Sermons

Destroy the Hierarchies That Tell You Some Don’t Matter

Eternal God, help us to see through human hierarchies to your reality of inclusion for all. Amen. 

If you have ever been to a happy hour or a networking event here in D.C., then you know that there’s one question that dominates conversation. That dreaded question is “What do you do?” And, if you have an answer like “I’m a Member of Congress” or “I hold a C-Suite job at a big government contractor,” then you may find that you suddenly have a number of people lining up asking for your information. But if your answer is, “I’m an intern.” “I’m just starting out.” “I’m a stay-at-home parent.” “I’m taking a break to focus on my health,” or any other number of things that put you farther from the center of power, you may find that your conversation partner is looking over your shoulder for someone else to talk to, or suddenly needs to take a call from their very important boss. 

Washington is a city known for its transactional conversations and relationships. I was honestly very bad at this kind of networking because I didn’t know how to be in a transactional relationship. That wasn’t what I’d learned to do back home in Oklahoma. (Side note: this is probably related to how I ended up becoming a priest.) I didn’t start succeeding at building relationships here until someone told me a line I’ll always remember: ‘Don’t make contacts, make friends.’ A contact is someone whose business card or email address you have. A friend is someone you’re in a mutual relationship with. It’s not about “what can you do for me,” it’s about “who are you?”. 

Today’s Gospel reading from Luke talks about places of honor at the table, which was an important part of dining culture in the Ancient Near East. However, something gets lost when we approach this story because our own culture of dining is so different, being far less formal. If I walked into a room of 10 people eating at a table, I couldn’t tell you which was the highest or the lowest ranked position. But if those same 10 people told me their jobs and titles, I bet I could get a pretty good sense of who is at the top of the pecking order. 

And I know that because each of us has a ladder, a hierarchy in our mind of who’s “more important” according to our culture. The pilot is more important than the plumber, the teacher than the line cook, the lawyer than the nurse. And, generally, those who work outside the home are considered more important than those who care for children and elderly relatives at home. And maybe you have a quibble with some of my assessments, but I think we could at least agree that this hierarchy, this rank is very real. Often, you can watch people doing the calculations when you are talking to them at those networking events. I know I learned to do this mental math, to assess how people fit. Even I, as a priest, experience this when people learn that my previous career was in one of the institutions of this city. And it’s been five years since I even worked there! 

But what I hear Jesus saying in this parable is that we must take up a torch (I like to think about the ones in Indiana Jones, but you decide what your torch looks like). We must take up a torch burning with the clarifying fire of the Holy Spirit, and we must set ablaze those hierarchies in our minds. Burn down this ladder of professional success and achievement that tells us who matters. 

And while we’re at it, we can light up the hierarchies of gender, of race, of class, of education, of family background, anything that is telling you that one human being is more worthy, more valuable than another. We must watch these ladders be consumed until we no longer see people through the lens of where they fit in the hierarchy; we only see each other as children of God. 

The Rev. Canon Kelly Brown Douglas writes in her book Resurrection Hope that in these stories, Jesus isn’t talking about “an exchange or swapping of positions between the haves and the have-nots, the insiders and the outcasts, the oppressors and the oppressed. Rather, it is “… [that] there is no difference between them because all are treated and respected [equally].”1 

This story suggests that if you assume you are at the top, you are wrong, and if you assume you are at the bottom, you are also wrong. But Jesus isn’t talking about correctly assessing your own value; Jesus is talking about removing that way of thinking where we are constantly assessing who has power. 

In the last part of the gospel for today, Jesus talks about who should be invited to the table. The answer is not all the most powerful people, the ones who could help you out or invite you in return. Jesus tells us to make sure to invite everyone who might be left out, who might be overlooked. And we try to do that here. Church isn’t invite-only. It’s open! We list our services on the internet, and we don’t check IDs at the door. 

That’s the thing about church, it’s a cross-section of humanity. And often that message is implicit, but we at St. Mark’s choose to make it explicit when we say each week in our invitation to communion: “Whoever we are, from wherever we have come, and whatever we believe or do not believe, all are welcome.” 

When we welcome everyone in, we become the hosts of God’s table. When we burn down the hierarchies in our minds about who matters, we see through God’s eyes. And in that act of creative destruction, we get to decide what to build out of the ashes. Let’s make it a place rooted in hospitality, in love, and in justice. 

1 Kelly Brown Douglas: Resurrection Hope: A Future Where Black Lives Matter, p. 129