Sunday, August 28, 2016

Party Animal Jesus (Proper 17C)



Party Animal Jesus (Proper 17C)
Homily Delivered 28 August 2016
8:00 a.m. Said and 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)
The Rev. Dr. Anthony Hutchinson
Sirach 10:12-18; Psalm 112; Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16; Luke 14:1, 7-14
God, give us hearts to love and feel,
Take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen


When I was a junior foreign service officer serving at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, I remember the first time I was asked to draft a cable to Washington arguing for a policy direction.  It had to do with how we were to manage certain exchange programs and public policy positions in the aftermath of the Tiananmen massacre of June 4, 1989.  I argued for an unremarkable, obvious course of action, and made reference in the draft several times to “the moral course of action,” and “doing the right thing.”  It bounced back to my desk almost immediately, with scrawled corrections and edits in red in the margins.  The Minister Counselor for Public Affairs had written in his distinctive and careful Yale cursive, “If possible, never argue a policy position from morality. It encourages disagreement in your readers.  Instead, appeal to the national interest, stated and already agreed upon policy goals, or basic utilitarian enhancing the good for the greatest number.”   Then, throughout the cable, again and again, he had drawn red lines through any reference to the moral, the good, and the right, and replaced them with appeals to the U.S. national interest, pragmatic effects on our programs in the future, or language cribbed from statements of the President or Secretary of State of that time.  It was a moment when I felt I had been initiated into the fraternity of government policy advisors, who never would stoop to appealing to the right or moral, but always couch things in terms of interests, goals, and instrumentalities.   Later in my career, I found myself initiating younger officers into the same circle.  It was only after I left government service that I wondered if I had lost something in the process. 
  
Today’s Gospel is about our motivations and intentions in our social interactions and hierarchies, and in a real way questions the whole utilitarian, instrumental project.  The reading tells of Jesus being invited to a banquet.  Where generally the attention of a banquet is on the host and the guest of honor, everyone here is looking at Jesus to see how he’ll behave.   He has a reputation for telling shocking stories with twist endings, of challenging the accepted order, and of breaking rules such as the Sabbath.   They want to see if he is going to commit a faux pas.  Inviting a wild man to dinner can provide its amusements, and that seems in part to be what’s happening here. 

Jesus himself is somewhat of a party animal.  He says that Kingdom of God is a banquet, a big party, and says that God is indiscriminate in his invitations.  His critics say he is constantly spending his time with whores, drunks, and money-grubbing traitors.  They see that Jesus is a party animal, and they don’t like it. 

Jesus is an observer of social behavior, even at this dinner party. He notices people jockeying for good table positions, working the room for social and professional advantage.  Then he quotes a truism found in the Book of Proverbs, 

“Do not put yourself forward …
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” (Proverbs 25:6-7).

Better, says Jesus, to be seen as a non-assuming person worthy of being lifted up among the great, than to be seen a grasping wannabe who must be put in his place.  He adds, “For those who exalt themselves will be brought low, and those who make themselves low will be lifted high.”   Putting on airs inevitably brings humiliating deflation; a self-deprecating low profile will attract praise and honor from others.  As Miss Manners Judith Martin expresses it, “It’s far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.”

If that is all, then we are just talking about a utilitarian truism, a strategy for getting ahead in the game of using rank and manners to manipulate others, to exploit them.  It is part of the practical wisdom of those on the make, of those who go along to get along. 

But Jesus knows the difference between effective social moves, good  manners and right ethics.  He talks about our motives for throwing parties in an effort to get at the underlying truth of what makes manners, like Law, either good or harmful:
                 
“You invite people so you can put them in your debt, so you can get things out of them.  That’s wrong.  You need to invite people who can never repay you.  You need to invite people who need the meal and the companionship, not those whom you need to build your own network.”

Here and in the Gospel readings we have seen in the last few weeks, Jesus tries to describe the perceptions and values of someone who welcomes God’s Reign, of God come fully in charge, right here, right now. 

Last week and the week before, he said our approach to written rules and God’s Law—when to apply it rigorously and when to apply it loosely or even ignore it--must depend on whether our actions help those who need help, or simply use them for our purposes.  Manipulative behavior is not Kingdom behavior.  Manipulative legal interpretation is not Kingdom legal interpretation.  Manipulative manners and social relations are not the manners and society of the Kingdom.  

“Manipulation” comes from the word manus, Latin for hand.  It means handling people so they do what you want.   You treat them as instruments, a means to an end.   Welcoming God’s Reign rules out manipulating.  We must become servants, handmaids, not handlers. Manners, rank, and social interaction, if they allow us to help and serve others, are good.  Used instrumentally merely to exploit others, they must be seen as what they are:  hypocrisy.

The Greek word “hypocrite” simply means “actor.”  Jesus regularly calls his opponents hypocrites, saying they are just pretending to serve God in order to manipulate others.  They pretend they are better than they are in order to continue being the way they are.  There is a big difference between that and pretending to be better than you think you are in order actually to become better. “Fake it till you make it,” means pretend you are better than you believe you are so that you can actually become a better person. To my mind, this is not “hypocrisy,” but rather simply one tool of trying to respond to God’s call.

So it is with the social insincerities of good manners.  If we use them to manipulate others, bad on us.  If we use them to help affirm and give dignity, good.  Jesus expects his disciples to “be as smart as snakes but harmless as doves.”  He wants street smarts and a benevolent heart.  He expects us to have good manners and adept social interaction, never merely to advance our own interests, but always to welcome the Kingdom by serving others.   

Jesus says the Kingdom is a big party.  And we must party on and enjoy it for the sake of it in itself if we are to have any place at the table.  And that means welcoming others, especially those who need a party the most.  In the Kingdom, manipulation will cease.  The social order will be turned upside down: the first will be last, the last first, the poor shall be exalted and the mighty brought low. He teaches us to first become a servant of all, and not strive to be a leader, of someone to be served.  We must be handmaids, not handlers.

This week, I invite us all to take some time to think about how we manipulate others, how we use them, how instrumentally we think of them.  We all do it.  In meditation and prayer, let us identify at least one specific relationship that we have where we manipulate, and then let us think of ways that we can turn the relationship into an occasion of our own service to the other person.   

In the name of Christ, Amen.

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