the sinners and outcasts of his day. In this act of eating, we become the resurrection – the living Christ in this world.
Like the father who rejoices when his son returns home, let us cry out to all: Come, let us eat and celebrate! Amen.
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Bibliography
Brueggemann, Walter: The Word Militant: Preaching in a Decentered World; Fortress Press, 2007
Hinkle, Mary: Wherever You Are; Pilgrim Preaching: Keeping Company with Biblical Texts and the People Who Hear and Peach Them
Long, Dr. William: All That I Have is Yours
Taylor, Barbara Brown: Table Manners; The Christian Century, 1998
