I want you all to do something unexpected - and perhaps a bit uncomfortable for you. I want you to change seats - to move around to a place where you rarely, if ever sit.
So get up - and move - those on my right - please move to my left. And those at the back - move to the front.
Let us do it - come - and see what it feels like....
--- (time for finding a new seat) ----
Now you are all seated again - think about how you feel. Are you happy? Are you pleased to have been moved out of your comfortable spot? The spot you always sit in?
Probably not - I know I would not be - but consider this - whose house is this that we are in? And whose seat is it that we sit in?
We just sang what is one of the favourite hymns of our congregation - one of the top three actually - the other two being "How Great Thou Art" and "Amazing Grace"
"Come In, Come In and Sit Down" speaks to us of how we are all part of the family of God. How we are all welcomed by the Lord in his sanctuary. And how here - in God's place - there is life to be shared in the bread and the wine.
The version of the hymn goes like this:
Children and elders, middlers and teens, singles and doubles and in betweens, strong eighty-fivers and streetwise sixteens, greeters and shoppers, long-time and new nobody here has a claim on a pew, and whether we're many, or whether we're few we are a part of the family.
Nobody here has a claim on a pew. That is the theme of today's gospel reading.
In that reading we see Jesus eating at the home of a prominent Pharisee and watching how the guests behave. Each seeks out the best place - the places of honour at the table where they can be noticed by the other guests and, by their proximity to their host, be served first and receive the best portions that the table offers.
And Jesus speaks about this saying
"When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honour, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, 'Give this man your seat.' Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, 'Friend, move up to a better place.' Then you will be honoured in the presence of all your fellow guests. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Humility is indeed a theme of today's reading, - the humility to recognize that it is up to our host, that it is up to our God to seat us and to grant us honour or not, just as he chooses. - And the humility, the trust, to recognize that every seat at the table of God is a good seat, a seat that allows us to received the fullness of God's blessing, the fullness of what God promises to all who respond to his invitation to come to him.
But there is much more to the passage.
That more is found in the words that Jesus then addresses to his host, saying to him:
"When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbours; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."
Alcoholics Anonymous defines humility this way:
Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is thinking of yourself less."
Let me repeat that:
Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is thinking of yourself less."
This sermon today is not simply about humility, but it is about thinking of ourselves less - about ourselves less and about others more.
Back in 1966 Billy Graham held a Conference in Berlin titled "One Race, One Gospel, One Task". It's purpose was to help train up and inspire evangelists from around the world to go into the world and to invite others to receive the good news - and to become a part of God's family.
The Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie the First, Protector of the ancient Ethiopian Orthodox Church, opened the Conference with these words:
However wise or however mighty a person may be, he is like a ship without a rudder if he is without God.... Therefore, O Christians, let us arise and, with the spiritual zeal and earnestness which characterized the Apostles and early Christians, let us labour to lead our brothers and sisters to our Saviour Jesus Christ who only can give life in its fullest sense."
Who are we thinking of when we come to this house of God? And who are we inviting to come with us? Who are we reaching out to and letting know about the wedding banquet of God's Son?
It is only our Saviour Jesus Christ who can give life in its fullness. That's in my heart and that most surely is in yours - or you would not be here today.
But are we thinking mainly about ourselves and what we can receive here today?
Are we more concerned about what we may or may not receive from God this morning than we are about the fate of the rest of the family of God?
Is our favourite pew so important to us that we resent it when the preacher asks us to move?
Do we choke up when someone else enters this place and gets the attention that we think we deserve or takes the place that we have reserved ourselves?
I pray that God meets your every need this morning. And I am sure that most of you are praying for the needs of those seated next to you: those that you have known for a long time - and those whom you have known for a short time.
But what about those who are not here today?
Are you praying that those outside this place may enter in. That they may come and without thinking about it - take the seat you usually occupy and come forward to the table to receive the same food, the same grace, the same love, the same hope, that you receive.
Are you eager - are we are all eager - to risk the discomfort that you experienced this morning when I asked you to move and to reach out and have this place of healing so filled each week that each week we may have to sit in different spot and have different people rub against our elbows?
Do we live as an inviting people?
Do we speaking inviting words?
Do we have inviting attitudes?
Do we lead lives that invite people to Christ?
Especially those people who are poor, crippled, lame, and blind? Those people who have nothing to offer to us in return?
Do you want God to shower them with favour and to have them become rich, and strong and able to see? Do you want them to eat at the table of God? Do you invite them in - as God has invited you in - so that they may receive what you receive???
I like the story historians tell about the funeral of Charlemagne. Charlemagne was the greatest Christian ruler of the early Middle Ages. After his death, a tremendous funeral procession left his castle for the cathedral at Aix. When the royal casket arrived, with a lot of pomp and circumstance, it was met by the local bishop, who barred the cathedral door.
"Who comes?" the Bishop asked, as was the custom.
"Charlemagne, Lord and King of the Holy Roman Empire," proclaimed the Emperor's proud herald.
"Him I know not," the Bishop replied. "Who comes?"
The herald, a bit shaken, replied, "Charles the Great, a good and honest man of the earth."
"Him I know not," the Bishop said again. "Who comes?"
The herald, now completely crushed, responded, "Charles, a lowly sinner, who begs the gift of Christ," - to which the Bishop responded, "Enter! Receive Christ's gift of life!"
The point, of course, is that in God's eyes, we're all equally needy. Charlemagne, Mother Teresa, you and me. None of us will ever be "good enough" to expect that the presence of God belongs to us.
As we come to the Lord's Table today, we all come equal before God, sinners in need of salvation, beggars in need of bread, strangers who were at one time, like ourselves, welcomed to this place.
You gave up your usual seat today to someone who is a part of the family of God, to someone like you who is need of rest and of health, to someone like you who needs to let go of the burdens that are crushing and the yoke that is hard and to take upon themselves the yoke of Christ - the yoke that is easy and the burden that is small.
But there are empty places among us today - places that will be only filled if you allow God to issue an invitation through you to those, who like you, are in need.
I ask you today not to think less of yourselves - you are, after all, part of the family of God and God has laid this table for you - Christ has given his life for you. Rather think of yourselves less.
Remember the rest of the family and pray that God will use you and that God will use me and that God will use each one here today to invite others to come in and sit down and know that they are part of the family, to come in and sit down - and to receive the life that is to be found in the bread and the wine, the life that Jesus came to give to all who would receive it
Praise be to his name, now and forever. Amen
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