[A sermon preached to Hinckley Unitarians on Sunday 28th of August 2022]
(Readings: Sirach 10:12-18 and Luke 14:1,7-14)
“It is the responsibility of the host or organiser to tell people where to sit at the table and to respond when the waiter comes to ask about drinks or goes through the specials.”
Debrett’s Handbook
So says my copy of the Debrett’s Handbook – the manual for correct form, British style, and modern manners. As someone who is autistic and thus for whom social norms have never come naturally, I was very happy to find out a few years back that such things were codified in black and white in the form of a handbook. The problem is that social customs are always more complicated than following a simple set of rules – other factors come into play and complicate things.
One of those factors is class. Most of the etiquette in Debrett’s is only ever the norm for members of the very upper middle classes and the aristocracy. Very few of the social dinner parties I’ve attended that have been hosted by my friends have had side plates laid on the table even if they are not being used – even though Debrett’s insists upon them being present.
Also, society has been becoming somewhat more informal now for some time. The suit I am waring under my gown is described by Debrett’s as an informal lounge suit. I wonder how many people perceive me as being informal when they see me going down Castle Street while wearing it?
Debrett’s describes other items of etiquette, such as the use of social cards (which are like business cards but are a different size and intended for social use), which have also long been out of fashion. In fact, has anyone here ever encountered a social card out in the wild?
By the way, my opening line today about how it is the responsibility of the host to tell you where to sit at the table was taken from the handbook’s section on day-to-day activities such as going to a pub or a restaurant. The section on seating for serious formal and social events is far more detailed! Here is a small section of it:
The host is seated at the centre of the table and as a general principle, guests radiate out from the centre of the table in order of precedence. (At a private dinner the host would more usually be at the head of the table.) The principal guest is placed on the host’s right. Traditionally the principal guest’s wife would be placed on the host’s left, the host’s wife being placed on the right of the principal guest. If wives are not present, the second most important guest would be placed on the host’s left. It is now as likely for the host, or the principal guest, to be a woman, in which case the same basic principles may be applied, with any necessary adaptations employed to achieve the desired balance.
Debrett’s Handbook
All of this can seem rather out of touch and overly formal to our ears today. But, I tell you what, from what our reading from Luke today tells us, it sounds like the Pharisees could really have used a copy of Debrett’s to form an appropriate seating plan ahead of time!
Except that Jesus is critiquing the Pharisees for something far more important than the absence of a seating plan. Rather, it is their determination to secure the seats of honour for themselves. While they are all grappling for position he reminds them of what is written in 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.” The Pharisees undoubtably knew the scriptures inside out but were evidently willing to ignore parts if it meant they could improve their own individual social standing within their own group – not unlike many people with religious authority today. It was exactly this sort of hypocritical behaviour that Jesus so hated in the religious establishment.
Yet, judging by what Jesus says next, there is evidently far more at stake here than the neglection of two lines from the Book of Proverbs. This jockeying for social standing among fellow worthies was symptomatic of deeper flaws in society.
We can still see these flaws today. A while ago I heard someone being interviewed on Radio 4. They hade recently founded a philanthropy club for millionaires. To join the club the millionaires had to agree to give away a certain amount of money. “What do the millionaires get out of membership of the club?” The interviewer asked.
“O absolutely nothing,” the interviewee said, “only access to a few members only dinner parties a year that they have to pay for.”
The problem with this is that access to exclusive dinners is not “absolutely nothing.” Indeed, in business which is famously a world based on connections and networking where it is not what you know but who you know that counts, being seen at the right dinner with the right people could easily be worth more than the donations required to effetely buy entry into such people’s company.
The Pharisees wanted to be seen to be with the “right” people, but Jesus tells them that they would be better off being with the “wrong” people, the poor, the excluded, the outcast, the oppressed. Those people who are unlikely to grant you access to any social capital. Yes, entertaining the “right” people and receiving opportunities to be entertained by them in return may well improve your status, secure that deal, or help you to be the envy of your friends, but it does nothing for your spiritual well-being or the wellbeing of society.
Maybe if the millionaire philanthropists of today did likewise and chose to dine with the people they wanted to support, rather than hobnobbing among themselves, they might be able to talk to people who need support about what they want and need – they could gain true insight in to “how the other half live”.
But there is also a future dimension to what Jesus is saying here too. This is in the same tradition of much of the wisdom literature of the Hebrew-Aramaic Scriptures. Our reading from Sirach was an example of this. In that reading we learned that being high and mighty and proud dose not impress God much. Proud nations and rulers are to be replaced by humble and lowly ones.
At the end of our reading from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus calls our attention to the Resurrection of the Righteous, the coming of the Kingdom of God upon the Earth. A time where everything we take for granted will be turned upside down. Where the first shall be last and the last shall be first. For Jesus, inviting the oppressed to your banqueting table is an activity that helps to realise the Kingdom of God. It goes against the grain of our earthly structures of power and hierarchy and instead reflects a heavenly justice and righteousness.
This is the reality that we need to work together to realise. If we aspire to use our lives to clime ourselves up the greasy pole, to achieve the trappings of luxury and status while others have none, then this is a wase of our time. Rather, if we instead aspire to change the system, to bring down the mighty from their thrones and exalt the powerless, then we can make a lasting difference that will not just benefit ourselves but liberate all creation.
Amen.
