August 31, 2025

Table Manners

When I was a boy, dinner time often resembled an extended lecture.  “Mike, go wash your hands before you sit down.  Mind your manners.  Sit up straight and get your elbows off the table.  Foot off the chair, please.  Don’t chew with your mouth open, and don’t talk while you’re chewing your food.  Pick that up with your fork, please; not your fingers. That’s enough, boys; no fighting at the table.  Don’t waste food.  You will sit here at the table until you finish eating what’s on your plate.  There are starving children in China who would give anything to have what you have there.”  My parents, it seems, were determined to take all the fun out of dinnertime.

So, I had a rather Pavlovian recoil response when I came across this lectionary passage from Luke and heard Jesus giving a lecture on table manners.  I did find it intriguing, though.  I wondered two things: why in the world would he offer this little speech, and why would Luke bother to include it in his gospel?

Well, it didn’t take long to figure out that he was basically expanding on a passage of scripture from Proverbs – our other lectionary reading for today.  The basic idea is that a dinner guest should not sit down at an honored place, but in the lowliest seat at the table.  That way he won’t be embarrassed by being told to move to a lower place, but will be honored by being summoned to a higher place.  And then, Jesus adds a comment to his host about how to make up a guest list.  He tells him not to invite all his friends who will then feel the social obligation to repay him with a reciprocal invitation, but instead “invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind,” who cannot repay him.

The point, it seems, is not simply about dinner etiquette, it’s about humility – the humility of a guest not assuming a place of honor, and the humility of a host recognizing the equal place and value of all people, regardless of station or means.  So, it turns out that was Jesus’ point, and that’s why it’s in the gospel of Luke; it’s not just about table manners after all, it’s an object lesson in humility.

A sermon about humility may seem like slim pickin’s.  After all, what’s to be said?  “Be humble, don’t be proud.  Amen.”  But it seems to me that what Jesus is getting at here reflects an entire way of life, a way of being and a way of looking at the world that applies no matter who you are, or where you are – a simple dinner guest, a wealthy host, or a poor soul off the street.  And as such, maybe pervades more of our experience, and touches us more deeply than we might guess.

I spent a little time ruminating about what it might mean to have such complete and pervasive humility take over one’s life, and it surprised me – not slim pickin’s at all; there’s a full meal to be had here, so long as we approach it with proper manners.

For one thing, I don’t know about you, but I suspect that all too often when I’m invited into conversation with someone about public policy, sports, literature, politics, or religion, I figuratively plop myself down in the seat of honor with a toothpick in my mouth, lean my chair back, and stick my feet up on the table.  You see, I have so many opinions about things.  I know what I believe about almost any topic that can come up, and I’m more than eager to share my wisdom with others at the drop of a hat.  One of the problems with this habit is that it’s rather embarrassing when someone happens to know more about a topic than I do, and summarily moves me out of my catbird’s seat to a lower place at the table.

Our tendency to shoot from the hip with presumptions, opinions, and supposed facts is, I think, very human.  I guess it’s part of our natural inclination to compete – like our ancestors competed for the last scrap of meat from the saber-toothed tiger they speared.  But going to battle over ideas doesn’t do much for our souls, or our minds for that matter.  Hegel’s dialectic notwithstanding, when two people start throwing spit-balls to see who comes out on top, more often they both end up on the bottom.

What might happen if any of us instead chose to approach every person, every conversation, every encounter with a primary desire to listen and learn?  What if we always took the lowest seat at the “debate table,” and waited to see if others had something more honorable or more commanding to offer?  How might it change us, and how might it change our world?  It could be far more significant even than learning to keep our elbows off the table.

Another very human and very unhelpful tendency is to look no further than our friends, our clan, our people, our party, our “kind” when making up a list of those worthy to dine with us at the feast of ideas and experiences.  I remember once hearing on the radio a member of the “Tea Party” speaking about Glen Beck’s rally at the Lincoln Memorial.  She said that those who attend these sorts of events, are (and I quote) “the cream of the crop of the world’s population.”  Now, that’s one incredible statement.

We may laugh at that kind of blatant self-aggrandizement, but you and I do a similar thing, albeit more subtly, when we look out at the world around us.  If you examine our reactions and views closely you have to admit that we often operate out of an unspoken assumption that Americans are brighter, more enlightened, less backward, all-around generally more developed human beings than Africans or Afghans or Iranians.  We tend to think of those in another political party or another branch of Christianity, or from another part of the country or a different background as unfortunate souls who just didn’t have the opportunity to learn the things we’ve learned, or are blinded by their upbringing or their environment and can’t see things the way they really are.

How often do we take the time to examine the weaknesses of our own heritage, the holes in our own systems, the inadequacies of our own group?  Might we actually grow and be enlightened by inviting to our table of experience the very ones we generally dismiss?  Might we become more whole by rubbing elbows with those whose lives and ways are totally other than our own?  Expanding our guest list might actually serve to expand our world view.

But if we truly allow the kind of humility Jesus was getting at to take root in our lives and remake us, it might not only affect how we relate to others, it might change how we relate to ourselves!  We might find ourselves approaching everything differently.  The other day, Dadgie’s daughter was visiting and we spoke about reading Andy Borowitz’s daily email report.  Borowitz, in case you haven’t heard of him writes “the news that’s not the news.”  It’s his hilarious take on current events, coming up with fictional accounts where he twists things around and reports it as if it were a news story. I told Barb that starting off the day with a good belly laugh always feels good for the soul. You know a sense of humor can do you a lot of good.  It’s wonderful to laugh — but more wonderful to laugh especially at yourself!  That’s an even better way of starting off the day.  I think that’s similar to what I was hearing from Jesus.  Developing the ability to laugh at one’s self is like going for the lowliest seat at your host’s table.  It’s all about not taking yourself so darned seriously.

I don’t think laughing at yourself, listening to others and trying to learn from them instead of pounding them with your own views, or recognizing the gifts and strengths of different cultures and backgrounds and ideas means you stop caring about the things you believe in.  I don’t think it means you give up on your own values or on trying to make a difference.  It just means you approach it all very differently, perhaps with a lighter, more gentle heart; perhaps with the calm of one who has finally discovered their place in the grand scheme of things, and finds it mildly amusing.

I’ll never forget the time, many years ago (back in the days of the nuclear disarmament movement), I had the privilege of hearing the great preacher Gardner Taylor speak at a gathering of peace activists.  He talked about the importance of trusting in Divine Love and recognizing that we’re not in charge of the future, the Lord is.  After his address, a woman in the crowd raised her hand and spoke about her work in the peace movement.  She wondered if he was telling us to just stop working for change because it’s all up to the Lord anyway.  Dr. Taylor said, “Oh no.  Work for change.  Do everything you can to bring about the change you want to see.  Pour your efforts into it.  But do so with quiet confidence, knowing that the Lord is the Lord of history and the Lord who transcends history, and that the future is safe in that Lord’s hands.”

That’s one very good way of not taking yourself too seriously.  Keep yourself out of the highest seat at the table – that chair is reserved for the One who truly is in charge of the future.

Oh, and while you’re at it, don’t forget to laugh at yourself along the way.  Just don’t do it with your mouth full.