Back in 2005 I took Emma to see a wonderful film titled “Because of Winn
Dixie”. The film was about a preacher living in a trailer park in rural Florida
whose daughter adopts a dog that she finds at a local Winn Dixie grocery store.
The preacher grudgingly agrees to let his daughter Opal keep the dog until they
can locate the owner. But the manager of the trailer park insists that they get
rid of the dog quickly because there are no pets allowed in the park.
In the eyes of the preacher the dog is a complete nuisance who completely
disrupts one of his church services and almost gets him kicked out of the
trailer park. But in Opal’s eyes, the dog helps her gather an unlikely set of
friends who support her through her sadness over the fact that her mother left
her father years ago.
The dog constantly runs off, forcing Opal to chase him. And invariably her chase
leads her to meet someone who, like her, has been abandoned or ignored by
society. There’s a pet store owner, played by Dave Matthews, who is on parole
for assaulting someone who did him wrong.
There’s the twin boys who constantly ridicule her until they realize that they’d
rather play with her than be her enemies. There’s the blind woman whose home
seems like a fantasy land to young Opal.
There’s a young girl who at first appears to be Opal’s rival, but later becomes
her friend. And finally there’s the trailer park manager, whose gruff exterior
hides a loneliness and a need for actual friendship.
All of these folks are somehow gathered together by the actions of Opal’s dog
Winn Dixie. The movie ends with this group gathered for a large meal, singing a
gospel song, enjoying the fact that with each other, and because of this
mysterious dog, they have found acceptance.
I would suggest that people like them can be found in most places. In fact, in
most human societies a pecking order has been established, one which elevates a
certain group of people and debases another group of people.
Sometimes the criteria for being at the top or the bottom is religious,
sometimes it’s financial, sometimes it’s based on race or gender or orientation
or political party. Sometimes it’s a combination of those criteria. But most of
the times it’s there, in the background, influencing the way people think about
themselves and each other.
This was certainly the case during the time of Jesus’ life in Galilee. One of
the questions our passage for today raises is, “How does God’s reign over the
earth deal with the kinds of pecking orders that seem to take hold in society?
Is there a totem pole in God’s kingdom? Who’s at the top and who’s at the
bottom?
In the passage we read this morning Jesus deals with that very question. He’s at
the home of a prominent religious leader. This Pharisee has invited Jesus and a
number of other guests to a meal on a Saturday, which was their day of rest.
In order to understand what’s about to happen, you have to know a little about
the kind of etiquette they observed at meals during Jesus’ time. When a
prominent person invited guests to a meal, the table would be rectangular, with
the host sitting at the head of the table.
Guests were seated according to society’s pecking order, or at least according
to the way in which each of them was esteemed by their community. Those who were
most honored by society were given seats closest to the host. The less honorable
of a person you were, the farther away you were seated.
So when everyone sat down, they could see in very clear terms just where they
stood in the eyes of their peers. It was immediately clear that some folks were
more highly respected than others.
The problem came when it was time to enter the room and be seated. They didn’t
have name tags telling each of the guests where to sit. People sat in the place
where they thought they belonged.
Of course, since honor was so important in that society, most guests tried to
get as close to the host as possible so that everyone else would see just how
high they were in the pecking order.
But occasionally some guests would sit in a seat that was probably too close for
their status, and someone more honorable would come in later, looking for one of
the good seats. The host would then ask the guests seated in the good seat to
move farther away so that the more honored guest could have a good seat.
That was the ultimate humiliation, being asked to give up your seat to someone
more honorable. You’d end up sitting at the back of the room with all of the
folks who were less honorable and just lucky to be in the room at all.
Jesus saw this game being played out at this meal in the Pharisee’s house. And
he decided to take that opportunity to draw a contrast between the standards of
honor in his society and the standards of honor in God’s kingdom.
The object of the game in the Pharisee’s house was to get everyone to see just
how much everyone thought of you. It was kind of like a popularity contest.
There were winners and losers, and there honestly wasn’t much opportunity for
people to go from being less honorable to being more honorable.
This game gave dignity to some people while taking away dignity from others. And
this order determined much of the condition of people’s lives. The lower you
were in the pecking order, the harder it was to make a living, the harder it was
to get a fair shake from the legal system, and the harder it was to hold on to
the land and possessions you owned.
The object was to be better than someone else, to have power over someone else.
Righteousness was not the object. Godliness was not a main consideration. And
anyone who was a cast off from society was unable to participate at all.
In contrast to that charade, Jesus taught that God’s kingdom worked the opposite
way. The people who were considered least honorable by society are the ones who
receive the most attention from God, while those who live at the top of the
power structure of this world are at the bottom of the totem pole in the kingdom
of heaven.
Part of the reason why this is so is because those who have been alienated and
relegated to the lower rungs of society are the most likely to be aware of their
need of salvation, whereas those who are at the top of the heap don’t tend to
acknowledge that they ever need God’s help.
Jesus noted that it’s better to lick a lower place at the table and be asked by
the host to move up closer, than to pick a better spot at the table and be asked
to move down. God is like the host who exalts the humble and humbles those who
exalt themselves.
He also gives the host a suggestion for the next time he throws a shindig. Jesus
says, “When you have your next dinner, don’t invite your relatives or your
family or your friends or your rich neighbors. Everyone knows that people do
that to get invited to someone else’s meal in return. It’s kind of self
serving.”
“Instead, next time you make your guest list, invite some poor people, invite
some disabled folks, invite the blind person who never gets invited anywhere.
You know good and well that these folks can’t repay you. You know they can’t
afford to even have you over for dinner.”
“But you have to look at the long term implications. We all believe that at the
end of the world God will raise the dead. And when that happens, God will repay
you, which is a lot better than being invited over by your rich neighbors.”
Jesus was referring to the belief which most Jews, including the Pharisees had,
that God would eventually bring an end to this world and raise all the righteous
from the dead. Jesus agreed with that belief, but he said it was his followers
who would be raised from the dead.
Jesus was also referring to a common belief that in the afterlife, in heaven,
God would throw a huge banquet for all the righteous people who were raised from
the dead. Everyone there would be able to eat as much as they wanted, and the
hunger they experienced on earth would be ended forever.
So Jesus tells us that there’s also a godly pecking order, one which is the
opposite of the kinds we find in the world. You move up in that pecking order by
treating the poor and the disabled will respect and by calling out the wealthy
for their excesses.
Jesus does just that throughout the Gospel of Luke. He blesses the poor, he
heals the disabled, and chides the wealthy and well connected. He taught his
followers to do the same after his death.
I think we have to ask ourselves, “How to we operate as a church, as individual
Christians so that we observe God’s upside down pecking order during our lives?
How do we give dignity to folks who are hurting? How do we embrace the outcast?
What role do we have in calling the people at the top of the pecking order to
task?
Do you know someone who never gets invited anywhere? Someone who, often for
reasons beyond their control, have few friends, few resources, and are isolated
from the kinds of things that most of us enjoy?
What could you do for them that would give them dignity? What would it mean to
them if you could be their friend? What would it mean for them if our
congregation embraced them? What would it say about God’s attitude toward them?
I can tell you this: it won’t win you any popularity contests. In fact, people
will often question why good church people would want to be involved with
“those” people. In my ministry I’ve had serious problems with some folks who
didn’t like having the church embrace certain kinds of folks.
Michelle and I laugh because wherever we are we seem to attract the kinds of
folks that appear to be at the bottom of society’s totem pole. In California I
worked with the ex-husband of one of the women of the church.
He was constantly in and out of jail. I went with his family to visit him in
prison once. I also through a touchdown pass to him at a youth outing when the
adults played against the teenagers. He bought us all KFC that day.
We had a guy start coming to the church who had such a low opinion of himself
that he couldn’t even look you in the eye. He was the kind of person everyone
made fun of. He was probably the school nerd. But the church embraced him.
He was more knowledgeable about Christian music than I will ever be. At
Christmas he bought gifts for everyone in the church. Fortunately it was a small
church!
In New York a young woman started attending even though she had two small
children and wasn’t married. Some of the folks weren’t sure about her, but they
tried to make her feel welcome.
Then there was the guitar player with the long hair. He started coming with his
live in girlfriend and their son. That was really a stretch for the church. But
he ended up becoming the lead guitarist for the church’s praise band. He
actually played in the church’s band when we performed in the church where our
former pastor Keith now preaches.
But all that pales in comparison to the kinds of people we seem to keep running
into around here. We’ve had people attend here who were way at the top of the
totem pole in our society. We’ve had people with lots of money and lots of
connections and lots of influence.
But we’ve also had a long history of embracing people who didn’t have any status
in society. We’ve resettled refugees from the far corners of the earth. We knew
they’d never repay us. We’ve embraced Hispanic immigrants, some of whom are not
here legally. Not a lot of payback in that kind of ministry.
We embraced women in ministry long before it was widely accepted that women can
be pastors. Didn’t earn us a lot of brownie points in the eyes of some of our
Baptist peers.
About five or six years ago we began housing and hosting the mentally ill, using
our space to support those who worked with them to give them some dignity and
teach them some skills. We found that they turned out to be pretty good cooks!
This building is a place of worship for four different congregations, each of
which comes from a different ethnic group and uses a different style of worship.
You might expect to see something like that in an inner city church serving an
extremely diverse population. But in a wealthy suburb like Waukesha that’s
unheard of.
Given the fact that we have invited people like this to join us, given the fact
that we have embraced the poor and the disabled, there was no question in our
minds when we were approached by the Donna Lexa Community Arts Center and asked
if we could rent the space being vacated by Spring City.
We will now be housing an organization that teaches art to the disabled and the
mentally ill. Hundreds of people in our city will be able to develop their
talents and find greater dignity in their lives because they can come to our
building and get those services.
And unlike the folks Jesus mentioned in his teaching, this organization actually
does pay us back, enabling us to meet our obligations and keep the doors open –
which in turn enables them to keep theirs open.
Now I want you to ask yourself, if we had to choose between having someone
anonymously donate $15000 a year to the church and having this group pay us that
same amount so that they can help the disabled of Waukesha, which would you
choose?
Is it more important to pay the bills, or is it more important, as Jesus said,
to invite the poor, the lame, the blind and the disabled? It’s actually more
humbling and more risky to invite those folks to be a part of our community.
But if we want to actively be involved in announcing the kingdom of God, then
I’d rather have them here. Jesus told people their reward would be in heaven if
they embraced those folks.
Personally I think we get our rewards early. It’s rewarding to eat Cheryl’s BBQ
beef sandwiches. It’s rewarding to see the smile on the faces of the folks who
live at Samson House. It’s rewarding to know that many of the folks at Spring
City have been able to find work in area restaurants because of the training
they received here.
It’s rewarding to know that the children of disadvantaged people in Waukesha
have a safe, nurturing environment in our building through a Hand to Hold
Daycare. It’s rewarding to know that we house one of only two African American
Congregations in Waukesha.
It’s rewarding to see young Burmese children learning about Jesus in our Sunday
School. It’s rewarding to see our young Hispanic praise band being asked to play
at regional Hispanic meetings.
Final Illustration: Helen
It doesn’t get more rewarding than that, folks. Our God in heaven sees the way
that we embrace those in need. In fact, I’m sure that’s why God keeps leading
them here. It keeps us on our toes, and it keeps us humble. And God always
exalts those who are humble.