Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

more years ago now than I care to think,

one of several jobs that I had to earn some spending money

was "manager of the private dining room."

It was a small, rather elegant little room,

just to one side of the cafeteria.

Faculty, or administrators, or other groups,

could reserve the room for a meeting,

and have a really good meal at the same time.

That’s where I came in.

Because not only did I have to

serve these people their meal

and recruit other students to help with that process …

I was also responsible for

the elaborate and meticulous setup of the room.

Tablecloths perfectly lined up,

chairs evenly spaced,

napkins folded,

two forks on the napkin,

one up, one down,

coffee cup just above the knife and spoons –

oh, and all the handles on the cups

had to face the same direction –

salads at every place,

and all the tomatoes had to be perfectly lined up!

candles all the same height …

Oh, it was quite a production,

and I was very picky,

and very careful that everything was in its place and just right

for our honored guests,

whoever they were.

Emily Post would have been proud of me.

I had all the little details of proper table etiquette

down cold.

And then, I read a passage like this one,

and I realize,

none of that matters at all to Jesus.

God’s idea of good table manners

has nothing to do with where you put the salad fork,

or whether you remembered to

serve from the right and take away from the left,

or any of that nonsense.

"Divine etiquette," so to speak,

cares about where you choose to sit at the table,

about whom you invite when you’re giving the party,

and about how you treat the other people there with you.

Nitpicky details don’t matter.

People matter.

Item number one on Jesus’ checklist appears to be:

the humility factor.

That is, when you are invited to a feast,

where should you sit?

At the head table with the dignitaries?

Off in the kitchen with all the children?

Or somewhere in between?

Working in the private dining room,

it was always interesting to see

where the different people sat.

For example, when President Gillespie was a part of the meeting,

he always sat at the head of the table.

It wasn’t even so much that he expected to sit there,

as that everyone else left it vacant for him,

out of some sense that that was where he "belonged."

I will never forget one evening when we were serving a "senior seminar" …

that’s when they invite college seniors

to come visit the campus,

and find out about Princeton,

and they feed ‘em in the private dining room

so they don’t find out what the regular food is really like

until it’s too late –

Anyway, all the seniors came in,

and this one guy –

I can still picture him,

dark red wavy hair –

plops himself down at the head

of the 25-foot-long table

and sits there looking very smug.

One of the girls leaned over with a worried look on her face,

and said,

"Don’t you think Dr. Crawford will want to sit there?"

"I’m sitting here," was all the reply she got.

We wondered later

if you could be denied admission to seminary

on the grounds of insufferable arrogance.

But … where do you sit?

Humility is a tricky thing.

Because often,

the harder you try to be humble,

the more proud you are of how humble you are,

and that sort of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it!

We’ve all known people

who delight in being martyrs,

and describe in great detail

how they’ve suffered and sacrificed

and taken care of everyone else.

They may consider themselves to be

humble, downtrodden people …

But anyone who enjoys talking about their suffering that much

is without a doubt quite proud of it,

and not so humble as they think they are.

Real humility comes, not from working at it,

but from learning to see ourselves as God sees us.

True humbleness comes when we can accept

both that we are a tiny insignificant speck in a vast universe,

and that we are of infinite worth to God.

When we realize that

we are neither the best nor the worst thing

that ever happened in the history of the world.

And when it finally occurs to us

that we’re just not a whole lot different

from everybody else,

either in our good-ness or in our bad-ness.

When we learn to be truly honest

with ourselves, with others, and with God …

we will have discovered humility.

No need to grab the head chair,

but no need to grovel in the dirt, either.

So much for "where to sit,"

and the humility factor.

What about "whom to invite"?

This is the service factor

of divine etiquette.

We all know, tradition says,

you should invite the people who have invited you,

and then, after you’ve had your party,

they’ll invite you again,

then at some time in the future you invite them again,

ad infinitum.

Jesus says, it’s not to be that way any more.

If you invite those who will repay by inviting you …

you’ve already gotten your reward.

There’s no special merit involved in

giving a feast for your friends.

Instead, he says,

invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, and blind.

They cannot repay you,

so God will bless you,

and repay you at the resurrection of the just.

Imagine that.

Most of us spend a large part of our lives

working to avoid being poor.

Often, we even tend to try to avoid

any contact with people who are poor.

We let social service agencies

distribute the money we give.

We are a little bit afraid

of homeless people, of panhandlers,

that we might see on the streets.

We try to avoid driving through

certain parts of town.

We put bolts on our doors,

alarms in the windows,

dogs in the yard,

in case some poor person

might try to even things out a bit

by taking our things for themselves.

And here Jesus is,

telling us we need to devote our best attention

to the poor, and to other outcasts…!

I wonder if he knows how hard that is!

After all, as one commentator says,

"Just try including the poor in your next garden party.

Then see who comes to the following one."

Imagine a dinner party at your house:

Half the guests are your business associates,

and half are clients from the Stewpot.

It could be one of the most uncomfortable evenings of your life!

On the other hand,

no one ever said discipleship was going to be comfortable!

It could also, of course,

be one of the most interesting evenings of your life.

Well, that takes care of "whom to invite."

Humility, and service, …

There’s one more item on

the "divine etiquette" checklist,

and that’s justice.

The gospel lesson only mentions it in passing,

when Jesus talks about "the resurrection of the just."

And it’s kind of a tricky thing,

because it’s not always clear in a given instance

what justice really is.

But we must give it our best effort nonetheless.

Justice goes a step beyond service,

although both are important.

When we add justice into our considerations,

no longer are we simply feeding the hungry,

or sheltering the homeless,

or other good deeds.

Now, we are working to make changes in our society

so that some day there will be

no more poor, and hungry, and homeless.

You see, when God commands us to be just,

it’s more than just dealing fairly with people

in one-on-one relationships.

Though it does include that, it also goes beyond it.

Doing justice also involves

working to bring God’s kingdom here and now.

And that will mean, sometimes,

fighting battles against the way our society, and other societies,

presently operate.

It’s easy to point the finger and say,

"Oh, look at the Iraq, look at Afghanistan,

there’s no justice there."

In large part, that is true.

It’s somewhat harder to look in the mirror

and see homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk

in the dead of winter,

hospitals that turn people away

who can’t afford to pay,

black people who smoke crack go to prison for life,

white people who snort coke get a few months incarceration

and time off "for good behavior,"

Our society is not quite just, either.

It’s a vast improvement over a lot of other places!

But we have not attained perfection yet.

And so, we who are followers of Jesus Christ

must do more than just profess our belief …

We must also live it.

As one author that I read put it,

"Most of us are quite ready

to be religious in principle,

but how ready are we

to be practical about it?"

Ouch.

The bottom line is,

that doing justice is a part of our Christian calling.

As are service, and humility.

To heck with Emily Post, or Miss Manners,

and all the rules of etiquette

and details of proper social interaction.

None of that matters, in the end.

All that matters, as the prophet says,

is to do justice,

love kindness,

and walk humbly with our God.

May God bless and strengthen us

in these tasks.

Amen.

©2007 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org