P.B.S.: Return On Investment
by pastordan
Tue Aug 28, 2007 at 09:58:56 AM PDT
It's time for our inaugural Progressive Bible Study. Follow me below the fold for the text, notes, and conversation.
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Luke 14:1, 7-14 (NRSV):
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.
7When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. 8“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; 9and 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. 10But 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. 11For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” 12He 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. 13But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Notes
This pericope is blessedly free from textual and translation problems. A few quick word studies help bring the message into view:
7-noticed: literally "grasped with his mind". Jesus and his hosts are eyeing one another up.
8-honor: "doxa," "praise," the same word we get "doxology" from.
9-in disgrace: "with shame"
10-Friend: a very intimate term in this context, implies that the person being addressed is almost a co-host of the dinner party.
11-humble: being humble or "low-minded" was used as a vice in Greek moral literature. Christians were the first to use the term as a positive affect.
13-poor: Luke's blanket term for anyone excluded from the traditional community.
Interpretation
This pericope contains two separate sayings of Jesus welded together to make a single point. The first runs from verse 7 to verse 10, and is based on a commonplace piece of social advice derived from Proverbs 25:6-7:
Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence
or stand in the place of the great;
for it is better to be told, ‘Come up here’,
than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.
The second saying is almost a transvaluation of values, with Jesus directing his hosts to invite not the wealthy and the famous to their tables, but the poor and the despised, in imitation of God's hospitality.
In between these two sayings is a remarkable pivot in verse 11: "all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." The passive tense here implies that God will accomplish this role reversal, and the phrase itself echoes the punchline of Luke 18:1-14 and Matthew 23:1-12.
Comments
This story goes well beyond the prescription to "judge not lest ye be judged" to articulate God's positive affinity for "the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind." Those suffering from these afflictions could not be admitted to the Temple under the Levitical code, but perhaps more important, they were also people who could not earn their own living. And yet, they are exactly the people God commands his followers to seek out and eat with. That's a direct, primary command: don't send them some food, don't invite but ignore them. Bring them in, sit them down at your table, and be their equals.
In connecting Jesus' standard admonition to be humble in polite society with an inverted social pyramid, then, Luke has handed out a radical woof ticket to both our economic and our spiritual assumptions. That's consistent with his vision of Jesus as the prophet who overturns the social scheme (see 1:46-55 and 4:16-30).
Where the usual game would be to make a social investment by inviting guests with power, privilege, or simply cash with which to repay their host, Luke states that God's desire is for us to invite precisely those who cannot repay us, almost as if "Jesus urges a social system without reciprocity," as Halvor Moxnes says. Or as Luke Johnson has it, this is "a parody of the 'good advice' of worldly wisdom."
Questions for Discussion
- Fred Craddock calls the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind "kingdom people," since in Luke's telling, they are those who are most welcome at the heavenly banquet in the Kingdom of God (a standard trope in Luke's gospel). Who do you think the "kingdom people" in your world would be?
- It seems obvious to most progressives that American social, economic, and political systems are geared to exclude "kingdom people" from full participation. Assuming that's true, how can the policies that enforce that exclusion be undone? What is our role - as Christians, other people of faith, or people without belief - in seeking a society that intentionally draws in the marginalized?
- A common critique of our elite media system is that it is based on exactly the kind of dinner-party clubbishness that Jesus decries here. What would it mean to have a media driven by "the kingdom people" instead of a "return on investment"?
- We are often no more comfortable with the concept of humility than people in Jesus' day. What does humility mean to you? How could it be a virtue in an ongoing progressive movement?
- How does this text challenge your assumptions about your work? Do we need to rethink how the netroots or blogosphere operate, for example?
Pee Ess: Another view from Theolog and next week's text: Philemon (all of it).