We’re in wedding season. A few weddings have already been conducted this year, one just last Thursday (congratulations to Duaine and Claire). We have two weddings in the parish next month and one at the end of October. A lot of work goes into planning a wedding and how traditions have changed! Couples are marrying later and have normally been a number of years together before they decide to ‘tie the knot’. You can get married in any number of places and the wedding market is incredibly lucrative for hotels and specially designed wedding venues. Weddings are now spread over long weekends. Some choose to go abroad – either for a post ceremony party or for stag or hen do’s. Mum and dad play an important part but are not necessarily the host of a wedding as they used to be: couples marrying later do their own thing and have more sway over the guest list. Over to them the hard decisions about whether ‘2nd cousins twice removed’ make the cut in deciding who comes to the ceremony, who joins the wedding breakfast and who attends the ‘evening do’.
Sorting out invitations is one of the hardest parts of wedding planning. Beyond deciding who receives a ‘save the date’ and then who gets an invite there can be further hard decisions as a couple (watched anxiously by their parents) make decisions about seating. Who sits where? Will there be a top table and, if so, who will be on it? Its no wonder that so many folk opt for a more relaxed buffet style event.
Who is invited and who sits where? We want to know…and we notice. It was really important the other week that the President of Ukraine be in Alaska…and not just the President of Russia. Important too that European leaders at least ‘got into the room’. And think back to the King’s coronation. Do you remember the discussions about where Prince Harry would sit? Did your heart thrill a little when we learned that so many seats had been set aside for those who worked for charities Prince Charles had supported through his patronage down the years. And then think of where the nation’s politicians sat…and the Heads of State: get that wrong and you could have a diplomatic crisis on your hands. Who was at the front? Who was at the back? Who wasn’t even there?
Our gospel reading begins with Jesus being invited for a meal on the Sabbath at the house of ‘a leader of the Pharisees.’ This is no ordinary invitation. A lot of the stories we have about Jesus take place over meals. Who he eats with…and who does the inviting is important. Here, the invitation comes from this ‘leader of the Pharisees’. On the way to the meal (our gospel selection omits some verses) Jesus heals a man: his arrival at the meal already brings with it the sabbath controversy that has surrounded most of his public ministry. As Jesus heads towards the front door or the gate to the Pharisees’ house everyone is watching him. …and you may well imagine that the whole point of the invitation is actually to enable his host to put him on the spot – we know that the Pharisees repeatedly challenged Jesus’s ministry and questioned his authority.
One way to read the scriptures is to imagine yourself into the scene. St Ignatius recommends this. To try to picture where you are: indeed ‘who’ you are in the story. I wonder how big this property is? Is the meal outside in a courtyard or inside, more intimate. There seem to be a lot of guests: are the disciples invited…does Jesus arrive with a large following…and what is the host to do with them? Are there crowds outside – like paparazzi at a Gala event – watching who is going in, noticing who has been invited, who is missing, wanting to see Jesus?
When Jesus speaks in verse 7 is he sat down or has he been kept standing, waiting on his host to show him to a seat? People are listening to him, that’s for sure and he is doing what many of us do: he is ‘people watching’, taking in what is going on around him. What is interesting however is that his words are such a challenge to his host: it’s not clear whether his host hears them – he is mentioned separately in verse 12. Jesus teaches us to be humble: that is certainly contained in his words – don’t assume that you are the most important person in the room – but, in this context there is an implicit challenge to his host to decide about where to sit Jesus. Is he still stood at the entrance to the room or sat behind a pillar ‘out of the way’. Will the host of this meal invite him to ‘move up higher’ or not?
We too face this decision. Who do we honour? Who do we place front and centre in our lives? Who has our ear? Who do we want sat next to us, guiding and leading us? The answer to all these questions should be ‘Jesus’, but my guess is that sometimes we leave him down at the other end of the table…or halfway up: welcome but not too influential.
And then we arrive at verse 12 and Jesus speaks directly to his host. The verses that follow in the gospel make clear that Jesus’ words here are public so they are not just a quiet word in the Pharisees’ ear. And Jesus here publicly questions his host’s guest list: which one might legitimately think is extremely challenging if not plain rude. ‘You’ve invited your friends to your home…but if you are truly seeking God’s approval then you should invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. Your guest list is too narrow and your doors need to be opened wider’
Ooh, now there’s a challenge for this week. The cross on the top of the church is a symbol of welcome. But does the same cross painted on a mini roundabout in Darlington or Bishop Auckland give the same message? I suspect not. One says heaven has touched earth and opened its arms wide: all are welcome we sing. The other defends my place, my identity and says ‘keep out’. Let’s be clear, Jesus’ words are about the welcome of the kingdom of God, they clearly aren’t about immigration policy. But they do speak about a generosity of spirit that a nation that proclaims itself to be Christian might be expected to show. There are some very real political issues to be addressed around immigration and all of our political parties have failed to address them satisfactorily but responses that are based on the fear of others are likely to lead to violence. Jesus’ words here address our natural human tendency to favour and gravitate towards people that are ‘just like us’, but He points out to his host that that his own entry into the kingdom will be compromised if he does not recognise, prioritise (and honour) those in need.
Moving away from this week’s news, the UK may well not have room for unchecked immigration, but the Kingdom of God finds room for everyone. A key question for any church or parish then is ‘who is not here?…and why not?’ Invitations offered, of course can be refused – no one is obliged to accept an invitation, and many people don’t accept Jesus’ invitation to enter the Kingdom of God -but are we confident that God’s invitation (because it is His not ours) is being passed on in the first place? Are we confident that His invitation is being passed on genuinely: from open hearts that reflect His open hearted generosity ? Jesus wants us to make room for those whom God seeks to honour: He expects us to lift these people up. We’re not just (condescendingly) to let them into the room, rather we are asked to offer them better seats. And who are these people? They are all people who cannot repay us in kind but whose place in the Kingdom is far higher than ours. This is hard. It doesn’t come naturally. We may well struggle but, as the poet RS Thomas put it:
It’s a long way off but inside it
There are quite different things going on:
Festivals at which the poor man
Is king and the consumptive is
Healed; mirrors in which the blind look
At themselves and love looks at them
Back; and industry is for mending
The bent bones and the minds fractured
By life. It’s a long way off, but to get
There takes no time and admission
Is free, if you will purge yourself
Of desire, and present yourself with
Your need only and the simple offering
Of your faith, green as a leaf.
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