"[Jesus] He said also to the one who had invited him, 'When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers and sisters or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous'.” (Luke 14:12-14)
Whatever else the word "justice" means, Jesus says sometimes it looks like a dinner party where all the overlooked find a place prepared for them at the table. Whatever else is means to be "righteous," in Jesus' eyes, it includes a gracious welcome to folks who don't have two nickels to rub together. And all of that is because in God's eyes, it is the right thing to do for everybody to get to eat.
It's that language of "righteousness" that sticks in my head today, as I read again these words that many of us heard in worship this past Sunday. So often church folks hear the word "righteous" and we translate it as "doing churchy things." In the sloppy thinking of pop religion, the "righteous" are the ones who show up in worship every week--and maybe even come early to help straighten up the hymnals! The "righteous" are the ones with the Jesus-fish bumper stickers! The "righteous" are the ones who wear cross necklaces, who don't associate with the "wrong" crowd, and who always exercise good manners and polished etiquette. All too often in our ears, we can't help but add the prefix of "self" before "righteous," and all we think of with that word is all the sanctimonious self-righteousness we've seen and heard from Respectable Religious People. And it's shame, really, because while there is absolutely nothing wrong with Jesus-themed accessories or bumper stickers, and it's definitely a help when folks show up early to church to straighten the hymnals, the actual meaning of "righteous" is so much richer, so much deeper, and ultimately so much more joyfully connected to other people than we often give the word credit for. When Jesus talks about "the resurrection of the righteous," he's never talking about "a heavenly prize for the people who put on the best performance of their piety." He's talking about people who are so captivated by the character of God that their own lives reflect the things that matter most to God.
It helps to remember that for the Greek-speaking audience for whom the New Testament, including the Gospels, were written, the word "righteousness" is the same word for "justice." Now, "justice," too has itself become one of those words that can mean everything or nothing, with some ears only hearing it in terms of punishing criminals and condemning law-breakers, and others using it mockingly for the people who get stirred up about social causes (as in, "Oh, you're one of those social justice crusaders are you...?" said with an eye-roll so hard you can hear it). But the New Testament writers, including Luke our Gospel-writer here, speak of justice and righteous more in the sense of "how God wants the world to be." Things are "right" when they are "on earth as it is in heaven." Things are "just" when they reflect God's good intentions for our relationships with one another. "Righteousness," then, is less about virtue-signaling by obsessing over which companies or brands we are boycotting today because of some social-media-fueled outrage yesterday, and "justice" is less about making sure people get zapped enough for every time they break the rules. And both are really about ordering our lives together in ways that reflect the goodness of God.
With that in mind, it does seem noteworthy that Jesus talks about the folks who invite the people on the margins to their dinner tables as being appropriately compensated "at the resurrection of the righteous." I don't mean to suggest that if you serve enough meals to a sufficient number of homeless people, you can earn a spot in heaven. But I do mean to suggest--or, rather, I think that Jesus means to suggest--that at least part of what "justice" looks like is a wide welcome specifically for folks who have been left out or cast aside. Justice looks like correcting that oversight, including the outcast, lifting up those who have been ground down by life, and specially honoring those who have been told they don't matter. Like I say, it's not so much about "punishing" as it is about "putting things right." So, in Jesus' eyes, having seen in his own lifetime how often those who couldn't hold down a job because of a physical illness, disease, injury, or disability were either ignored or treated as non-persons, Jesus sees that "putting things right" will mean including all of those folks in the fullness of human community. Since Jesus had seen so many people without much income, or those whose only option in their society was to become panhandlers or roadside beggars, all treated with contempt and scorn, Jesus calls us to restore their humanity--to act as though they are indeed of infinite worth as people made in the image of God. And for Jesus, part of that is table fellowship--without conditions, and without holding our nose or looking down in pity. Jesus envisions us opening our tables to welcome others to share our dinner, without reservations, so to speak. That would begin to put things right. That would be a glimpse of what "justice" looks like.
Now, I'd like us to take a moment to notice something. See how in Jesus' mind, welcoming the homeless or the poor or those with physical disabilities isn't framed in terms of "showing charity" but rather of "doing justice"? Sometimes we make that mistake. We say, "Well, if I am feeling extra charitable, I'll give a couple of coins to the jar for the medical charity at the gas station counter, or I'll hand a five dollar bill to the person with the cardboard sign at the intersection. But these are all extra-credit shows of over-and-above kindness, because after all I'm saved by grace and my deeds can't earn me a trip to heaven." But Jesus doesn't think in any of those terms. He seems to think that "doing right by our neighbors" includes a welcome to the people who have been left out, not as a matter of pity, but because it is a way of restoring the humanity they have so often been denied every time we have looked down on them or someone else regarded them as "less-than." Jesus doesn't talk about inviting folks from the margins of society to our table as a way of earning God's love, but rather he seems to say, "That kind of action is in line with how God wants the world to be. That kind of table fellowship is what God's justice looks like. And when God gets around to saying to people, 'Well done, good and faithful servant,' that kind of hospitality will be of more weight to God than all the cross necklaces and bumper stickers in the world." A welcome to the least and a table with room for folks who have had no room given to them before is part of how God wants the world to be--that is to say, it is a glimpse of justice and righteousness, as well as of grace.
When I read these words of Jesus again, I hear echoing the lyrics of the song, "Crowded Table," by the Highwomen. The bridge and the chorus go like this:
"The door is always open
Your picture's on my wall
Everyone's a little broken
And everyone belongs
Yeah, everyone belongs
I want a house with a crowded table
And a place by the fire for everyone
Let us take on the world while we're young and able
And bring us back together when the day is done."
I hear those words, not only as the wish of the hypothetical voice of the singer in the song, but as God's intention for the world, for all of us. Jesus seems to imagine that this is precisely what God's kind of "righteousness" and "justice" looks like--that all of us can admit our many kinds of brokenness and still find that each of us belongs at God's crowded table. That's not pity or extra-credit-charity--that's how to put things right in the world, because in God's ordering of the world everybody gets to eat (and conversely, nobody tries to justify starving children, even the children of their supposed enemy). What Jesus dares us to do in this passage is simply to let our lives look like God's vision ahead of time. We don't have to wait until the resurrection of the dead for our tables to be crowded with the faces of people who have been left out before. We don't have to wait until we are dead and standing at pearly gates to see God's kind of justice done--Jesus says that our tables right now can be places where the restoration of the world can take shape. And we don't have to say, wistfully, "Won't it be nice one day when nobody goes hungry or is left out anymore--it's too bad there's nothing we can do about it now before Jesus comes." No, right here and right now--at our kitchen counters and dinner tables, at our church fellowship halls and picnic tables, we can embody God's kind of justice, God's kind of righteousness, if just in a small glimpse, every time we welcome the uninvited to share our bread, every time we open our tables to folks on the margins without reservations.
Lord God, let our lives, our tables, and our welcome reflect your own vision of justice, grace, and righteousness.
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