Table Hospitality

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
September 2, 2007; 14th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 17, Year C
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Luke 14:1, 7-14) -- 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.

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. "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; 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. 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. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

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. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."
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It was 1993, or thereabouts. Probably our most unforgettable family Thanksgiving dinner. We were living in Fort Smith and stayed in town rather than going back to visit family in Memphis and Oxford. And the day sneaked up on us without our making plans to invite or join others for dinner. So it was just the four of us -- Gray and Allison were 12 and 15 as I recall. I did the Thanksgiving service at St. John's and saw Phillip there. I asked him if he had any plans; he didn't; so I invited him to join us later that afternoon. He seemed delighted.

I think I've mentioned Phillip in sermons before. He became one of my best friends in Fort Smith. Phillip was chronically homeless and addicted. Between binges he sometimes went months, and once two years sober. On this Thanksgiving Day he had been sober a long time, maybe over a year. He had a comfortable apartment, TV, VCR and boom box. And he worked at our church as our sexton and greeter. He opened the door from the parking lot, offering a huge infectious smile and welcomed people to St. John's. Everybody loved Phillip.

He dressed in his nicest Salvation Army coat and tie when he came over for Thanksgiving dinner. He was fond of our kids and they were fond of him. He had been in our home often, but usually helping me with yard work and things. He was remarkably strong, and a very hard worker. He had been around us a good bit, but he had not been our dinner guest before.

We started talking and invited Phillip to tell us more about himself. As his story unfolded, I could see our kids learning about human life in a new way. Phillip said he started getting high when he was five or six, sniffing glue. Later he got on some hard stuff, and it made him crazy. He said he was ashamed, but he had done some burglary to support his habit. The worst time was, he said, when he and a friend held up a drive-in theater booth. "I know I shouldn't have had a gun. I wasn't going to use it. It was just to scare him so he would give us the money. But when I reached over to pull out the telephone line, my hand bumped the counter and the gun went off. I think it was God," he said. "I thank God; that bullet just went through the window. I think God protected me and that man. I could have shot him. I don't know how I could have lived with that. God's been with me, you know." By now the kids' eyes were getting pretty big. "That was armed robbery though. I got sixteen years for that."

Phillip had spent more than half of his life in jail. I think he was about my age, in his mid-40's. He told how he could build and hide a still in the penitentiary to make booze. "You can make booze out of nearly anything," he taught us. "Potato peels are real good. I could usually get those from the prison kitchen."

It was an unforgettable Thanksgiving table conversation. It opened my children's eyes to a way of life that was unfamiliar to them. Kathy said she was a bit nervous at times, but trusted the kids could process all of this new information. And we all loved Phillip.

Phillip said it was the best Thanksgiving for him in many years. There was so much food. It reminded him of some meals his mother used to fix. Sadly, the rekindled memory of his mother, who had died several years ago, made Phillip depressed. He started drinking that night and continued for the next eight months, losing his apartment and most of his stuff. Back on the streets, getting by.

Recently I've learned some things about poverty that I didn't know. I've been glancing through a book that we will be using as the primary text for an upcoming poverty workshop we're offering in October. Dr. Ruby Payne has done breakthrough research about the mindsets of poverty, middle class and wealth. She helps us understand some of the hidden rules among the classes and the very different set of skills and presumptions that characterize the different worlds of the poor, the middle class and the wealthy.

I've done something unusual today. I've tucked a sermon handout in your bulletin. It outlines some of the hidden rules that are underneath the worlds of the poor, the middle class and the wealthy. In many ways, Phillip was a remarkably gifted and skilled person within his world of poverty. He knew how to survive. He was the most generous person I've ever known. I've seen him give $100 to a homeless family with a little child when that was all Phillip had to live on for the rest of the month. When I scolded him for his recklessness, he explained, "They need it more than I do, Father. I can get by just fine on nothing. I could go out right now and ask people for money and bring in twenty dollars, maybe more, in an hour." He flashed that infectious smile. "There was one lady who gave me fifty-dollars one time. Can you imagine that? Fifty-dollars!" He paused. "Father, do you think God sent that lady to give me fifty-dollars? God takes care of me. So far at least. And I'm thankful."

Learning from Dr. Payne's study, I've recognized that Phillip's conversation at that Thanksgiving table was completely normal. He spoke about survival and about people. He spoke casually, not like the formal talk we're used to at our table. He talked about things most middle-class mothers would have thought inappropriate conversation for the dinner table. But I tell you, it was very entertaining. He grew up in poverty and learned lessons that I have no context for.

Dr. Payne had three page-long check-lists, each titled: "Could You Survive in Poverty?" "Could You Survive in Middle Class?" "Could You Survive in Wealth?" Some questions I couldn't check in the first list. "I know which rummage sales have 'bag sales' and when." "I know which grocery stores' garbage bins can be accessed for thrown-away food." "I know how to physically fight and defend myself physically." "I know how to get a gun, even if I have a police record." "I know how to live without a checking account, electricity and a phone." "I know how to move in half a day." "I can get by without a car." Those were easy skills for Phillip.

Last week I was at a family wedding, hosted by people whose background is very different from mine and from my family's. During the reception dinner-toasts, their family patriarch noted how he had never met anyone from Mississippi before, and what a delightful discovery it had been. Left unspoken was the common knowledge that Mississippi is 50th in everything. A Mississippi matriarch in her gracious dialect countered that they were all so nice they could be honorary Southerners.

Today we see Jesus at a sabbath meal at the home of some of the more privileged class. The seating was traditionally formal, following the hidden rules of an honor based society. The guests were arranged by status. It was carefully orchestrated. To sit above your station and to be displaced by one who was more honorable would mean you would have to move all the way to the end of the table to find a vacant place at the bottom -- a social tragedy of losing face.

One of the things that most characterized Jesus was the radical hospitality of his table. So many of the stories center around the scandal of his table fellowship. "This man eats with sinners and prostitutes," they exclaimed. He visited with Pharisees and with tax collectors. He welcomed women like Mary into the men's conversations. He fed the hungry multitudes. And on Easter, his disciples knew him resurrected in the breaking of the bread. His table made such an impression on his friends, that they knew him to be present at table with them even after he had died. The Holy Communion of the Eucharistic Feast became the characteristic form of gathering and prayer for his followers.

We try to imitate that radical hospitality at this table. In a few minutes I will offer the open invitation, "No matter who you are, or wherever you are in your pilgrimage of faith, you are welcome in this place; you are welcome at God's table." As I told our Worship & the Eucharist Sunday School class the other day, we have special permission to use that open invitation to communion. The canons of the Episcopal Church limit communion to baptized Christians. Our Bishops, Larry Maze and Larry Benfield, have given St. Paul's permission to extend that boundary, partially because we live in a university community where searchers tend to experience and then reflect upon experience, and partially because they would like us to be among the congregations and dioceses that are asking the church to reconsider its canons, and to live with an alternative eucharistic hospitality to see if it is effective at creating faithful disciples. I'm glad to be part of that movement, and I know several of you who have joined this community because of its willing openness.

But we are awfully middle class, aren't we? And pretty pasty in complexion. So I invite you to help this church reach out more universally in our hospitality and fellowship. Help us follow Jesus' teaching -- "when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind" -- and not just to Community Meals, but to this meal. We've got a lot to learn from those whose experience is different from ours. I know among the many things I learned from Phillip, was the example of faith and generosity. If people like me were as generous as Phillip, there would be no poverty in this nation.

I would like to conclude with a passage you heard earlier from Hebrews. "Through Christ, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."
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