March 16, 2008 Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley
In the Christian tradition, today is Palm Sunday,
the day Jesus enters Jerusalem preparing to celebrate Passover.
Huge crowds greet him.
They sing praises and rejoice.
They wave palm branches before him.
Later in the week, Jesus is arrested, interrogated,
and brought before officials of the empire.
Friday he is put to death.
What was it about Jesus that was so threatening
that he had to be killed?
At the start of our service, we say,
"Welcome. Come into the circle."
But just who is in the circle of kinship
and who is left out?
This is the big issue of our day,
Not just for our congregation, but for everybody.
Who is in and who is out of the community of love and justice?
The photograph of the earth from space,
our beautiful, swirling, blue jewel of a home,
inspires us to see we're all one.
Our fates are intertwined.
I believe we long to bridge our differences.
We want to be inspired to unite for our common good.
Jesus taught about welcoming and inviting by telling a parable.
It's recounted differently in the books of Matthew and Luke
and in the later, so called Gnostic Gospel of Thomas.
A person is having a dinner party.
He has prepared a meal
and then sends a messenger to invite the guests.
Everybody on the list is invited.
But it is late in the day.
Each person has a legitimate excuse and sends regrets.
No one can make the party.
The messenger reports back to the host.
The meal is prepared, the table is set,
but the room is empty.
The host tells the messenger,
"Go out on the streets and bring back whomever you find."
This is a radical story.
Biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan explains in his book,
Jesus, a Revolutionary Biography,
"...If you actually brought in anyone off the street,
you could have classes, sexes, and ranks all mixed up together."
Anyone could be next to anyone else...
a business executive could be seated next to a homeless man,
an off duty police officer next to a little girl.
Around the table would be all kinds of people,
with all kinds of beliefs, backgrounds,
languages, dispositions.
All sizes and shapes, with varying gifts and opinions,
would all sit down together.
That's pretty radical.
The food we eat and the people with whom we share meals
tell a lot about us.
Consider this.
You come out of a restaurant with your box of leftovers.
Someone is outside asking for spare change.
You might give them your leftovers, right?
Would you invite them to come back with you into your kitchen for a meal?
Or bring them into the dining room to eat with your family?
Or even invite them back on Saturday night for supper with your friends?
Crossan in his book says,
imagine you are president of a large company.
Consider the difference between a cocktail party
in the office for all the employees,
a restaurant lunch for middle mangers,
a private dinner party for your vice presidents in your own home.
What we eat and with whom establishes identities and boundaries.
The story from Jesus, like so much about him, upsets our boundaries.
A friend of mine was a chaplain at a jail.
At lunch time, she chose
to stand in line with the prisoners to receive her meal.
This small personal act got her
in a whole mess of trouble with the authorities.
She upset the boundaries.
Eating together can be a courageous,
scary, subversive act.
As a person Jesus lived out his own parable.
He was called a glutton and a drunkard
because he ate with sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes.
He spoke of the Kingdom of God.
It was radical to say that God was the ruler,
when the powerful said the Roman emperor was a God.
We could replace that feudal, hierarchical word Kingdom
and call it the Kin-dom of God, where all are kin,
no matter who they are, who they love, or where they come from.
The Kin-dom of God would be a reign
of equality, love, justice, and freedom.
Jesus' phrase "Kingdom of God" makes clear
his vision is political overthrow.
Jesus' little story about personal hospitality
is a radical religious and political challenge.
Challenging the social structures made Jesus
a dangerous person, a suspect.
He was so threatening he had to be killed.
What is it about Jesus that he is still written
and talked about thousands of years after his death?
His vision of radical inclusion is challenging and scary -
and compelling.
Residing deep in our hearts is a longing for belonging,
for everyone to be like loving family,
for no one to be left out.
When have you glimpsed such radical inclusion?
I have a recurring dream of a restaurant near the Berkeley campus.
In the dream the restaurant is one I knew
during my years in seminary in Berkeley.
You cross through the campus, over a bridge,
through the Eucalyptus trees.
The restaurant is a wonderful old wooden building.
Inside there are long wooden tables
and warm, wonderful smelling spices,
steamy bowls of soup and dhal, fresh baked crusty breads.
It's a restaurant where you know you can just show up.
You can come in alone
and find easy connection and good conversation.
The wooden building, the setting in the trees, the aromas,
the companionship all feed my spirit as much as the food.
The dream seems real.
In my waking life, when I walk on Telegraph or College Avenues,
I look for this place.
In the dream the restaurant is one I knew
during my years in theological school.
That makes sense.
When I was a student
at Starr King School for the Ministry,
the message the school gave continually
in every form and fashion was "You are enough."
"Trust yourself." "You know."
The first time I walked into the school,
the office administrator asked, "How are you?"
And she waited, wanting to hear my answer.
Everyone,
from the staff to the faculty to the President,
offered welcome.
I felt seen and heard - beyond categories-
and encouraged to be my self.
I felt more alive.
And so it was for all of us who were lucky to be there.
After sometime of each of us being seen and heard as worthy,
we began to see one another as worthy too.
I forget, but we can remind one another.
This is what is possible for all of us right here.
Together we can create a place where
each of us is seen.
Each of us can be encouraged to be ourselves,
to feel more alive.
Sunday's coffee hour can feel overwhelming.
It hurts when you feel alone in a crowd.
Sometimes the hunger for real connection isn't satisfied.
We can courageously offer something
of substance and sustenance to each other.
A friend told me a dream she had.
She dreamed she is going to a fabulous banquet.
Elegant tables are set with beautiful flowers,
laden with sumptuous delights,
but she can't get to the table.
She can't partake of the feast.
She feels unworthy.
We can accompany one another to the table.
Jesus' story says all are worthy,
all are invited,
everybody has already done all they need to do
to have a place at the table.
What if we practiced trying to see everyone as worthy?
What if we all gave our attention to whomever we could find?
When Jesus speaks of everyone coming to the table,
he means sharing food.
He also means sharing this whole banquet of life.
Jesus' little story of welcoming gets me wondering-
How will the guests change the host and enlarge the host's vision?
Can we be like the host and really invite more people into our lives?
Into our eyesight,
into the range of our hearing?
How will we respect ourselves and keep from getting wiped out
when we try to feed and welcome many people?
Whose help will we receive?
Can we be as guests and come and receive,
not hold out for a better offer, but accept this invitation?
Can we be guests who see other guests as worthy?
Can we sit beside others, look them in the eyes, listen to them?
Maybe the person we least expect will be the one to feed our spirits.
Will we take turns in the kitchen?
Will we pitch in to do what needs to be done?
Can each of us see ourselves as worthy guests,
be willing to be vulnerable, to speak our truth,
to share who we are,
to step forward with the fullness of our selves?
Will our circle widen?
How will you stretch personally?
How can we stretch as a congregation?
In Jesus' parable, we all are invited.
We all are worthy. We all belong.
This is what got Jesus killed.
This is the thousands of year old message
still to be made incarnate, embodied in us.
This is the life-saving, radical message for our planet.
Will you join in the courageous, scary, beautiful subversive act
of sharing the banquet of life?