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I have a secret aspiration. I want to be a busker. You know, take my hillbilly dog and pony show downtown somewhere and just start playing and see who throws money at me. I need to fund the kid’s education somehow. But doing that comes with some difficult decisions to be made. One, venue is important. Where would be a good place to go play. Downtown Owen Sound would be a marginal bet. If the goal were to fill a hat with coinage, that’s likely not going to happen there. Most of the people lingering down there might enjoy the music, but they need their coinage more than I do. I could take the show on the road to the beaches at Southampton or Sauble Beach. Those would be lucrative places with all the tourists and the people stopping to listen would likely be able to afford tipping a musician generously. In Southampton, I could take some business cards and invite people to come to church when they take the time to find out who I am and where I’m from. That would be cool.
But there’s another thing that weighs on my mind when it comes to deciding whether or not to busk and where to do it. The music I play came from the hearts of people in Appalachia who were down and out and, quite frankly, oppressed. Also, the music was a gift to me from these people. I don’t feel right making money off of it. I was an outsider coming in to their world to learn their culture when they gave it to me. For me to take their gift and use it for monetary gain would be a lot like doing what Andrew Carnegie and them other billionaire philanthropists otherwise known as “robber barons” did to them by deceitfully stealing mineral rights and lumber rights from them and creating an oppressive economic system that still keeps Appalachians in poverty today. The music for these people, “their music”, was/is a great comfort to them in the midst of economic hardship as well as a huge part of their identity. Is it right for me to profit from that?
So, if I were to choose a local venue in which Appalachian music could bring comfort to people like them, the best place would actually be downtown Owen Sound and refuse any tips or find somebody down there who needs them. Some down and out people would get the chance to dance and feel valued and might appreciate that somebody dropped in just to give them a little uplift. This way of busking, if you could still call it busking, wouldn’t then simply be all about me, the performer, and my talent but rather more about a sharing in community that is reflective of the Kingdom of God, community in which Jesus is present. I think maybe just going and playing for people and expecting nothing in return would look a lot like Jesus.
But anyway, sorry I ran y’all through this thought exercise. But it’s an important one to make. You see, we who follow this guy Jesus, we have a particular task of assessing whether or not we use our giftedness, the talents we have, and, really, how we live the totality of our lives in ways that are reflective of Jesus and the Kingdom of God. Do we serve his purposes or our own with our lives and gifts, which actually, he gave us?
Well, to answer that question let’s take a moment and look at our reading here in Luke which I think shows us some core things to look for that would indicate whether or not what we do with our lives and gifts and what we do together as a congregation is reflective of Jesus and his Kingdom. Here in Luke, Jesus finds himself at a dinner party hosted and attended by people whom we are a bit more like than we would like to admit. He’s not quite welcome there. But as usual, as he goes about being Jesus, the Kingdom manifests and what we see are that healing, humility, and indiscriminate hospitality show up when he’s around. Let’s have a run through these three things, but first just a quick note about the people at the party.
Jesus is attending a Sabbath meal at the home of a very important Pharisee and he himself is not a very welcome guest. The Pharisees believed that the Messiah would soon be coming and in order to be welcomed into the Kingdom of God when he came one had to be the best Jew one could possibly be. The Pharisees were quite zealous about that particularly about observe the Law of Moses. But, as Jesus liked to point out, they were good at finding loopholes that turned being obedient into being hypocritical and actually quite profitable. As the goal for them was to be as Law Observant as possible they unfortunately began to compete with one another over who was the best and also to look down their noses at those who were not Pharisees. They had this arrogance that was like: “Look at me. I spent 1,000 shekels on this fine robe for standing in the temple praying. I deserve the finest seat at every banquet.” Anyway, they believed they were the ones most deserving of the Messiah and his Kingdom. Well, many people were saying that Jesus could quite possibly be the Messiah. Believing themselves to be the most righteous, they felt they had the right to suss him out when it should have been the other way around; Jesus sussing them.
So, Jesus comes to this powerful man’s house. It’s a Sabbath and all eyes are upon him, watching him closely. The first thing he does is heal a man with dropsy. Dropsy is edema, a disease where the body has an excessive buildup of fluid and appears extremely swollen. One could shake the belly of someone with dropsy and hear the water slosh. Jesus healed him and confronted the dinner guest’s legalism with respect to what the Sabbath is really for. The Sabbath is not about a legal requirement to not work on a holy day. It is about rest and restoration and therefore healing is entirely appropriate for the Sabbath.
This healing on the Sabbath should have revealed to them that the Messiah was truly there among them manifesting the Kingdom. When Jesus is in the midst of people, healing will happen whether it be physical, emotional, or spiritual. Those expecting the Messiah and his Kingdom should be looking for healing not legalistic perfection that always devolves into hypocrisy. Looking at our church gatherings today, I ask the question: when we gather for worship do we expect Jesus to be here in our midst and that healing in whatever form it takes will happens? Worship can’t just simply be what good people do because God deserves our thanks and praise. Worship is time for us to be in the presence of God to ask for healing and give room for that to happen.
Next, Jesus, the scrutinized, notices that the guests were choosing the places of honour at the table. So, he teaches from the Book of Proverbs, “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” (25:6-7). Obviously, if they were serious about obeying the Law they would know that it is to be obeyed in humility rather than this show of working hard to put oneself in the winner’s circle before others. The king is the most honoured person and people serve the king wholeheartedly because of who the king is not for the reward they think they have earned. In actuality, Jesus the scrutinized was the most honourable person at that dinner and should have been invited by the host to sit in the most honoured place. But the host didn’t invite him and in humility Jesus didn’t demand it. Instead, since the seat was empty it was the guests who started jockeying for the seat of honour.
Humility is also a core element of the Kingdom of God. Fellowship with and around Jesus is marked by each of us considering each other as better than ourselves, by our looking to the needs of others before our own. Serving one another, listening to one another, building one another up, and holding each other accountable when we are falling short; these are what humility looks like in action.
Humility blossoms into the flower of indiscriminate hospitality. So, Jesus instructs the host that when he holds a feast he should rather invite the blind, poor, and lame; those who could never repay him his kindness for the Lord will repay those who are kind to the poor (Pr. 19:17). Besides they would make better guests than these buffoons who think themselves deserving of honour (Pr. 14:20). We tend to like to associate with those just like us. Look at any given church and you will likely find the people are pretty much racially, ethnically, economically, and aged all about the same. They will also hold pretty much the same beliefs and opinions. That’s called homogeneity. Homogeneity is safe. But, Jesus points us in another direction; that of being intentional about creating uplifting, transformative fellowship with people who are different than us. Meals are quite conducive to this. Jesus did most of his teaching around tables during meals. So, when it comes to things like meals, when we have them, we should be quite intentional to make those meals about extending fellowship to those who aren’t like us.
So, wrapping up, when Jesus is among us manifesting his Kingdom, three things we can expect to see is that healing in whatever its form is happening. We ourselves are marked by a rich humility. And, this humility blossoms into our being intentional in offering indiscriminate hospitality. What does this look like? Well, imagine. What if our worship services were changed to free of charge meals where we especially invited the people nearby who ain’t like us. When they came, we seated them at tables with us. While we served dinner, we took the time to listen to each other’s stories and got to know each other. Then, someone told a Jesus story and then another someone told of how Jesus touched them through the Holy Spirit. Then we offered prayer for whoever wanted it. Imagine if we did worship like that. Imagine. What do you think would happen? Amen.
