Pentecost 12 – 2019
Luke 14:1 (2-6) 7-14
Marian Free
In the name of God who has no favourites. Amen.
I believe that in Japan and Korea today, children as young as four are enrolled in special schools designed to give them an advantage with regard to getting themselves into the right primary schools, which in turn will gain them entry into the high schools that will ensure their acceptance into university. A recent report on the ABC asked the question as to whether athletes in the future would be genetically selected – that is, would the Australian Institute of Sport choose children who were genetically equipped to run, to swim or to play tennis and begin to train them from a very early age . Instagram has just removed the “like” function from its app because too many young people were becoming distressed if their post did not compare favourably with those of others.
We live in a world that is dominated by competition, by a desire to prove ourselves, to enrich ourselves or to gain power for ourselves. Everyone, it seems, wants to be better than everyone else – whether it is a desire to fill our emptiness, to build our self-esteem or to expand our authority. Despite our relative wealth and education, we seem to be constantly anxious that we are not good enough, significant enough or clever enough and so we seek external signs to prove our worth to ourselves if not to others.
One of the consequences of such a competitive environment is a constant striving for what we are not or what we do not have rather than contentment with what is already ours. Another is the temptation to constantly judge ourselves against others, with the result that we feel a certain satisfaction when we come across someone who is not as fast, not as rich, not as fast as ourselves. Even worse is that coming first – in our careers, in our bank accounts, in our spheres of influence – very often comes at the expense of someone else. On an international level, on a national level and a community and personal level, competition for resources, means that few have more and many have less. At best competition leads to isolation and introversion and at worst competition leads to civil strife and to war, oppression and injustice.
In a recent speech, Sam Wells (the Vicar of St Martin’s in the Fields) pointed out that for too long we (the church) have concentrated on the things that make us different “where we have come from” or how we come to have a particular point of view . He suggests that our focus should instead be on what we what we have in common, in particular the belief that, as Paul suggests, “we are citizens of heaven” (Phil 3:20). Our focus, he claims, should not be on the past, but on the future and, in particular how that future impacts upon the present. By this he means that all of us, no matter what our theology or our place in the world should be trying to live now as we expect to live in heaven.
In Jesus’ time, as in ours, there was competition for status which, at a dinner party, determined where and next to whom one sat and whom one did or did not invite. Jesus turns both of these cultural norms on their head in today’s gospel. In the first instance he suggests that it is not our place to determine where we fit in a crowd of people. It is better not to measure ourselves against others as only the host (one assumes this is God) knows where we belong. Secondly, Jesus challenges those rich enough to hold a dinner party to invite those who will not increase his (her) status in the community, but to invite those who will not only compromise his (her) status, but who will be unable to return the favour.
A heavenly existence is one that refuses to be determined by the values of this world. It resists the temptation to pit one person against another or to determine where someone fits in a hierarchy of worth. A heavenly existence is inclusive of all people – rich and poor, clever and not so clever, great athletes and those who cannot play sport to save themselves. In heaven the marginalised, the differently abled, the refugee, the addict, the homeless will be welcomed along with everyone else. There will be no distinction.
When we truly understand that God’s love is not withheld from those whom we consider less deserving, when we realise that we are all invited to the heavenly banquet, we will accept that there are no places at God’s table, that everyone – those who have led exemplary lives and those that have not, those who have been conventionally “good” and those who have tested the boundaries will be seated together. And when we truly grasp that Jesus calls us to live our heavenly existence in the present, we will find it more and more difficult to make distinctions with or to measure ourselves against others.
A heavenly existence is one that enables us to see clearly and to recognise that, in common with everyone around us, that we have weaknesses as well as strengths, that a focus on material wealth might cover our spiritual poverty and that measuring ourselves and our achievements against those of others degrades both our self and the other.
A heavenly existence replaces competition with cooperation and enables us to see ourselves for who we are and to see the worth in every other person.
Swallowsrest 