A Strange Economy
A Strange Economy
Terry McKinney
“Blessed are those who eat bread in the Kingdom!”
There’s a lot we don’t know and can never know about Jesus, but there’s one thing we do know: the guy liked to eat. It’s hard keeping track of the number of times that the setting for part of the gospels was a meal, even if it’s just fish on sticks at the beach after the resurrection. Add in all the times a feast comes into the parables, and you begin to wonder whether Jesus had a food fixation.
Jesus must have loved a good dinner party because he used a lot of feast and banquet imagery to convey what the coming of the Kingdom looks like.
To be fair, there were good reasons Jesus chose meal settings. At the time there was a certain economy of power and status that showed up starkly around meals. There was an exchange of favor. Ambition was the engine, gaining advantage was the prize, and power was the currency.
By contrast, Jesus takes the opportunity to talk about the economy of the Kingdom, where giving is valued more than receiving, and where powerlessness, servant-hood, and humbleness are the currency. What a strange economy that is compared to ours.
It’s no wonder than that so many parables and teachings around feasts are about a reversal of fortune with the economy of the Kingdom comes breaking in, reversing our own economy.
In today’s lectionary reading, we have a rare treat: two teachings about a feast… told at a feast. They’re about God’s expectations for the
I love the story from Luke of this particular dinner party. Luke sets the two teachings together in one setting within a long string of teachings Jesus gives on his way to
Who were the Pharisees, and why does it matter that he’s eating with them? The Pharisees were a group within Judaism that, among other things, felt they were the keepers of the purest form and practice of the faith. They prided themselves on their stewardship and the depth of wisdom concerning both the Torah and all the rabbinical commentary, and on the power and influence they had to enforce their brand of faith.
Unlike some other forms of Judaism, Pharisees believed in an afterlife, in Heaven. They were very concerned about who would get to Heaven and who wouldn’t. Though they were pretty sure they themselves would.
Since so much of their practice revolved around meals. They largely believed that Heaven was an endless banquet. That’s pretty appealing imagery for Heaven, isn’t it? I’m sure Jesus would agree.
Now on to our story: Jesus at the Feast, scene 1: Picture it with me. Jesus is invited to the banquet at the house of the leader of the Pharisees. Luke tells us that the Pharisees were “watching him closely.” Why? Imagine what they, believing themselves keepers of the true faith, thought of Jesus’ challenges to their teaching and authority. No doubt Jesus was a savvy fellow who knew that this invitation was loaded, to say the very least.
It’s great to imagine how the scene unfolded. I like to think that they’d been milling around making small talk. Then the host or a servant calls them to the table. Ding! Here’s the big moment: let the jockeying for position begin. Folks are sitting down to dinner, they’re kind of milling around the chairs seeing who will sit where, wondering, “Do I dare sit here? Ooooh, I don’t know. He’s a leader already but I’m up and coming.” Some people are hesitating, some are bold enough to assert themselves in their seating choices, and it’s all in motion.
Then? Kaboom, Jesus gives his first teaching, a bit of advice:
"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; 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. 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. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."
Why kaboom? The Pharisees would have known their scripture inside and out, so when Jesus tells his parable, he’s making a pretty clear reference to the passage from Proverbs that
Do not put yourself forward in the king's presence or stand in the place of the great; for it is better to be told, "Come up here," than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.
Can you imagine? Jesus is essentially reminding these people who pride themselves on their scriptural knowledge and authority – and not very subtly – what God calls them to. It’s a sidelong charge of either amnesia or hypocrisy.
Ouch. I have a hunch the host was none too pleased with Jesus.
As you imagine the story, what’s the very first thing that happens next? Stunned silence? Hubbub? Outrage? What do they do? Stay still? Move around? Awkwardly get up from their seats?
So, what was Jesus saying to them, exactly?
By giving this teaching in this particular setting with its scriptural connection, Jesus is reminding them that at the Heavenly banquet, God is the host, and that what’s at stake here is not status but the opposite.
In other words: “Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”
In this context, they would see humbleness as a weakness, relinquishing all their hard work for advantage. Jesus reminds them that God will exalt those who have chosen his path, which is letting go, abandoning the race for status, which is always at odds with what’s valued in this world.
How would the Pharisees have heard this?
The word “exalted” would have had strong afterlife significance for the Pharisees, so hearing Jesus’ claim about who would be exalted would have shaken them. Jesus is adeptly drawing on their own scriptural knowledge to say that if they’re so concerned about the afterlife, let go and abandon the grappling for status. It’s a strong challenge. The freedom of humbleness will open you up, lift you up and exalt you for ushering in the Kingdom. What a strange economy and reversal of fortune that must have sounded like. It would have seemed impossibly counter-intuitive to them, like a Zen koan.
And isn’t this “humbled and exalted” phrase something that would have puzzled anyone who heard it? Doesn’t it puzzle us now?
So now, let’s go see how the rest of the story unfolds. Jesus at the Feast: scene two.
So let’s remember, Jesus just dropped a small incendiary device at the dinner table. I’m not sure what the atmosphere was at this point, but I’m pretty sure it was tense. Jesus goes on to give a simple teaching with a powerful message, boldly directed at the host who’d invited everyone there: At your feast, invite those who can’t repay you. Parenthetically, unlike everyone you’ve invited here today. He’s saying to let go of their economy of exchange and this-for-that. Abandon it for a gift model, a grace model, the economy of the Kingdom. Don’t invite those who will repay you but those who can’t. Parenthetically, not these folks.
At this point, I’m certain the host would have been very, very displeased with Jesus.
This teaching is again about God’s expectations for the Kingdom as opposed to ours. It’s about God’s call to reconciliation and radical inclusion: bringing in the outcast and those who can’t repay us is humbleness as service to the very least. This humbleness requires dropping out of the race for status, abandoning that particular form of striving.
In other words: “Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”
Jesus’ parable and his teaching are about the nature of God, our host, the qualities of those invited to the feast to be given special honor, and the role we have to play in that. Humbleness is not weakness but God’s strength and purpose; humbleness is God’s preferred mode of revolution.
If we enact this Kingdom now, bringing the underprivileged and disenfranchised – those valued least in this world – into our banquets, we have to go beyond making room for them. We too have to take on humbleness and let go of the striving in this world that keeps us closed. Then, we then take our place as servants of them. How do we do that?
Think for just a moment: Where are there areas in your life where perhaps you’re a bit ambitious? Areas where you might be trying to increase your advantage? What would happen tomorrow if you let go of all of it? Abandoned it? What would be the worst thing that might happen? And what would be the very best thing to happen? What would you do with all that freedom? Where in your life would you help usher in the Kingdom? The challenge isn’t just the Pharisees’, it’s ours.
Over and over, Jesus teaches us that the power we seek here is futile chasing after wind, and that God chooses the powerless to usher in the good news, the coming of the Kingdom.
Humbleness isn’t something most of us think to strive for, yet Jesus valued it as something to aspire to. He teaches us repeatedly that there’s a freedom of being humble that clears the space for a clear vision of what the Kingdom is and what it looks like: empty hands and open hearts.
The scene on our stage ends here, but the story goes on, and Paul later reminds us that Jesus is the exemplar of the humbleness we seek, saying that he, “…though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him…” (Phil. 2:6-9a)
This one who humbled himself became Lord of all. What a strange and wonderful economy that is!
“Blessed are those who eat bread in the Kingdom!” Blessed indeed! Amen, and amen.
(The late 13th century German mystic, Meister Eckhart, had a concept of “Gelassenheit,” meaning something like ‘letting go’ or ‘abandonment.’ Heidegger described it as "the spirit of availability before What-Is which permits us simply to let things be in whatever may be their uncertainty and their mystery.")