When You Give a Banquet - 8/28/22

I have one word for you today: ABUNDANCE. Abundance. It is the state

of having more than enough. It is so easy to fall into a scarcity mindset. We

don't have enough people or enough time or enough money. But we do, we do.

We have what God has given us. It is enough. It is more than enough. We are

enough, indeed more than enough. The biblical motif expressing this idea of

abundance is the banquet. In Isaiah there is this image of God banqueting or

feasting with God's people at the end of time. Isaiah says, “On this mountain

the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich foods, a feast of well-

aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear”

(Isa. 25:6). We have the same concept in the Book of Revelation with the

marriage supper of the Lamb (19:9, 17-18). And this middle section of the

Gospel of Luke, chapters 10-19, features Jesus constantly banqueting or talking

about banquets. I think that Jesus was a Baptist always eating and talking about

eating. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus takes only one chapter to get from Galilee

to Jerusalem. In Luke, it takes him ten. Jesus sets his face to go to Jerusalem in

chapter 9, and he doesn't get there until chapter 19. I think that Jesus went on I-

95! For ten chapters, Jesus is teaching the disciples, eating with them, talking

to them about his departure, his exodus through death, resurrection, and

ascension in Jerusalem. Jesus teaches us as well.

I would like to pursue this idea this morning: We are called--and we call

others--to abundance. Let's look at this lesson and see what it has to say to us

in this transition here at FBCEG. That abbreviation rolls off my tongue because

I’m from the Washington, DC area, the queen city of abbreviations, with the

FHA and the FCC and the DOD and FDA and on.

So, Jesus is at a meal on the sabbath with a leader of the Pharisees (Luke

14:1), and he notices how the guests choose the places of honor (14:7). Three

things that I want to point out: First, formal banquets in Jesus' day were

different from our day. So, it wasn’t like DaVinci’s Last Supper, in which

people sit at table. People reclined on couches that were arranged around a

central table with food on it. People would typically lie on their left side with

their left arm holding up their head and grab the food on the table with their

right hand.

Second, the ancient world was an honor/shame culture, in which people

were constantly jockeying for positions of honor so that they would be honored

or lifted up and not be shamed or disgraced or put down. Honor was a limited

good, that is, there was only so much to go around. It existed within a scarcity

mindset. Jesus tells people to seek the lowest places so that the host will invite

you up higher. That leads us to the third thing. When I look at a passage of

scripture, I like to look at its repeating words. Here the important word is

“invite.” It appears eight times in as many verses. The first part of the passage

deals with the situation when you are invited to a banquet. The second part

deals with the situation when you give a banquet. People who go to and give

banquets are the rich, so Jesus is speaking to the rich that have come to the

Pharisees sabbath meal. He’s not speaking to his disciples, who are poor (6:20).

Jesus says that when you rich people are invited—or called—to a banquet,

specifically a wedding banquet, don’t take the best seat, the place of honor

because the host may say to you, “Uh, sorry Charlie, if you’ll look at your

ticket stub, you’re supposed to be in the cheap seats, down at the end of the

table.” So you’re shamed, and you have to take your pouty lips to the lowest

place. Jesus says that when you’re invited, take the lowest place right off the

bat. Then the host will see you and say, “Hey buddy, come on up!” and you’ll

be honored. Jesus says that if you lift yourself up, you’re going to be humbled;

and if you humble yourself, then you’re going to be lifted up.

Jesus then turns to the host, the one who has invited him. You would

think Jesus would pat him on the back and say thanks for such a good meal, but

no, he talks about invitations. And who the host has invited. He says, “Don’t

invite your buddies or your kin or your rich neighbors because they’ll invite

you back in return and repay you.” But Jesus, that’s how things work. That’s

how society is set up. Jesus seems to be questioning the way things are.

When you give a banquet, Jesus says, don’t invite your equals, invite the

poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, those who are marginalized by

society, those to whom Jesus has come to minister. Immediately after this

parable, Jesus tells another parable about a banquet, in which people decline

the invitation. But the host says to go out to the streets and lanes—the

highways and byways and bring in the same group that’s mentioned here: poor,

crippled, blind, and lame (14:16-24).

These are Jesus’ kind of people. He said in chapter 4, when he read from

Isaiah 61, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to

bring good news to the poor . . . and recovery of sight to the blind” (4:18).

When John the Baptist inquired whether Jesus was the one to come, Jesus, “Go

tell my cousin John what you’ve witnessed: blind see, lame walk, and the poor

hear the gospel” (7:18-23). In other words, invite the disreputable people that

Jesus hung out with. And you will be blessed at the righteous resurrection. Jesus said earlier, “Blessed are you poor” (6:20). Apparently, those who invite the poor to the banquet are also blessed.

So, what do these two parables say to us here at FBCEG during the

transition? The first thing is that banqueting is an image for the church in

transition. We are in a time of abundance. We do not have a settled pastor, but

you do have a trained transitional minister, and you have committed church

leaders and church people. And you have a history of 182 years. This is not a

fly-by-night organization! Together we will be looking at that history. Indeed,

we will be looking at five factors: heritage, identity, leadership, connections,

and future. I talked about them in my letter to the church. And I’ll be saying a

lot more about them in the coming weeks and months. We have five factors,

and we have three questions: We will ask Who are we? Who is our neighbor?

Who is God calling us to be? Again, I mentioned them in the letter I sent to the

church. Yes, these will be on the test. And when I say “we’re going to be

answering these questions,” I mean “you and me, with the emphasis on you.

One of the teachers for interim ministry says that the slogan for Home Depot

should be the slogan for interim ministry: “You can do it; we can help.” You

can do this work of transition, with my help and the help of God.

When we think of abundance and scarcity in church, we often think of

attendance and giving, and those are important measures. I have been helped

by Eric Law, in his book Holy Currencies. He speaks of six currencies that the

church has: time and place, gracious leadership, relationship, truth, wellness,

and money. Notice what Law places last: money. He puts first time and place.

What a great place this is. I posted on Facebook a picture of the church

building, and so many people commented about how attractive it is. In the

parsonage there is an ink drawing of the church building.

I have also heard about how this church is a family that cares about one

another. I read about it in the annual report. While I was driving up here, I was

listening to my friend Darrel Adams, who is a recording artist and performer.

He sang, “How good to be a family. / God has made a church of you and me. /

We’re not alone. / We’ve found a home. / The family of God.” How

Providential, I thought. FBCEG is a family. And form their abundance, they are

including me in their family. I walk into the parsonage Friday night, and I see

that it is well furnished, with a king-size bed, food in the refrigerator, and fruit on the table. And the fruit wasn’t wax. It was real. I know. I ate it.

And on the rocking chair was a prayer shawl made for me, with an

attached Prayer of Blessing: “May God’s grace be upon this shawl . . .

Warming, comforting, enfolding and embracing. May this mantle be a safe

haven, a sacred place of security and well being. Sustaining and embracing in

good times as well as difficult ones. May the one who receives this shawl be

cradled in hope, kept in joy, graced with peace. And wrapped in love, blessed

be.”

Now if that’s not abundance, I don’t know what is. It’s the relationship.

It’s the ministry. But this ministry is not just turned inward on its own but also

reaching out, through the One Great Hour of Sharing, which went to Ukraine

last year and will go to folks in Kentucky victimized by flooding. I could go

on: Church Beyond the Walls. A Christmas project Adopt a Family. As was

noted in the Board of Outreach annual report, you “are a very giving Church.”

I want to give you an assignment: This week, look for abundance here at

church, not just in the building itself but in all that is done in the name of

FBCEG. And stand still and breathe deeply three times, and then say in your

mind or out loud, “abundance. abundance, abundance.”

When I think of abundance, I think of a poem by the late African

American poet Lucille Clifton, who taught at the college where my elder

daughter graduated, St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Clifton has this poem

“good times.” “My Daddy has paid the rent / and the insurance man is gone /

and the lights is back on / and my uncle Brud has hit / for one dollar straight /

and they is good times / good times / good times.” Yes, good times.

Abundance.

An abundance of smiles, an abundance of fist bumps. An abundance of

praise. An abundant of optimism. An abundance of grace. An abundance of

praise, An abundance of awareness. Abundance. Abundance. abundance. We

are always invited, we are always inviting others to a banquet of abundance.

Always called, always giving. Abundance!

And all God’s people said, Amen.