In the 1960’s and early 1970’s back in my hometown of suburban Chicago, teenagers attended a group called Fortnightly. Oh how I remember watching my sisters get ready. They put on party dresses, donned gloves—not the ones used for warmth but the one’s used as a fashion accessory—-and headed to the community center to learn how to behave in a social setting. the girls learned how to be the perfect dinner companion, the boys learned how to be the perfect escort. I watched my sisters head to fortnightly with a combination of envy and confusion. Fortnightly was a rite of passage, it meant you were a big girl and I certainly wanted to be a big girl, but I was also filled with questions—-how is learning to be “better” than others in a social setting a good thing? How did Fortnightly pair with Sunday school? The lessons were conflicting….on the one hand, we have to make the table bigger so everyone can have a seat of honor and on the other, keeping your lipstick tidy while eating a four course meal will make you a better person.... it all messed with my six year old brain.
No doubt when my parents arrived at the Heavenly banquet they found out there was no dress code…..
Today’s readings seem pretty clear to me:
It isn’t about our social status, it’s about our compassion. Our humility. Our kindness.
It isn’t about our exaltation, it’s about God’s.
It’s easy to hear today’s gospel reading and think—-oh how nice, Jesus is telling the snobby Fortnightly people of 1st century Palestine to open their banquet to all, not just the kids who can afford the dresses, the suits, the gloves and the party shoes, but to everyone, including and especially, the poor, the crippled, the lost, the lonely, the immigrant, the refugee, the despised, and the hungry.
It’s easy to say, “of course, we do— we love Jesus, we’re nice, we’re compassionate.
And we are. We mean well. We know we shouldn’t exclude, but include. We know we shouldn’t hoard, but share.
We know that by welcoming the stranger many have entertained angels without knowing it. But……
Belief, creeds, and pronouncements ——are not the same thing as action. And what Jesus is challenging us with, what the author of the Letter to the Hebrews is reminding us, what Sirach is telling us is this:
The kingdom of God doesn’t mess around with status.
The kingdom of God doesn’t tolerate shame.
The kingdom of God doesn’t play with this “haves and have nots” business.
The kingdom of God is about dignity
It is about equity
It is about justice
It is about love.
And the things which make the Kingdom of God hum? The things that please God?
These are the things we’re to be doing.
It is how we’re to live. It is what we’re to practice.
In all things and at all times.
My friends, we are the Body of Christ existing within God’s kingdom here on earth. To make the kingdom a reality for all is our job. Our sacred duty, our holy task.
And that job, these tasks, our duty isn’t fulfilled by jockeying for position at the head of the line or the top of the pecking order or the fulfillment of a Fortnightly course.
No, that job, these tasks, this duty is fulfilled when we treat all those whom we encounter just as we ourselves are treated by God. With love. With dignity. With respect.
I am convinced, thoroughly and utterly convinced, that we can change our world, this world, this country, this region, this city of Erie—-we can transform it from the nightmare that it often is into the dream God holds for it— one act of respect and justice and humility and kindness at a time. I am sure that by engaging in consistent acts of kindness we will unleash a revolution of love, a revolution needed to get this world back on track, to make the Kingdom of God a full out reality in our midst.
We don’t do this by being better than everyone else, by beating them to the head of the line. We do it by helping them reach the head of the line.
Because, until all are at the table none of us can eat.
Whether it’s holding the door open for someone, whether it’s paying for the person behind you in line at the drive-thru. Whether it’s going to the school where you’ve donated backpacks or school supplies and saying, “hey, how can I help?” Or whether it is taking the check you write each month to the food pantry or the domestic violence shelter or the refugee resettlement program and saying to them, “show me the people who need this help” and then engage them in conversation —look them in the eye, shake their hand, offer them a smile.
However we do it, it’s time for us to walk this walk and to show all those who we encounter that we aren’t whole until they are.
The kingdom of God is not built on good intentions alone, the kingdom of God needs our action as well.
So go out into the world and bring everyone into the fold, for in the Kingdom of God there is no admission fee, there is no earning your place. In the kingdom of God there is only the welcome of all to all.
Amen.
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