A Seat at the Table

 Luke 14:1, 7-14    August 31, 2025

When I lived in San Francisco,

The Banquet
Hyatt Moore

I worked for a wine shop 

in San Francisco

(It was a wine shop when 

important people called,

but it was really a liquor store.)

The owner was named Tony –

One day, the owner of the San Francisco 49ers

called Tony and asked him which winery he and his wife might go to

for a tasting and some lunch.  He was rich obviously.

 

Tony gave him the name of one and right after they hung up,

Tony immediately called up the winery and told the manager –

“when he comes to the winery, give him the best of anything,

anything he wants and don't charge him.”

And the manager agreed and thanked Tony for letting him know.

The wineries did whatever Tony asked because

they know he would buy their wines if they did.

 

I shared an office with Tony and heard the whole conversation. 

I turned around to Tony, kind of incredulous and said,

“Tony, this guy can afford lunch, he can afford anything,

he could even afford to buy the winery,

why should they give him their stuff for free?”

He said, June, that’s how the world works.

The rich and famous eat for free.

 

And that is how the world works.

And that’s how the world has always worked.

We treat the rich and famous with honor

and we expect some attention in return.

I’ll scratch your back, hopefully, you scratch mine.

  

The rich and famous and powerful get treated differently.

They get free stuff, they get treated better.

They get accolades and honors for doing not much of anything.

They get away with crimes that other people go to prison for life for.

We treat wealthy or famous people with a little more respect,

a little more honor, a little more attention.

 

Maybe we think that their fame will rub off on us,

Or that they will remember us some day.

Or maybe we think they’ll drop little packs of money

where ever they go?

 

In our Gospel today,

Jesus is invited over to dinner at the house

of another of the leaders of the Pharisees.

 

These are big and important religious people,

they’re probably the richest people in the community.

They are very adept at this upward mobility stuff.

They have learned to work like the world works.

They scratch the backs of the rich and famous

and the rich and famous scratch their back.

So they've invited Jesus over.

Now Jesus isn’t rich, but he is a little famous now.

He’s the “it” guy around town, so it would be

beneficial for them to have him over.

 

They were probably hoping for a pleasant meal,

something they could tell their friends about the next day.

Maybe cull some favor with Jesus,

just in case anything good comes out of him

 

But as we know, meals with Jesus and the Pharisees

are not usually good. Jesus is very good at giving

everyone indigestion and making those dinner parties

pretty awkward. He did it back in chapter 11

and he doesn’t let us down in chapter 14.

 

When he gets there, he sees people jockeying

for the best seat at the dinner party so he tells them:

“Don’t try and get the most important seat.

Sit in the least important seat, then you won’t be embarrassed

when the host needs to move you somewhere else.”

Well, this could be seen as helpful party etiquette.

 

But then, instead of following the custom and

telling the host how honored he is that he was invited

to join them that evening, Jesus tells the host,

“Next time you give an expensive dinner, why don't you do it right?

Don't invite your friends, or your rich neighbors,

or the governor, or the owner of the football team,

don't even invite me to the party.

 

To do the party right: Invite the poor, the disabled,

the ex-cons, refugees, immigrants,

the guys who have signs on the highway exits.

You should invite people who can't repay you.

Who have nothing to give.

That would be a party that God would enjoy.”

There goes Jesus again, giving people heartburn.

The story doesn’t say this time if they all got around to the meal.

 

Now Jesus gives them and us these helpful party hints for two reasons:

 

One: to prove to us, and remind us over and over again

that the status that the world puts on us is irrelevant.

The money, the fame the power, the money, 

the poverty, the shortcomings, the addictions, 

those don’t count in the eyes of God.

 

Our self-worth doesn’t come from how much we have

or who people perceive us to be, or where we sit at a dinner

or if we’re invited to the party in the first place.

Our worth comes from God. And we’re all beloved children,

no matter what our status here on earth.

This is a worthy lesson to be reminded of all the time.

And Two:  Jesus tells us these party tips because

This is God’s vision for the world. This is the sign that God’s

kingdom is breaking into the world.

God wants the world to be a place where the poor and the lame

and the outcast are not just given charity and patronized and pitied

or tossed aside and hated.

But where they are invited into the banquet,

Where they are given a seat at the table.

Because that’s how it is in the kingdom of God.

 

Jesus is not just talking in terms of dinner parties,

but in the whole aspects of community and life society.

Where all they are given power and a say

in their destiny and how they live.

Where they are not just nameless statistics,

but where they are given a voice and

treated with respect, and welcomed.

 

And as followers of Jesus we are called to love

for love’s sake, and not for what we can get back.

And to share God’s love, and our power,

with those who have the least of what the world has to give.

 

We live in an upwardly mobile world,

But the gospel calls us to be downwardly mobile.

We are called to work our way down that ladder.

We are called operate like Jesus not like the world.

  

Even after two thousand years of living with Jesus,

Christians almost always neglect Jesus’s call to this.

We play the world’s game of status and power.

Even the church has its celebrities who are treated with

deference and who have gotten very wealthy.

Members with money and power are still treated with

more respect and honor than others.

We still give extra attention to those with the most

hoping to get something back.

We still try to get to the head of the table, and

we try to invite the right people to our parties.

And this is contrary to the gospel call.

 

We are living in a time right now in the US where the

religious leaders have made themselves government leaders

Or maybe the government leaders made themselves religious

leaders – it’s hard to tell.

This has always been a tendency in the US, but

lately, it has reached a blatant point.

And if you ask anyone who knows history,

this isn’t the best arrangement that

humanity has come up with over the years.

But the thing that passes itself off as Christianity,

the religious concept that is running the government

is so horribly converse to Christianity that it’s unrecognizable.

In my opinion, it’s doing harm to the government,

and it’s doing great harm to Christianity.

It’s warping it and manipulating it.

 

And the way that this emergence of

Christian government is defying Christianity

the most is in this concept that Jesus is

telling the religious leaders at this dinner.

 

It’s making a coordinated effort to

take the poor, the disabled, the immigrant,

the black, the Latino, the gay, lesbian, and transgender,

anyone who is not white, male, and maybe

certain kinds of approved women –

and moving them further from the table and

not even giving them a seat,

and some seem to be trying to ostracize some people  

from society all together.

 

And it’s giving the already rich and already powerful

and already privileged the best seat at the table and the biggest

helping of food, and telling them they

can take the dishes and the silverware home with them if they like.

 

This is the opposite of what Jesus followers

should be doing and the opposite of what

Jesus tells us that God’s kingdom on earth is to be like.

 

Honestly, it doesn’t seem like God’s kingdom has any chance

of breaking into this world sometimes.

It seems like God isn’t winning here at all.

It seems like Satan is getting the upper hand.

And it might feel like the best option is to give up.

We might say that Christianity is a lost cause,

it’s been manipulated too far and it’s best to give up on it.

Many people have already given up on Christianity

 because of that very reason.

It’s easy to give up hope and to turn away.

 

But then we have scriptures like this.

We have Jesus stories and parables and life, in this bible

that is still ours and we still honor, and we are given 

stories like this, and we are constantly reminded of God’s vision for us,

and it calls us back to service and gives us hope.

 

When Jesus started his ministry,

he was a lone voice shouting in the wilderness,

going to dinner parties, giving people heart burn.

He probably wondered at times what could

one person do? He probably also thought at times

that society was too far gone and what was the use.

 

He probably wondered what could one person do,

and why was God always pushing him to

speak up about everything and cause trouble.

 

But then he kept being called to act,

and to heal and to teach and eventually

he realized that he was called to save the world.

 

And soon large crowds were gathered with him.

And one voice, turned into many voices,

and more followed.

 

And 2000 years have passed and we’re still here,

being informed and challenged by Jesus.

We’re still trying to understand what he’s calling us to

we’re still trying to be faithful and to get it right.

God’s kingdom will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

God’s vision for diversity, equity, and inclusion

will happen with or without us.

But God has called us to be part of this movement,

To join with ,and follow Jesus and be

part of the voices that are raised.

God has called us to see this through,

to the day when all people do

get a seat at the table.

Jesus Couldn't Wait

 Luke 13:10-17 August 24, 2025 Rev. June Wilkins

 

Woman With An Infirmity of Eighteen Years
James Tissot

Jesus is in a synagogue, 

it’s basically just like a church like this.

They’re having a class discussion in there,

and a woman comes in who had been

bent over in pain for the last 18 years.

She couldn’t stand up straight at all.

Uncomfortable, painful,

not able to see in front of her.

 

Jesus meets her, lays his hands on her

and he tells her that she is set free from her ailment.

And just like that, she’s healed, she stands upright.

And she’s off praising God.

Seems like a good day at church, right?

 

Now, was the reaction from the congregation

and the church leaders wonder, disbelief, excitement?

No. The pastor is upset because Jesus

healed the woman on the Sabbath.

He said to the parishioners, “he had six other days to

do that kind of work, why would this man break the Sabbath?”

So Jesus did an amazing thing,

but they couldn’t see past him breaking a rule.

It’s kind of ridiculous of them.

 

But a good question is, “why did Jesus break this rule?”

Why did he break it and why did he break it where he did?

In front of all those leaders.

This woman had been sick for 18 years,

what would one more day have mattered?

He could have asked her to come back the next day.

Then everyone would have been happy.

 

Now I don’t think that Jesus was rejecting the Sabbath rule.

The Sabbath is and was a great gift especially in Jesus time.

Back then, most people worked seven days a week.

It was very unusual that people would take any day off.

But the God ordered them to take one day a week off.

The world told people that they were only as good

as what they produced, how they fed the economy.

But God told them that they were precious even

when they weren’t producing anything.

Sabbath was great gift that God had given

to the people for their and well being

and to help their relationship with God.

It was a gift, a discipline, and reminder of God.

We should probably take our Sabbath time more seriously today.

 

But, as often happens, the religious leaders took this gift

and turned it into a rigid law.

If anyone were to do any work on that day,

they were chastised and even brought up on charges.

 

And the Sabbath worked easily for those who were stable.

But for those who were poor,

for those living on the edge of poverty,

for those who had to beg or collect food for a living,

it could be a hardship.

In the gospels, Jesus and the disciples were

chastised for picking ears of corn to eat on the Sabbath –

when they were just getting themselves something to eat.

 

This, of course, not just true for the Jewish religion

or religious leaders. All religions often will take a good idea –

a gift from God and turn in it into a weapon of control.

A way to scrutinize other people. A litmus test.

They used it to catch other people “sinning”

They turned it into a way to make themselves

look better and have more power over people

and to make other people look bad.

They turned it into a method of bondage or imprisonment.

 

Rules can do that. They can be good gifts to help us be faithful.

And they can become bondage.

We end up serving the rules, instead of the rules serving us.

The rules can be used to hurt people

and shame them instead of setting them free.

 

These people couldn’t get past the rule that was

broken to see a miracle happen before them.

 

When the church focuses mostly on the rules,

then we run the danger of only seeing the world

for how people are breaking the rules.

God’s way can become a way of pain rather than joy.

 

How many times has the Christian Church been a place like that?

How many times have our churches placed bondage

on spirits rather than freeing them?

How many times have rules come before relationships?

How many times has dogma stood

in the way of the movement of the Spirit?

 

For many people outside of it, the church has been long

identified as the place of forbidding, restriction, bean counting, 

and finger wagging instead of freedom and restoration.

Worship? You needed to do that in the appointed time and the

right way or else you’re not a good Christian.

Communion? Only the right people get to eat at Jesus table.

Praying: Oh, you can’t recite the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary

correctly in front of the teacher at 6 years old. (that was me.)

Well, you’re not good at prayer are you?

Sex and sexuality? Forget about it, you’re doing everything wrong.

 

And even if we’re not chastising people for breaking the rules,

we’re mired in our own bureaucracy and unable to act 

when the need is there. we’re too slow, we’re far too careful, we over-think.

We’re pre-occupied by lawsuits.

Things get stuck in endless committees. Analysis paralysis.

God’s church has a reputation for being

quick to judge and slow to act.

God’s church has the reputation of being

the place of “no” instead of “yes".

 

So often Churches have the resources:

we have the people, we have the know-how,

we know high people in high places,

we even have the inspiration to do something,

But individually or as a group, we put it off,

tomorrow, later, maybe another day.

Rules before miracles.

 

Through the synod in Ohio,

I did some conflict work with a Lutheran congregation,

and at one point in their history, they basically opted to close down

their food pantry because someone found out that

the food pantry was cooperating with the local Mormon church.

 

They had been having this cooperation for years feeding people

together and working together once a month,

And then someone in this Lutheran church,

got a bug in their brain that Lutherans

shouldn’t be working with Mormons,

and the leadership of the church pushed them out.

But they didn’t know that even though it was housed

at the Lutheran Church, the Mormons were the biggest

contributors and supplied the most volunteers.

So when they pushed them out,

the food pantry quickly ended up closing

 

The fact is, often, the bondage we are in is often our own bondage

our own rules, our own processes, our own fear, our own baggage.

 

And that brings me back to my original question.

Why would Jesus break this rule? Right in front of

of all the religious leaders. This woman waited 18 years,

she could have waited one more day.

The reason that Jesus broke that rule on that Sabbath day

was because, as well as releasing the woman from her bondage,

he was releasing those religious leaders from their bondage too.

 

They surely didn’t realize they were in bondage.

They didn’t ask to be released, but Jesus could see

that they were being held back by their own prisons.

Jesus could see that they couldn’t see God’s work

because they were hung up on their rules.

 

A lot of times, his is the way that God’s kingdom

breaks into our world. First by breaking a rule

then by setting people free from their own constraints.

 

So, women were finally allowed to be ordained in our

predecessor bodies: the Lutheran Church in America and the American Lutheran Church in 1970.

 

But the first woman to go to a Lutheran seminary was Ruth Harper,

She entered Pacific Lutheran Seminary in 1952.

One woman, entering a place that was made for and designed by men. 

There were rules that women couldn’t be ordained then.

But there actually weren’t any real rules about women attending seminary. 

But there were unwritten rules. Customs. Tradition. Precedents. So she was allowed in. 

She said most of the men didn’t like that, she faced doubt, resistance, and even harassment.

But she also found a lot of support and champions there too.

She said that one professor didn’t believe that women were smart enough to be in his biblical studies class so he wouldn’t let her take it, but the dean and other professors made sure she was admitted into it.  And she prevailed and finished her education in 1957 becoming a deaconess and a high school teacher, one of the only positions of leadership open to women at the time.

 Fifty years ago, our own predecessor Lutheran

church bodies didn’t realize the gift of women pastors,

20 years ago the ELCA couldn’t recognize the gift of

gay, lesbian and transgender people as pastors in the church.

Today our church still struggles with appreciating the gift of

people of color in leadership, but despite that,

we have now elected an African American presiding bishop

and an African American secretary.

 

God’s kingdom is still breaking through into our world

 

Jesus has not come here to reinforce rules,

or to heap on more burdens, Jesus isn’t here to uphold traditions,

or to help us hide behind our bureaucracy and systems.

Jesus has come to free us.

 

Jesus has, of course, come to free us from those

outside forces, illness, pain, injustice, addictions.

But Jesus has also come to free us from our own

self-imposed bondage, our own prisons,

our own fears, our own restrictions, our own apathy,

the prisons that we put ourselves and other people into

in the spirit of  “good order” or “following the rules”

Jesus means to free all of us from all of that.

 

That woman probably could have waited.

She had been waiting so long,

would a little more time have mattered?

 

But Jesus couldn’t wait.

Jesus couldn’t wait to set her free

and to set the rest of the people in that church free.

 

Christ is here to liberate us.

And it can’t wait until tomorrow, he needs to do it today.

 

Jesus gives us that healing touch to us

and Jesus has defied all the rules to do it.

 

So let us rejoice in the wonderful things that God has done.