The VIP Lounge is based on Luke 14: 8-14
Retelling
The first part of the parable, in verses 8-11, definitely needs retelling. Yes, any kind of banquet will have a ‘top table’. But they’ll also have place cards and a seating plan; it would be unusual for someone to try to blag a top-table seat (people do know whether they’re the bride’s mother). And in Britain, culturally, swapping place cards is a social no-no. It’s not something that would enhance your status.
The VIP Lounge
However, blagging your way into a VIP lounge in a stadium or airport isn’t unknown – in Britain, at least. It’s also a ‘gain status’ move – not so much that people will think you are a VIP, more the bragging rights gained from being in that special section. Maybe you’ll meet a real VIP, increasing your bragging rights even more.
Issuing Invitations
The idea of issuing invitations still applies – verses 12-14, taken on their own, don’t really need retelling. People already understand the idea that you should invite someone without considering whether they can invite you back. Extending that to the poor and disabled isn’t a concept that needs ‘translating’.
There are, however, still areas where people might only invite the ‘useful’ – the work lunch, the dinner party with your boss. So, it’s possible to ‘retell’ this section as set in that environment. Rather than concentrating on your status at work, invite the newest employee, the intern, the unemployed.
Status
Nowadays, most of us don’t live in an honour/shame culture. Telling someone they’re in the wrong seat is embarrassing (if you’re British, it’s embarrassing for everyone). But it isn’t the loss of social status it would have been in Jesus’ time.
In Jesus’ time, people would order seats at a banquet according to social status. Being in the lowest seat was at the level of ‘well, at least I got an invitation.’ The closest cultural equivalent I could think of was trying to blag your way into the VIP lounge, but even being publicly thrown out isn’t the same as being moved from the highest to the lowest seat. That, in Jesus’ time, would have been the ultimate humiliation.
Because job-related status is both still important and influences our ability to earn a living, I chose that setting. Job-related status can influence our work, promotion, pay and retention. That feels closer to status in Jesus’ time.
It also allows the second part of the parable to be more telling. Who would we invite to a work-related meal? Not the homeless – but unless we were a generous person, we also wouldn’t invite the work-experience intern. Not even if our experience and advice would help them.
The Poor and Reciprocity
Jesus explicitly points out that the poor can’t invite you back. The social and financial system of the time relied on exchange. If you invited someone to a meal, they expected to have to invite you back. It was an efficient way of handling things in a world where hard cash might be rare and ‘fine restaurants’ were unknown.
So, people wouldn’t normally invite the poor; the status-conscious would ignore them. The more sympathetic still wouldn’t invite them, to spare them the social shame of having to refuse an invitation because they couldn’t afford to invite anyone back.
What Jesus is proposing is that his followers dump the idea of reciprocity. Instead of automatically expecting a return, automatically excluding those who can’t give that return, just give.
After two thousand years, this idea has soaked into our society. In retelling, therefore, it’s worthwhile looking for areas where ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ is still in play. These parables were originally intended to make people think hard about their behaviour. With the luxury of a sermon, or a talk, we can point out where people fail to ‘just give’. We can ask them how well they’re living up to the ideal.
But, if we only have time to retell one parable, it’s worth retelling it in a setting that will make people think.
Previous Parable: The Unforgiving Debtor – Matthew 18:23-34
Next Parable: Left in Charge – Matthew 24:45-51
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