A Poem A Sunday

Pentecost 15 - C

August 28, 2016

St. Luke 14:1; 7-14

New Revised Standard Version

Commentary:  St. Luke speaks of ‘The Great Reversal.’ Jesus is expanding on Mary’s Magnificat.  He was taught well.  Will we open our Tables to the guests that Jesus chooses to invite, or will institutional inertia keep us safe within our ecclesiastical walls?

14 – 1 On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely. 

Humility and Hospitality

7 When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; 9 and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. 11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

12 He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Grace at Table

Come, Lord Jesus,

be our guest

but please

do not bring

the rest

of those people

you welcome

to your table:

The lame, the lost,

those in despair

and those who

get no care.

How dare

you open up

a chair

at

the sacred table?

A sacrilege!

You must draw

the line.

Now how

and where

can we find

a haven

away from

those kinds

of people?

The churches’ tables

draw the lines

of separate but equal

every Sabbath time.

Yet, now,

you call us

to be last.

The first

reversed.

Forgive the past.

You call:

“Imagine now

a place and time,

a table not only

for humankind –

but all creation:

the universe,

all lost and found,

the cosmic dust

of holy ground,

of every place and time.”

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