I wish – sincerely wish – that Luke had not chosen to end
this parable (Luke 14:15-24) on the note that he did. It ends on a note of exclusion, with a dinner party host declaring,
“Not one of the guests who were invited will get even a taste of my banquet.”
Is this what Jesus had in mind when he told this parable originally? Did he
intend to warn his listeners that God will exclude some people from his Kingdom;
so they had better behave themselves? I’m not so sure!
I say that because the parable – without the final line – isn’t
about exclusion at all. it is, in
fact, a parable of radical inclusion!
The owner of a house has prepared a lavish banquet for many guests. Everything
is ready. The roast beef is cooked to perfection; the lemon meringue pies are
just the right combination of tart and sweet; the coffee is steaming in the carafe;
and the table is resplendent with fine china and linen napkins. But when the
time comes, all the guests have better things to do. One has to check out a
field that he has just bought; another has to inspect a new yoke of oxen; while
a third would rather spend time with his new wife than accept the honor of a
dinner invitation. And so, that host commands his slaves to go out and invite
all kinds of people who have no social standing at all – the poor, the blind,
and the lame – so that the dinner isn’t wasted. That kind of inclusion is
rarely seen, in Jesus’ day or in ours. If anyone was excluded from that
marvelous banquet, it wasn’t because the host didn’t want them. It was because
they excluded themselves.
We aren’t good at radical inclusion. We, like Luke, are all
too willing to exclude people, especially from the Lord’s Table. We all know
that some denominations officially exclude Christians from the Lord’s Table who
are not members of that particular denomination. Some Christians even exclude
members of their own denomination who do not believe or behave exactly as they
do. There are many reasons given for this kind of exclusion. Although they may appear to be logical, they
ring hollow when we consider Jesus’ prayer in the gospel of John that asks God
to unite all of us as one body. I do not believe that excluding anyone from the table is part of Jesus’
plan for humanity!
So each year on the first Sunday in October – Worldwide
Communion Sunday – we all sit down together as a reminder not of how many
people are excluded from Christ’s
table, but how many people are included.
Worldwide Communion Sunday was begun by our Presbyterian cousins almost 80
years ago, way back in the 1930s. It was originally a call to celebrate our
oneness in Christ by gathering together around the banquet table that he has
prepared for all of us. In the middle of a world of exclusion, it was intended
to be a demonstration of God’s inclusion.
Just as the banquet host invited the lame, the blind, and the poor, God calls
people from around the world to join him at his feast. My goodness – he even
calls us!
Worldwide Communion is a reminder that in Christ, there is
truly neither Jew nor Greek, neither rich nor poor, neither male nor female.
Most of us tend to think of white, middle-class Americans when we think of a
“Christian.” But many – in fact, most –
Christians are not white Americans. These days, most Christians globally are
Hispanic or Asian! The Christian church is growing the most rapidly in the Far
East. No, there are not as many Asian Christians as there are European and
American Christians. But our churches are in a decline, and have been for
decades. Asian churches, on the other hand, are booming – and booming in many
areas where Christianity is officially illegal. We middle-class Americans are
not the only ones who sit at the Table of Christ. In fact, sometimes the people
who are the least like us show the love of Christ in ways that are more
powerful than any sermon ever preached from a pulpit. John Buchanan, editor of
the periodical The Christian Century
and former pastor of Third Presbyterian Church in downtown Chicago, has
recently written about an encounter like that. These are his own words from The Christian Century (October 2, 2013,
p. 3).
“He was an infantryman in the British army in World War II
and ended up in a prisoner-of-war camp in Poland. The conditions were dreadful.
There was no heat, and prisoners were given a single bowl of thin soup and a
small crust of bread daily. Men were starving, sick, filthy and desperate.
Suicide was a very real option. All one had to do was run towards the perimeter
of the camp and leap against the barbed wire fence. Guards would immediately
shoot and kill anyone trying to escape. In the middle of the night he walked to
the perimeter and sat down beside the fence to think about going through with
it. He heard movement in the darkness from the other side of the fence. It was
a Polish farmer. The man thrust his hand through the barbed wire and handed my
friend half of a potato. In heavily accented English he said, ‘The Body of
Christ.’”
Sharing the love of Christ has been described as one blind,
starving beggar telling another blind, starving beggar where to find food. We
are all poor, blind, and lame; and Christ welcomes us to his table. Oh, our
differences continue to divide us. We are, after all, not only American, but
also Arabian, Chinese, Afghani, French, Kenyan, and Colombian. We do not all
practice one kind of Christianity. We are Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, Greek
Orthodox, Egyptian Coptic, Wesleyan, Anglican, Amish, and United Church of
Christ. But we are all invited to the
Table by the Christ who loves us and gave himself up for us so that all of us
might be one in him.
So, today, let none be excluded. Today, in the name of
Christ, let this table be open to all who wish to sit around it and feast. And
let us be grateful that God, our host, has invited us all.
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