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The Ordinary Means of Hope
Sermon by Cynthia A. Jarvis November 13, 2005, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill Luke 14:1-24 I Peter 1:3-16
"Hope," says David Willis, theologian and friend of this congregation, "is the forward inclining of trust, the forward momentum of faith, born and nurtured, fed and disciplined, enjoyed and celebrated in the loving community which every day chooses life rather than death. The ordinary means of hope are the same as the ordinary means of grace. [They are] the ways, the means, the media, the materiality by which the Holy Spirit takes the ordinary things of this world and sets them apart for the quickening and correcting and healing of love, faith, and hope." These means include though are not limited to "the extra mile walked, the next forgiveness practiced, the next cut bandaged, the next body interred, the next malicious rumor not shared, the next bill paid, the next coat given, the next letter written on behalf of, the next meal scraped together and served, the next chord struck and released, the next widow's mite offered…the next prodigal gesture of affection delighted in, the next hurt not repaid with hurt, the next feeble demonstration for a modicum of justice joined, the next batch of votes gotten out" and the next party thrown. The means at hand this morning have to do with the party! There is a story told about a doctor who, upon giving up the exhilaration of an emergency room for private practice and regular hours, began giving parties instead. "Solstice parties. Halloween parties. New Year's. Valentines. Friend's birthdays. Equinox parties. Elaborate, time-and-energy-consuming events involving dozens of people and their contributions: recipes from her brother the caterer…invitations and decorations from her printer and designer friends; carpenter and electrician friends to build a covered outdoor dance floor with carnival atmosphere lighting; her husband and his musician friends to provide live piano and strings. "What is she doing? people asked…why is she wasting all that energy on such an ephemeral thing as a party? I mean…I haven't danced like that in year, nor have I ever been to a sit down dinner for seventy-five people, but what does she get out of it, a smart, successful person like herself, a medical doctor, for God's sake, washing up seventy-five place settings afterward, and planning the next extravaganza, no doubt." The same might be asked of God vis-à-vis the church. What is God doing? What does God get out of it, this invitational affair for which lights are strung, sit down dinners planned, music arranged, programs perfectly printed? What does God--who, by the way, continues to work as an ER doc, saving lives night after night and then never seeing those people again--what does God get out of this regular gathering, this somewhat private practice (to our way of thinking), this party thrown in the name of his only Son? I want us to consider something outrageous on the Sunday when we march up the aisle to commit ourselves anew to Christ's church. I want us to consider the possibility that what God is really doing in every moment of this precious human existence is throwing a magnificent banquet to which you, along with the rest of the whole human running race, have been invited; a banquet where there is, as our children will tell us, enough to go around if everyone shares! Actually Jesus told the parable of the banquet at a dinner party--a hoity-toity gathering on the Sabbath at the house of a ruler--to which lawyers and Pharisees had been invited. "They were watching him," says Luke, and they watched him fly in the face of their piousity, these uptight--I mean, upright--men with the rules down pat, who had no clue as to the twinkle in God's eye made flesh in this "holy hick, whore's hero, poor man's Messiah, savior as schlemiel." [Frederick Buechner] I read Luke's words and imagine these guys sitting around the table after dinner discussing matters of the law and theology when Jesus says, "Hey, did you hear the one about the ruler who threw a party and nobody came?" Silence. Shuffling. Then the clerk of session says, "Blessed is the one who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!" Geez!! Are they determined--determined in perhaps even a Calvinist sense--not to get it? Fortunately for our sakes, Jesus goes on to tell the story anyway. "A man once gave a great banquet," he begins, "and invited many…." Jesus begins with the premise and the promise that we are among the many who have been invited to a huge affair. This is not a somber and sober gathering for a few. Rather, the occasion is a high and holy celebration where everyone invited will be fed and made glad, will kick up their heels and rejoice with exceeding great joy because, in the presence of this particular host, we were made to glorify and enjoy Him forever! The story, says Jesus, is about God's Kingdom, which is to say it is a story about what things will look like under God's eternal rule, a story about what things are like even now for those who have eyes to see their forward inclining lives of trust through the one telling the story. Why, then, we might wonder at the end of our days, do we believe God is interested in how carefully we have walked the straight and narrow, how cautiously we have maneuvered ourselves morally, how seriously we have attended to matters of consequence? I do not know, except that such a belief means to keep the party in humorless human hands and so under tight control. But if we step into the promise of the parable, we know ourselves as guests at a banquet thrown by a host who delights in human gladness at the end of the day. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," we say, "for the marvelous time, for the great stories told, for bread broken and wine shared, for the gift of friends, communion with strangers, for a purpose wherein another's greater need and our deepest gladness met, for wild roses, pungent tastes, musky smells, pulsing sounds that set us dancing and lights all over the night!" Strangely such gratitude is not born out of privilege but more often exclaimed by those who wring God's grace out of their wounded days. Such happy participation in God's benevolence "does not flit about in the brain," says Willis, "but takes root in the heart…and requires regular cultivation." In any case, the premise is a banquet. We are graciously invited, though the means of invitation varies. Some of us were invited as we screamed through our baptism in the arms of a parent. Others will be invited by a school friend because it is her week to have popcorn in the Village on the Hill. Many miss the banquet until midlife when a neighbor sheepishly suggests that his faith has meant a lot to him in difficult times. Then there are the odd stirrings of a heart grown restless or the mystery of a brunch that once beckoned. Seldom does this host send out engraved invitations but rather uses word of mouth to let us know day and place and hour to appear-uses ordinary means, in other words, to claim us. Unfortunately, the story continues, we who have first been invited find, after checking the calendar, that we are previously committed. Jesus knows this about us and does not make light of our commitments, commitments that have not changed over two thousand years. They fall into two categories: work and family. These things are real and pressing. Our lives are full-up with business trips, bottom lines, pressure to achieve and unrealistic expectations for advance. We barely can find quality time with our spouse, lover, children, children's children or ourselves alone in the garden. Sunday morning is the only time and we are afraid, when we weigh the things that are important in our lives, we simply must decline the invitation for reasons we are sure our host will understand. But the host, says Jesus, is angry and there is a method, says David Willis, to his madness: "Discipline, discipleship, is part and parcel of spontaneous amazement at the magnitude of grace," says Willis counter-intuitively. "True piety is a daily, ordinary, regular, habitual cadence…the very opposite of frantic, capricious, avoidance-motivated…busyness." The host is angry because he has been preparing for this banquet since the beginning of time, has had us on the invitation list from the day we were born, has made his Son leave home to be here with us in the flesh, has set a table before us "to die for" and we have prior pressing commitments? Fine! Then the banquet will be held without us. Countless people wandering the streets literally are dying to be invited: the poor, the maimed, the blind, the lame. God-the-ER-doc, you remember, knows just where to find the folks who are really in need of a banquet, of God's healing, of these ordinary means of hope. Though I think there is something more for us to hear as this story twists and turns a parabolic knife deep within our seriously religious or secularly shallow lives. Parables are one of the places most transparent in scripture to the layers of listeners addressed by God's Word. So there are the people who first hear Jesus' words--busy, important, moral people--who believe themselves to be the only folks chosen to come to the banquet but do not. Then there is the community which first wrote the stories down, the early church, Gentiles, Jews, social outcasts, sinners one and all, those whose invitation came through Jesus Christ and whose inclusion by God enraged the rightly religious crowd first invited. Finally, there is the church--both early and late--which often is confused and thinks the banquet is hers to throw, the guests the church's to invite or exclude. Notice that the only condition for the second set of invitations is the condition of need, of wound, of vulnerability. These are the ones never invited to dinners on the hill, to affairs of consequence, to occasions of sheer delight. These are those who would be astounded by their inclusion, humbled by this summons. As far as the host is concerned, the party would be incomplete without them, which is to say, the church cannot be Christ's church in the absence of "the least of these" [according to society], read "the greatest of these" [according to Christ]: the little child, the elderly poor, the guests at Our Brother's Place, the clients of Crisis Ministry, the residents of Achievability, the workers in Haiti, the street youth of Argentina, the Hispanic families in Norristown, the seekers on Broad Street. Though finally, says the servant to the host, "there is still room. Go out into the roads and lanes and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled." Here, then, is the bottom line: this banquet held in Christ's name is not the same without you. But even with you the guest list is not complete. In fact the host wants this house packed not for the sake of numbers, but because--from the beginning--God has intended that all people finally be gathered around one table in His name. And if by reason of human judgment the guest list should be edited, if the church should become a private affair, a gathering of the moral elite, a society stuck on who has the right credentials, then more's the pity. For we will be the ones to miss the real banquet, which seemingly has now been moved to the ER…or is it to intensive care? Hence until further notice, the host has commanded those of us grown comfortable in our usual pew or pulpit to get up, go out into the streets, and invite everyone we see. This command terrifies Presbyterians! God says, "Invite people to my banquet," and we hear, "Ask them if they know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and suggest to them that they may go to hell if they do not come to church." But no! The host simply asks us to ask, invite. Then, once all are present and seated at the table, the wine having been poured, bread broken and passed-or in the case of this morning, the pancakes flipped--then the true host will take over and the party that is God's can begin! "For a long time, I didn't understand the parties," said a friend of the ex-ER doctor, "but I'm beginning to. Look, for years she ran the emergency room. You know what she used to tell her co-workers? 'When a new patient comes in you have exactly one minute to gauge what response that person needs from you.' That's what she'd tell them: 'You have one minute to look them over and decide whether they'll do best with Spartan professionalism or down-home reassurance or a bit of joking along, and then you have to start giving them what they need!…Now instead of performing triage together she assembles her team to do parties.'" Christ has assembled his church to do banquets in His name, has given these means of hope for the sake of the world God so loved. This ER disguised as a sanctuary is big enough for all comers, but we have been given only one hour, it seems, to proclaim His life-saving Word with Spartan professionalism or down-home reassurance or a bit of joking along, because dinner is about to be served. Therefore, "Go out into the roads and compel people to come in" that the party, which is no party unless everybody comes, may begin! Thanks be to God! |