Who’s Coming to Dinner? | Good Shepherd Lutheran Church (ELCA) Manchester MO

Pastor:

Pr. Tom Schoenherr

Sermon audio:

“Who’s Coming to Dinner?”

August 28-29, 2010

Pr. Tom Schoenherr

What’s “in” and what’s “out” and why is it important to know the difference? It is particularly important for children in school to know the difference if they want to fit in. These first days of school set the pattern for relationships in school, and as we see these children trying to jostle for the places of honor and prestige in school, we can also see that same kind of thing happening at work and maybe even in Sunday school as we celebrate Rally Day today.

I would think that backpacks and clothing that show “Toy Story 3” images would be “in”, and “X-Men” or “Superman” would be “out”. Consider who is “in” or “out” in the rush weeks for sororities and fraternities. Who is “in” and who is “out” when it comes to driving past a security entrance to a gated community or an upscale country club; or walking past a doorman in certain hotels or secured buildings. We are reminded of how important it is for us to know where we fit and don’t fit, who is “in” and who is “out”. “Who’s coming to dinner?” can be a very real question where we want to know who is “in” and who is “out”. “Who is “in” and who is “out’ in the circles of people you associate with in your daily lives?

The “pecking order” in our society is a very real thing, and at some level we are invested in maintaining it, especially in the groups we are a part of. Now Jesus comes along and is upsetting the status quo, throwing out the order of things that we have come to know, and we don’t feel comfortable with it or with Jesus either.

Jesus seems to be saying that the people we would normally consider to be “out” are “in” in the Kingdom of God, in the realm of God’s gracious and loving activity in the world. It seems that Jesus is also saying that the way we choose our places in society, including some and excluding others, is not God’s way. The way we want to take the places of honor for ourselves and turn others away, is rejected by Jesus. This is one reason that Jesus is the target of the Pharisees and many people, including you and me, who want to get rid of him.

We can’t hold on to our IQ, our wealth, our accomplishments, our strengths of character, our good looks, all of the good things we have done for others in our lives as being reasons for us to be given a place of honor. We have no basis for excluding anyone else. We are in no position to determine who is “in” or who is “out”. God is the only one who is in the position of judgment and we may be the ones who are “out” for trying to take the honored places for ourselves.

It is God’s Son, Jesus Christ who rejects the place of honor he deserves and takes the place of humility, dying on the cross for our sin. Jesus turns everything around so that the honored place is the place of bearing the cross for others, and the righteous ones are those who are humble. In Luke 7, John the Baptist sends two of his disciples to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one we’ve been waiting for?” Jesus, who had just come from curing many people of disease, and gave sight to the blind, said, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news preached to them.” Jesus is the one we also have been waiting for.

Now as the host at the banquet of God’s love, Jesus calls us his “friends’ and invites us to take up the cross and follow Christ in the way of humble service, lifting up the people whom society considers “out”, the poor, crippled, lame and blind. Jesus is fulfilling the words of the Magnificat, sung by his mother, Mary, at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, bringing “down the powerful from their thrones and lifting up the lowly.” We are all wounded, broken, hurting in some way. None of us goes through life without pain, loss of health, loss of close family and friends, crippling fear and loneliness, blinding doubt and unbelief, feeling left out and rejected.

As we are invited to the banquet of the Lord’s Supper, who’s coming to dinner? Christ is! We bring all of our pain and sin to Christ. We all have a place at the Lord’s Table. Christ takes our pain and our sin and in the eating and the drinking we receive Christ, his healing, forgiving love, and we participate in the vision that Jesus Christ has for how we can live in the world. At the Table we are set free to take on ourselves the cares and pain of our brothers and sisters and be the Body of Christ in the world, taking the form of a slave as Christ has done for us.

We are invited into a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. We are set free to lead others to places of honor; building houses through Habitat for Humanity, supplying food to the hungry, possibly through Feed My Starving Children, caring for prisoners and their families, providing for people through Circle of Concern and other agencies, reaching out to people in Pakistan and other parts of our world where floods and earthquakes and war continue to take people’s livelihoods away.

Jesus is giving us a vision of the Kingdom of God, and a vision of the new humanity that Christ brings to our church and to the world. When we pray, “Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we are praying for Christ’s vision where everyone is welcome at the table of God’s grace, not because of what they can do for us, but because of everything Christ has done for us all. In Jesus’ name. Amen.