The Banquet
Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, August 28, 2022
Jeremiah 2:4-13 • Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16 • Luke 14:1, 7-14
And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. Amen.
A few years ago on retreat at the Bishop’s Ranch, Vicar Jane asked us to focus our work on feeding, food security, and the sacrament. We had some sessions about what the Eucharist meant to us, and how we made the ordinary sacred. During that time, we had a theological reflection on one of my very favorite songs, Banquet, by Joni Mitchell. The final verse reads:
And in the banquet line, angry young people are crying
Who let the greedy in?
Who left the needy out?
Who made this salty soup?
Tell them we’re very hungry now for a sweeter fare. And some get the gravy,
Some get the gristle,
Some get the marrow bone,
And some get nothing, although there’s plenty to spare.
The metaphorical banquet in Joni’s song is the scene of a deep systemic injustice. The wrong people are getting the best things, while the deserving are left out of the line. Her words and the ethereal melody alone are a feast, and I have savored this song for decades.
Like most stories, whether songs from our culture or parables from our sacred texts, the more we examine them, the more they reveal about themselves, and we are able to enter into the story, and explore the different actors and voices. For example, with the song I’m thinking of, sometimes I am the angry young people, crying out for justice and speaking truth; sometimes I am the one going for seconds before everyone has had their firsts; sometimes I put myself as the one looking at a table full of crumbs, having received nothing at all. For me, this is a practice of developing or continuing to hone empathy as much as it is realizing and confronting my privilege.
We don’t have to go into song or scripture to find this disparity, either. We see homeless mothers asking for food in front of the Ferry Building farmer’s market; just try to find a grocery store in the Tenderloin; revisit Whole Foods the day before lockdowns in March of 2020 and remember shelves that were bare, a first for many of us in our lifetimes. And injustice is not just limited to food security - every sector of our society has people who are receiving more than they need, and those who are left out. Can this possibly be the way things are supposed to be?
Jeremiah had some harsh words for the Chosen people. To the people of Israel who had wandered far from the Covenant they had made with YHWH, Jeremiah cries out: “What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?” Scathing. He then launches into a litany of sin that Israel has committed, mostly in this oracle, a judgment against worshiping the gods of the Canaanites, a perennial no-no in the Hebrew prophets.
Whatever the context, Jeremiah’s judgment is a sharp rebuke of the people - in chasing after meaningless things, they have become without meaning themselves. This feels personal, it is impossible to gloss over this oracle, as one might do with others, and escape personal responsibility by focusing on the sins of the Temple, the King, some unnamed people. Jeremiah brings it right home.
I work in the ministry of Stewardship - the care of all that we have been given and the opportunity we have to share it with the greater world. One of the conversations that often comes up when talking about faith-based giving is the biblical teaching of the tithe, that we should devote ten percent of our assets to the Church. Seven General Conventions of the Church have affirmed the tithe as the starting point for stewardship, and certainly they are grounded in scriptural evidence. Because we are Episcopalians, this conversation can further devolve into a question of “is that ten percent of net? Or gross?” And then tax experts have opinions.
Sheesh.
I dance around this question. To me, the whole idea of a biblical mandate for giving strikes me about as irrelevant as a biblical mandate on most anything - I freed myself long ago from the shackles of biblical literalism. But as a Stewardship guy, there’s a party line I am supposed to tow - and the tithe is the answer I am supposed to give. Earlier this week I was on a call with all the Stewardship folks in Province VIII of the Episcopal Church - that’s basically everything west of the Rockies. I was schooled by the Bishop of Olympia, Greg Rickel, who reminded us that our stewardship is one hundred percent of what we have been given. We are meant to give everything we have to God who has given us everything there ever was to give.
Again, prophets often catch us up short, and I felt like I was being spoken to. How often have I frittered away time, talent, or treasure on things that were, as Jeremiah might say, worthless? More than trinkets and possessions, how much time have I spent that might have been better utilized bringing about justice? How have I not rested from hard work leaving me feeling spent, so I cannot return again to the vineyard to produce for God? How much of my mind is occupied by stupid tv shows, or tomorrow’s worries, or petty emotional injuries?
I am grateful for today’s Gospel, and Jesus’ parable of the banquet. It allows me to enter the feast - that, in and of itself, is the first act of Grace. I have an invite, and it’s valid. I, with whatever meaninglessness I have collected chasing life’s intangibles, have been welcomed. Then Jesus invites me to occupy the seat befitting my station - the lowest seat at the party. From there, he says, the only place is up. Even if the host never offers me a better seat, I have a place, a seat at the banquet, a full belly, and good conversation.
Jesus continues by telling us to invite the ones who are unexpected, the ones whom we might otherwise pass by on the streets, the ones who make us feel uncomfortable. For what good is the gift of a banquet if it is only shared with people who are like us? At Jesus’ table, the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind - metaphorical outsiders in First Century polite company - all receive food, warmth, companionship, and maybe some of that good wine he’s been converting out back.
Who let the greedy in?
Who left the needy out?
Who made this salty soup?
Tell them we’re very hungry now for a sweeter fare
In just a few minutes we will taste this sweeter fare, as we join Jesus at the Table. We have an invitation that never expires, and every seat is a good one. We bring our full selves, broken, wanting, loved, created perfectly, and we join in an eternal banquet. Thanks be to God.
Amen.