I don’t know how much attention you pay to what’s going on in the news these days. I suppose some familiarity is unavoidable, for we are bombarded on the internet and on TV with the shrill voices of those who seem to be advocating a radical break from American values of religious tolerance and openness to immigrants. There’s the terrible outcry over the Islamic community center that has been proposed for a location a few blocks away from Ground Zero. There’s also the demand from apparently many on the right for an end to the promise of birth-right citizenship enshrined in the 14^th Amendment to the constitution. The list could go on right to the attacks on President Obama’s citizenship and his Christian faith.

You may wonder what these developments have to do with Grace Church this Sunday morning and on the surface, there may be little connection. Still, what’s taking place in our national debate is deep, divisive conflict over what it means to be American, and what sort of polity, what sort of nation we are. Are we a people who embrace diversity in religion, language, and culture? Or are we a people united by the color of our skin and a set of political commitments we all share?

Questions like these beset every human community. They must do so, because community can only be formed by defining the boundaries, by making clear who is in and who is out. So we at Grace, like the larger national community of which we are a part, have notions of what our community is, who belongs, and what values we share.

I’ve been thinking about these things for quite some time, indeed, ever since I arrived here among you a little over a year ago. But I’ve been having conversations in recent weeks with a wide variety of people about these matters too. We’ve been talking about who we are as a congregation, but I’ve also been talking with our neighbors, with visitors, and occasionally with random people who stop me on the sidewalk. It seems everyone has an opinion of Grace, of what we are doing in the community, and what we should be doing.

It’s appropriate that we reflect on such questions today in connections with the lessons for this Sunday. In today’s gospel, we read, what on the surface, may seem like rather odd advice. Jesus has been invited to dinner at the home of a Pharisee. That in itself deserves mention. Typically we think of Jesus and the Pharisees as implacable enemies, Jesus criticizing them for their nitpicking and their legalism. In fact, that common assumption is wrong. It would be better to think of Jesus and the Pharisees as sharing a deep commitment to the Torah, to the Jewish law, and differing only in their interpretation of it. They were in conversation, not at war. That Luke has Jesus eating at the home of a Pharisee is an indication of that close relationship.

But you know, I’ll bet that Pharisee regretted having invited Jesus when he heard the dinner conversation. For us seating at dinner is important only on special occasions—at a wedding reception or a gala banquet. For the most part, even if we are eating a festive meal, we grab our food and sit next to our friends or family. But in the ancient Mediterranean world, seating at meals was vitally important. Where you sat, where your host placed you was a clear indication of your status.

Jesus gives some pretty solid and pretty unremarkable advice about what to do when looking for a place to sit at a meal. It’s the sort of advice we might read in one of those how to get ahead in business books. Take a low-status seat, and wait for the host to call you to the head table. That’s good advice when the alternative might mean losing face. If you go to the head table and the host says, no, I had that seat in mind for someone else; instead of prime rib, you’ll be eating crow.

But Jesus isn’t giving his listeners a lesson in etiquette. He is reminding them, and us, that meals are about more than filling your stomach. In the gospels, meals, the eating and the fellowship are also about the kingdom of God. He adds one of his characteristic statements: all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. He is expressing one of the key values in the kingdom of God, that it is a world turned upside-down; a world in which the values we cherish and hold dear are upended, undone by God’s values.

That point is made even more clear by Jesus’ next statement, advice he gives to the dinner host: “When you give a luncheon or a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your neighbors, in case they might 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.” That hardly sounds like the Hollywood A-list. Instead of thinking about our self-interest, what we might gain by hosting, or attending a dinner party, Jesus tells us that we should be thinking about something else—throwing a dinner party for the sake of those who really need it, and who could never repay us.

Banquets may have been places where the social order was reinforced in the ancient world, but among Jews, banquets were also a symbol of God’s reign. The image of the messianic banquet, where the food was plentiful and rich and the wine flowed freely, was one of the dominant ways Jews articulated their hopes for a new age. That symbol was retained by early Christians, and here Jesus lays out his vision of the heavenly banquet, where all would find a place. The poor, the lame, the blind, the crippled, those were the same groups Jesus preached about at his very first public appearance in Luke’s gospel. Now they are included in the promised banquet.

But there’s something else. It’s not just God who acts as host at the banquet. Jesus tells his audience that when they have banquets, they are the ones who should invite the outcasts and downtrodden of society. The reign of God about which Jesus speaks is an opportunity for us to act towards others as God acts towards us—to reach out in a spirit of reciprocity and generosity to those around us.

In the lesson from Hebrews there is that wonderful verse: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels unawares.” The reference, of course, is to Abraham and Lot in Genesis. Abraham saw three men approaching his tent; he welcomed them in and fed them, and it turned out, one was God. Lot saw two men at the gates of Sodom, and welcomed them into his home, protected them from the mob, and they, in turn rescued Lot and his family from Sodom’s destruction.

The author of the Hebrews is telling his readers the very same thing that Jesus told his listeners—to welcome in the stranger, to be hospitable. But he continues in words that are equally challenging. While our hospitality may find us entertaining angels unawares, when we minister to those in prison or who have been tortured, we should do it not out of pity or responsibility, but out of compassion, putting ourselves in the place of those with whom we minister.

On one level, we at Grace do hospitality pretty well. After all, we’ve hosted the men’s drop-in shelter here for twenty-five years. We’ve had a food pantry for over thirty years and have welcomed the needy to our doors every week. More recently, we have hosted a Spanish-language service for a number of years, too. But how fully integrated are any of those ministries into the life of our parish?

After this service, some of us will make our way to Hoyt Park for a parish picnic. I will be curious to see who attends, who doesn’t. Last year’s picnic was an occasion when first-time visitors who were invited to join us were welcomed with open arms and generosity, and became a part of our parish. But there were others there who might not have felt so warmly included, or others who were visiting who never returned.

We’ll have another opportunity in a little over a week to show our hospitality. Each month, Grace takes its turn in providing a meal for the men who stay in the drop-in shelter, and for anyone else who might come in. For the last three years, Sarah and Sparky Watts have been shouldering the burden of preparing that meal with the help of volunteers. Many of you have pitched; others have not.

Jesus invites everyone to his banquet, and would have us invite everyone to ours. As we move forward into the future, let’s embrace the challenge to become a radically welcoming parish? Let’s invite everyone to join us at our Eucharistic feast, and at all of our other tables, as well.