We should accept that it is awkward being a Christian.
Augustine, whenever he preached to newly baptized adults just after Easter, used to warn them about the dangers of being “mixed in with God’s people.” “[S]tick to the good ones!” he said, and remember that bad company corrupts good morals.[1] He said several times in these sermons that new Christians should be careful who they choose to make friends with in the Church. “[D]on’t choose abandoned persons,” he warned.[2] Rather, brand new Catholics should seek out Catholics leading good lives, lives of moral integrity and faithfulness. Now aside from marveling at the rather candid view Augustine had of his own congregation, his remarkably frank exhortation suggests that even in these early years of the Church (especially after Christianity became the religion of empire with Constantine), there was a felt need for what we today would call “authenticity.”
Since the beginning, it seems, there has been that worldly sort of pressure, a pressure to conform our lives to the ways of the world—to cutthroat economics and to the sometimes bloody tribalism of man. Paul warned believers in Corinth to stay away from those practicing immorality but who still called themselves “brother.”[3] John warned of “anti-christs” betraying the community.[4] It is an ancient problem: Christians caving to the spirit of the age, failing to stand out and sometimes alone in that braver way as a witness of Jesus and his truth. Augustine said we should watch out for those Christians without the will to be different, without the will to be awkward for God. Don’t let your faith be destroyed in the “crush of bad Christians,” he said. “You are called the faithful; live faithfully.”[5]
But of course, as I said, living faithfully is often awkward. Being the Christian, and especially the allegedly “committed” Christian, often invites all sorts of preconceptions and prejudices. It’s often awkward being the person of faith, surrounded sometimes by immoral, wayward thinking, poor and sometimes evil thinking; and then, on top of this, feeling the pressure of what I call “reverse judgment”—people preemptively judging you because they think you’re judging them. Flannery O’Conner, in a letter she wrote to a friend of hers, described how awkward she felt once at a dinner party, hosted by a very sophisticated lapsed Catholic and, as O’Connor called her, a “Big Intellectual.” She wrote, “Having me there was like having a dog present who had been trained to say a few words but overcome with inadequacy had forgotten them.” When, late in the evening, conversation turned to matters of religion, she was, by that time, so flustered that all she could do was cuss, buckling under the awkwardness of being the one backward believer at the dinner table.[6] It wasn’t really a glorious moment for her, more just humiliating. Being faithful can sometimes put us in situations like that, socially naked. But perhaps that’s how it should be.
Of course, Jesus knew something about awkward dinner parties. As Luke tells it, several leading Pharisees as well as some lawyers invited him to dine with them; and aside from the fact that Pharisees and lawyers were the hosts, we know this dinner was particularly tense because these were the same people who just a few chapters earlier sparred rather viciously with Jesus over the true meaning of the Law. Jesus had bested them. They felt insulted and therefore had decided to try to trap Jesus one way or another.[7] And so this dinner, from which we get today’s gospel passage, was not some sort of casual relaxed gathering. His hosts wanted to ruin him, trip him up. It was a tense and awkward evening, everyone “observing him carefully,” the text says—waiting for some slip up.[8]
So, what does Jesus do? Well, just before the passage we have today, Luke tells us Jesus heals a man with dropsy (edema, a swelling of the body), and this is provocative not only because any sort of skin disease troubled the ritual minds of ancient Jews, but also because it was the Sabbath—a major point of contention between Jesus and the Pharisees.[9] It’s when Jesus healed on the Sabbath, for instance, that we get first mention in some of the gospels that people wanted to kill him.[10] And it’s after this rather gutsy healing that Jesus begins to point out a few things he noticed at the dinner. He puts his criticism in the form of a parable which is perhaps the most polite thing he did all evening; nonetheless, his words are no less damning because of it. Everyone knew what he meant.
On the surface he talks about the social dangers of pretension and pride, of thinking of oneself too highly, social hubris. How embarrassing it is to be asked in front of everybody to move to a lower seat at the banquet, all because you thought too highly of yourself. Wouldn’t it be better, he asks, to undersell oneself rather than risk public humiliation? Now whatever the social merits of Jesus’ words here (and to be clear, he’s not talking about manners), the criticism Jesus is making is that everyone around him seems to be after only one thing: human glory, the shallow and fleeting praise of others. In his gospel, John is clear that this is what blinds people from recognizing Jesus—“they preferred human praise to the glory of God,” the apostle says.[11] And so what Jesus is telling his hosts is that they’re spiritually blind, blinded by their pride and their own pathetic finagling for the flimsy praise of men.
But he doesn’t stop there; he goes on. What’s the virtue, he asks, in inviting only those you know to your social gatherings—family and friends, those whom you want to impress or get something from? Why not invite the “poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind”? Jesus tells them they’d be blessed if they invited such people “because of their inability to repay” them.[12] Again, the point he seems to be making is that, suffering from pride and spiritual blindness, they would do well to practice a little altruism, almost as a form of moral rehab. Jesus is being remarkably frank with his hosts, and one could imagine the scene—the offended and the bemused, the convicted and the converted. An awkward dinner party indeed: one might even accuse Jesus of being an ungracious guest, not properly grateful for the invitation to dine and compete with the most worthy figures in society.
What’s going on here? Is Jesus being awkward just to be awkward, and are we, his disciples, supposed to awkward too just for the fun of it? Or did we just catch Jesus on a bad day, tired and short-tempered and perhaps lashing out at the expense of his hosts? What’s the point of Jesus’ teaching here? And what might it mean for us today?
To answer these questions, it’s helpful, I think, to look at this passage broadly—at its moral pattern, so to speak. Then, the point of Jesus’ teaching becomes a bit clearer. In substance Jesus says two things: first, quit chasing after human glory, shallow praise. And second, go and help people who can’t help you back. Now, when we see it this way, in simple terms, we see that Jesus is saying something profound and hopeful. We see that in fact he’s paying a compliment to those who, on the surface at least, he appears to be insulting. Because what he’s saying to these Pharisees, in substance, is “Imitate me.” “[E]very one who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted,” Jesus said.[13] That’s what he did: he humbled himself, as Paul said, “taking the form of a slave.”[14] “[B]lessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you,” he said.[15] That’s what the Father did, sending his Son in the flesh to save us—dying for us “while we were still helpless,” again to quote Paul.[16] What we see here, when we look more closely, is that Jesus is inviting these Pharisees and lawyers to follow him, to imitate his way of life. Of course, he doesn’t say it directly, and any parent knows why. Speaking directly to our children—just laying out the bare facts—rarely works, especially when we’re trying to get them to grasp wisdom for themselves. Jesus the teacher, is nudging and pushing this ignorant lot a little in the direction of grace. He’s not insulting them at all. Rather, he’s inviting them to believe and to live.
And obviously, we should identify with the Pharisees and lawyers ourselves and read this passage as a personal invitation to imitate Christ. We too should quit the pathetic fight for human praise. We too should help those who can’t help us. We should invite those who can’t invite us back. Have any Labor Day plans? Who’s on the guest list? Think about it. People tell me all the time how they wish God would give them a sign about how to live their lives, about what to do. Well, here you go: practical advice from Jesus himself just in time for the holiday.
But, of course, easier said than done, isn’t it? Or, so we say. Often (and it happens to me too) we suddenly go spiritually deaf when the Lord or the Church start talking specifics. Which brings us back to what I said at the beginning: we fear the necessary awkwardness that is required of Christians. Yes, it would be awkward to invite the homeless man to lunch; just as awkward as it is for God to invite you to his altar. But if we’re going to be serious about this Christianity business, we need to get on with it. We need to hear Jesus, believe him, and act on his teaching. Or else we’re just like those Pharisees—blind, bitter, and violent, offended.
In a sermon, Dr. King said once that what world needs are “transformed nonconformists.”[17] We need Christians that refuse to march to the “rhythmic drumbeat of the status quo.”[18] King called for Christians who were, in a certain sense, “maladjusted,” “maladjusted” to the evils of segregation, violence, economic injustice and so on.[19] Being a Christian should make us—to use the biblical term—“witnesses.” And that means having the courage to stand up and sometimes to stand alone. It means the courage to be awkward for Jesus—to love the unlovable, to forgive the unforgiveable, to show hospitality to the hardened and the dirty, those normally whom we socially diagnose rather than help.
Such divine teaching, powerful and provocative: I hope I can hear it. I hope I have the courage to ask myself, “Josh, how awkward are you? How awkward are you willing to be?” And I hope you have that courage too. Because Jesus is waiting for our answer. Amen.
[1] Augustine, Sermon 260C 7
[2] Augustine, Sermon 260D 2
[3] 1 Corinthians 5:11
[4] 1 John 2:18
[5] Augustine, Sermon 260D 2
[6] Flannery O’Conner: Spiritual Writings, 76
[7] Luke 11:45, 53-54
[8] Luke 14:1
[9] Leviticus 13:2
[10] John 5:18; Matthew 12:9-14
[11] John 12:43; cf. John 5:41-47
[12] Luke 14:13-14
[13] Luke 14:11
[14] Philippians 2:7
[15] Luke 14:14
[16] Romans 5:6
[17] Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, 27
[18] Ibid., 21
[19] Ibid., 27
© 2019 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield
