Better a Debtor

Better a Debtor?

Luke 14:1, 7-14; Jeremiah 2:4-13; Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

Last week, one of our neighboring Presbyterian churches, the McArthur Church, celebrated the commissioning of ruling elder Christine Burns to pastoral service for the congregation. Christine is a member of the nearby Wilkesville Church. The McArthur Church is half of the Vinton Area Ministry. The other half is the McArthur Trinity Episcopal Church. For many years my dear friend and colleague, Kay Puckett, pastored both churches and she had permission from the Episcopal bishop to celebrate communion. After she retired about a dozen years ago, two Episcopalian deacons served the church and the presbytery granted them permission to celebrate communion.

During that time the bishop visited the Trinity Church and a couple of retired Presbyterian colleagues were there. As a courtesy, they were invited to join the procession. In fact, they got to be the first ones to go down the aisle. One of the them thought that was really something. Sometime later it was revealed to them that in an Episcopal procession, the least important people lead the procession and the most important person comes last, namely the bishop. There’s a twist on the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

Unfortunately this passage has been over-used, if not abused, in trying to put people in their place. Lots of inferiority complexes and undue humility have roots from here. That said, it is true that there are people who need to be lowered a peg or two in their self-estimation. There are people for whom the world is not big enough for their egos. Jesus was addressing his remarks to them. His hearers likely agreed with him and began to name some candidates, all the while missing his true inference.

I knew a colleague who got a letter from Who’s Who, and was all thrilled and honored. Then he found out the price of the book and the plaque. He had second thoughts about the price of fame.

When Jesus says, “Those who make themselves low will be lifted up,” I can’t help but think of Jesus’ own example. Paul’s Christological hymn in his Letter to the Philippians (2:7) says:
. . . he emptied himself
by taking the form of a slave.
That self-emptying is important. Jesus was able to do what the rich young man could not, what many others could not. He didn’t have wealth to give away, but he gave up grandiose thoughts about himself. He gave up the notion that he was the center of the universe and that the world owed him. He gave up the idea that he mattered more than anyone else. He let go of any potential claims he might have had upon anyone. He emptied himself of everything that kept him away from God.

Ron Byars notes that the Apostles’ Creed leaps from “born of the Virgin Mary” to “suffered under Pontius Pilate.”(1) The earliest creed makes no mention of anything that Jesus did in the three years that he roamed Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. Everything Jesus did was displayed for all the world to see through the cross and the resurrection. He humbled himself. He was exalted, not by his own effort, but by the grace, the will, the pleasure of God. The lowest shall become the highest. The least born shall become the first born.

We all have highborn ideas, attitudes, and expectations that drive us to the places of honor. We have desires, yearnings, misconceptions, and misinformation that lead us to claim honor out of proportion to the ranking that God has determined is ours. This doesn’t negate who we are. We are who God has created us to be through a unique collection of skills, talents, and gifts. We are who we are, but not more. God wants us to rise to our full potential. But God will be upset with us if we get above our raising, as Appalachian folk describe it.

All that talk about not getting above ourselves is followed by an admonition about giving parties in order to get invited to parties. That saying may be equally difficult for us to wrap our thinking around. Hospitality is a key Biblical tenet. We have the word from the Letter to the Hebrews: “Don’t neglect to open up your homes to guests, because by doing this some have been hosts to angels without knowing it.” That may be a direct reference to Abraham’s entertaining the angels that announced the promised birth of Isaac. But there are numerous other passages where messengers of God — human or angelic — were entertained to the blessing of the household.

We all enjoy the company of family and friends. Some not often enough, others too often. Sharing meals together is a way of spreading out the expense for those of us who are households of one. This week you cook, I’ll cook next week. That makes good sense. It’s an equal exchange. No one gains or loses.

Jesus is talking about people who were social climbers, people who wanted an opportunity to see the inside of the fancy new house on the hill, or to taste the haute cuisine of someone’s new chef, or to rub shoulders with somebody important who is an acquaintance of the brother-in-law of your wife’s stepmother’s cousin twice removed. Remember the flap several years ago when a socialite couple crashed a party at the White House? Most people don’t crash parties, but they will try to finagle an invitation.

If we play turn about with dinner invitations, it becomes a competitive sport. We get caught up in making sure that we did as much as you did, and we will check to see that you did as much as we did. Someone is going to fall short. Someone’s feelings are going to get hurt. The game will escalate. I have to do better than you, because you did better than I did the last time around.

Jesus did not talk about manners. He was not concerned with what “RSVP” means or which fork is for salad and which is for dessert. Those things have their place, but not in the realm of God’s rule. Jesus wants to reorient the focus of hospitality. Jesus shares his table with people who are not normally invited by hosts with conventional values — “the poor, crippled, lame, and blind.”

Every age has its outcasts. Jesus challenges us to reach across the boundaries of place and time, of class and culture, of race and gender, of education and economics. Jesus calls us to be more aware of those from whom we are more inclined look away or not even see.

The Pharisees were often depicted as people who only ate with their kind. Generally, their relationships with Jesus were antagonistic. They complained because he ate with “tax collectors and sinners”(2). Jesus may be quoting their complaint about him (7:34) when he says: “The Human One came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ ”

Yet, Luke (and only Luke) tells us that Jesus ate with Pharisees(3). Maybe he was practicing in reverse what he was preaching. Each time he ate with them there were controversies: about the “sinful” woman who anoints Jesus; about proper ritual washings before eating; and the healing and teachings of today’s reading. Apparently Jesus (the glutton that he was) would eat (and probably drink) with anybody — perhaps even with you and me!(4)

While that thought may evoke a grin, it is absolutely true. Jesus does associate with us. And there is no way that we can ever pay him back. We are forever debtors to God for the life we have had, and the life we will have. Not just the biological life that evokes daily complaints about aches and pains. But also the spiritual life fortified by the Holy Spirit. Unlikely guests that we are, Jesus has invited us to the reign of God — the heavenly banquet. Let us not take the invitation for granted. Let us not wonder about why some are there (they’ll be wondering about us as well). It is better to be debtor to God than have everyone trying to repay us because they want a favor in return.

God invites us. Let us extend the invitation wherever we go. Amen.


(1) Ronald P. Byars, “Luke 14:1, 7-14: Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), Year C, volume 4, 23.
(2) Luke 5:30, 33; 15:2. 
(3) Luke 7:36; 11:37; 14:1. 
(4) Brian Stoffregen, “Gospel Notes for Next Sunday,” Proper 17 // Lectionary 22 C: Exegetical Notes on Luke 14:1, 7-14, Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 11:49 AM.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com 
Copyright 2013 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.