Dinner Guests

The Rev. Joseph Winston

August 29, 2010

Grace and peace are gifts for you from God, the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ.1
There is a world of difference between something you find in a cookbook
and the final product you place on the table. A cookbook only holds a list of
instructions. This tells you what to do along with all the required ingredients. If
you are lucky, the cookbook might even describe what tools you need. That is
about all that cookbooks provide you.
Knowing what is produced from the recipe is a different matter altogether. A
well-seasoned chef probably has a good idea what the finished product will be.
This comes from years in the kitchen along with many successful meals and a few
spectacular failures. A more inexperienced cook must trust that the illustrations
tell you what will happen when everything is said and done.
At one time or another, everyone probably has had a chocolate chip cookie
1
Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 1:2, Galatians 1:3, Ephesians 1:2, Philippians
1:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:2, Philemon 1:3.

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sometime in their lives. Here is the recipe for one of the most famous cookies
called “Toll House.”

Ingredients:
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup of softened butter
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 12 ounces Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup of chopped nuts
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Combine all the dry ingredients except for the chips and the nuts in a small
bowl.
3. Beat butter with both sugars and vanilla in another bowl until creamy.
4. Add one egg at a time to the mixture. Stir after each egg.
5. Fold in the flour mixture.
6. Mix in the chips and the nuts.
7. Spoon onto baking sheets.
8. Bake until golden brown.

If you never have baked before, this is quite a lot of details to master. Baking
soda and baking powder sound the same, so can I substitute one for the other? No.
Butter does not come in cups. How many sticks does it take to make one cup?
Two. What is granulated sugar? It is the white crystals that you normally use. Can
I use eggs straight out of the refrigerator? You can, but you should allow them to
reach room temperature.

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 Then there are the rules of thumb that cooks have passed down for generations.
This dough is easier to form if it is cold. Chill it if needed. It also freezes well.
This means you can bake some fresh cookies now and have some later. How long
to bake is an art in itself and it depends on how you like the cookie. Some people
like soft chocolate chips, others a more crunchy cookie, and then there are people
that live somewhere between these two extremes. You use different techniques to
make these styles. I personally like to cool the cookies on the insides of paper
shopping bags.
Given all that information about “Toll House” chocolate chip cookies, tell me
what happens when you make them. (Pause.) Most people in this world will not
lay out in detail the chemical transformations that occur during the baking pro-
cess, which ultimately makes the cookies. Instead, they will say something about
their experience of eating the raw dough, of smelling the cookies in the house, of
looking at the cookies after they come out of the oven, of touching the cookies be-
fore they have a chance to cool off, of tasting the warm sugary chocolate melting
in their mouth, of eating the cookie with a cold glass of milk.
No matter how hard you try, you simply cannot find any one of these memories
in the recipe since it only lists the instructions, what needs to be done, to make
the cookies. But we all know what a chocolate cookie is really like and we do
not need a recipe to tell us that. It is soft and warm and moist. It tastes of vanilla
and brown sugar with a hint of butter. It crunches as you eat it. It is something
we enjoy. It certainly is one of life’s little pleasures. That is why when presented
a choice between reading a recipe out of a book and taking a fresh home made

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chocolate chip cookie, most of us would rather have the cookie.
In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus comes on a Saturday and has a meal with the
Pharisees. You can be sure that every little detail was letter perfect. This is the
Pharisees’ claim to fame. The food had already been prepared before sundown
on Friday to prevent work on the Sabbath. No one, servants included, exerted too
much effort in serving anyone. After all, this is the requirement of the Law. Each
and every entrée was appropriate for a Jew. You would not expect anything less
from those who masted the entire Law.
Jesus did not have a single quibble about what they did in preparation of a
kosher meal nor how the meal was served. Instead, Jesus wants to talk about the
difference between a page in a book verses your experience of something.
He leaned over to the leader of the Pharisees to point out this obvious differ-
ence.2 He said,

When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or

The world described by Jesus two thousand years ago still does not exist here.
You know all the reasons why this land is far outside our normal experience. You
2
In Luke/Acts, the pairing of ruler ἄρχων with Pharisee Φαρισαῖος is only seen in Luke 14:1
(τῶν ἀρχόντων τῶν Φαρισαίων). Luke Timothy Johnson; Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., editor, The
Gospel of Luke, Volume 3, Sacra Pagina, (The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical
Press, 1991), p. 233.

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do not have enough money to spend on people you might not know. You do not
have the resources to feed the hungry. And if you are completely honest with
yourself, you simply do not have the time to do all of this.
Jesus still makes the request and if you look at the language used it is actually
a direct command. Jesus says, “You call.”3 You call the poor. You call the crippled.
You call the lame. You call the blind. That is the responsibility of the leader two
thousand years ago and it is also ours today.
There is a reason for this way of life and it is different as a recipe is from a
finished product. One describes what you do and the other is one you enjoy. In the
Gospel lesson for the day, the Pharisees are living by the Book but they cannot
even imagine the reason why they do.
You and I, we, live in the kingdom of God. We pray for it and God certainly
is here among us. The Pharisees would have no problems with this statement of
faith. But we all know that this kingdom is not fully realized. There is another
way to say the same thing. Things are missing in this world and everyone here
knows it. We still have suffering. Death is a constant companion. All around us
are people who do not belong to the kingdom and furthermore they continue to
work against the One we call Lord. These facts were just as obvious in the time of
Christ as they are today.
There are two different ways to address this issue that faces us. One is to
realize that God will make all things new in the end. When that happens, it will be
a perfect world. Until then, we do what is required of us and nothing more than
3
The Greek verb is κάλει.

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that. The other way of life is completely different. We live today just as we will
live in the future.
This is the blessing of doing exactly what Jesus commands us when we call to
community to come and eat. We live today just like we live tomorrow. Our attempt
to live in the kingdom of God will not be perfect. There still will be pain. People
will continue to make bad decisions. Death will come. We cannot change any of
these but we can do one thing. We can stop acting like the kingdom of God will
never come.
Consider what would happen if the cooks of this world only served recipes at
every meal. Breakfast is no longer eggs and bacon, hot oatmeal, or even a bowl
of cold cereal. It is a piece of paper that tells you how to make eggs Benedict,
taquitos, or a short stack of piping hot pancakes. A typical lunch at your house
might be a bowl of soup, a sandwich, or leftovers from the night before. Not any
more, now you have a recipe. It tells you how to make something like large bowl
of chili, a chef salad, or a burrito. The pattern repeats at night. No barbecue will be
found on your plate. Neither will you see a chicken fried steak with all the fixings
or meatloaf with mashed potatoes. All you have at your place is a book filled with
good things. It tells you how to make egg rolls and fried rice, steamed salmon and
green beans, smothered steak and rice.
Definitely after a few days of this silliness, you would demand a change.
“Bring back the food,” you would say. “Take away the paper and give me some-
thing to chew on.”
We all know this to be true in our lives outside of church yet we continue to

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act this way inside of these four walls. We do not move from theory into practice.
We refuse to take the recipe and prepare a meal. We have no ambition at all to live
as we will live in the future.
To Lutheran ears, it may seem difficult if not impossible to hear any “Good
New” in today’s Gospel lesson. After all, it appears to be all about you doing
something. You purchase the raw ingredients. You prepare a meal. You invite those
that do not deserve to be there. Finally, you clean up afterwards. This sequence
of events just does not happen one time. It goes on every time you want to have a
dinner party.
Then it looks like something is completely missing. Christ and His work are
nowhere to be seen. You must go to the store. You must do all the work to put the
food on the table. You must call the community together. You must do everything
without any help at all.
Our Lutheran sensibilities coupled with our limited vision cause us to dis-
card this portion of the Bible as something that does not apply to us or we twist
the words around in such a way that this becomes a way to work ourselves into
Heaven, something that we do not believe. There is another way to look at these
commands given to us by Jesus Himself so that you can see the Good News con-
tained in today’s Gospel Lesson.
As far as I know, no one here is a Jew. That means no one has any claim
at all on a lifelong covenant with God. That place of privilege, that location at
the table, if you will, is completely reserved for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their
children forever. We are locked out forever and have no hope but in Jesus who

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calls following to the meal: the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I do not believe that anyone in this room has
enough resources to purchase a place in Heaven. This really is a case that it takes
money to play. You simply do not have enough to buy a seat for the dinner. You
are the poor that Jesus calls.
From what I can see, life has already marked you. There are lines on your face,
hearts that are heavy, and shoulders bent under the weight of the world. Your body
prevents you from taking part in the party. You are the crippled that Jesus calls.
No one has ever made it on their own to God’s Kingdom. Everyone is too
weak to make it to the table, much less the meal. You are the lame that Jesus calls.
Jesus is here with you but you do not see Him. God’s Kingdom is present
among us but you cannot make out the honored Lord. You are the blind that Jesus
calls.
The invitation to come to the table is for you. That is the Good News. Jesus
comes and hand delivers a personal invitation to come and to eat and to drink with
Him at His table.
Our work is a response to what He has already done for each of us. There is
another reason why we invite the whole community to come and to dine. We want
to give them a foretaste of the feast to come.
Go down to the library and check out a cookbook, open your bookcase at home
and find your favorite author that passes on their passion to cook, read the paper’s
cooking column and you still will be hungry. No one fed you.
The Bible all by itself is a poor way to learn about God. God created you to

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live with others. He brings healing to the community. He invites you to eat.
Learning to cook is a lifelong process. It takes time along with some basic
information on how transform raw ingredients into delicious meals. Life is the
same. You need guidance on what to do from someone who has already made the
journey. St. Paul’s book to the church in Rome does exactly that. It describes for
you the authentic life of a Christian, with all of its ups and downs, with all of its
pains and blessings. In Romans, you will hear of the faith given to you through
the sacrifices other believers. What is expected of you and the reward Jesus freely
gives all believers.
“The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and
minds through Christ Jesus.”4

References

Johnson, Luke Timothy; Harrington, S.J., Daniel J., editor, The Gospel of Luke,
Volume 3, Sacra Pagina, (The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN: The
Liturgical Press, 1991).

4
Philippians 4:7.