Reading Luke Together #34 – Whom to Invite

Sometimes in the heat of theological debate, someone will declare “The Bible is clear!” – as if that’s playing the ace of spades. I’m grateful when we dig into Scripture to think our way into how to think about God and how to serve God well. But simply quoting what is clear doesn’t delight God’s heart. The devil quoted clear Bible verses to Jesus when he tempted him in the desert. All manner of meanness and evil in human history has been propped up by somebody citing some “clear” Bible stuff.

We learn and become wise readers of the Bible when we learn to step back and look at the broad painting that is Scripture, not just this or that brushstroke. And we grow in discerning the difference between what is clear, as in it isn’t metaphorical, or symbolic, and what requires some unpacking and rifling around to grasp the hidden mystery in a text.

A text that pretty obviously isn’t symbolic of anything at all? And the text I often turn to when somebody gets in my face reminding me “The Bible is clear”? Luke 14. Have you read it? Fascinating how so many Gospel stories happen at somebody’s dinner table – and Jesus clearly failed to attend what Lisa’s mom used to threaten my kids with: “You’ll have to go to Mimi’s Manners Camp.”

Jesus notices dinner guests jockeying for the best seats, seeking the advantages of rubbing shoulders with the right people. Bishop Robert Barron, noting how we play this game of who knows whom, who’s invited to the coolest gatherings, the giddy delight you, feel when you’re in, and the envy and hurt you suffer when you’re on the outside looking in, suggests Jesus is mercifully telling us “Stop playing the game. Opt out.”

And how? Take the lowest, worst seat, or don’t go at all – or better (and here’s the Bible’s single most haunting “The Bible is clear” moment): “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your relatives or rich neighbors, who may invite you in return… When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind, and you will be blessed.” Notice he doesn’t say “Do not invite only your friends…” Seriously? Even if you bend Jesus’ words, and keep inviting friends and family: do you ever invite the poor, the marginalized, those nobody likes? A test (and a harrowing one) of how deep your spirituality really runs might be to ask: Who’s been in your home? Whose homes have you been in? With whom do you share meals? Not dropping off a can at the church for somebody else to deliver. Years ago I had a church member drop off a turkey every December, saying “Get this to a poor person.” I’d say “Thank you” – until one year I handed him a name and address and said “You deliver it.” And I should have added, “Actually, go to this family and invite them to your home and eat the turkey together.”

Charity can be so impersonal, and demeaning. What might transform our society would be if people who never eat together ate together. And what healing would dawn on your own soul if you engaged with others, listened, passed the potatoes, laughed, learned and shared? Jesus just isn’t a scolder, but he does ask hard things of us, so deeply does he love us, and so passionately does he not want us to miss out on the deep joys to be had.

I worry for myself, and for you dear reader, that we hear Jesus but wind up like those invited guests in Jesus’ next story, Luke 14:15-24. All who missed the great banquet had terrific excuses. One just bought a tract of land that needed attention. Another was guiding his 5 new yoke of oxen home to try out. One just got married. Excuses, excuses, good excuses. We have our excellent reasons for not getting around to taking Jesus seriously. Jesus presses us then to ask, When would be the good time? Why postpone and procrastinate? Tackle some radical Christian living – like this month, this week, even today.