READING:
Luke 14 v 1 and 7-14

something for nothing

I wonder when you last received something for nothing? I am not thinking of the latest “Buy One Get One Free” offer at the supermarket, but a genuine gift that was totally undeserved.

In this week’s gospel reading there are people in that situation: the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame who receive the surprising invitation to dinner. So, what is Jesus trying to tell us here?

We often make the mistake of seeing Jesus as a kind of moral teacher giving us practical advice, like a popular self-help book. But Jesus is primarily a teacher about God, and so we must ask: where is God in the exchange Jesus is having with his dinner host?

Jesus contrasts two different ways of seeing the world – two economies in how we deal with each other. The first is the exchange economy. This works on a quid pro quo basis: this much product requires this much payment. It shapes our shopping, services, and even relationships. It is reflected in phrases such as “I deserve,” “You owe me,” and “I will be generous if it helps me.” That is exactly what the first group of people in Jesus’ story do. They invite their friends to supper, knowing that two weeks later the invitation will be returned.

This system of exchange seems reasonable and acceptable to nearly everybody, because it feels fair and makes sense. The only problem is that Jesus does not believe in it at all.

Instead, Jesus presents a very different economy – the gift economy. Here there is no relation between what we give and what we get. Those who come to the host’s meal have done absolutely nothing to earn the banquet set before them. Jesus is showing us that this is how God acts. God’s world runs on the gift economy.

But we don’t always like this model. We feel we have worked hard for our social position. We convince ourselves we deserve what we have achieved, and that this gives us the right to decide who does not deserve. Worse still, we sometimes imagine that people who are different from us have failed to earn any kind of fortune.

Yet look back at Jesus’ story and see who the host invites. See who God reaches out to include. Jesus says that when it comes to God, it is all gift. We deserve nothing. Everything is given to us undeservedly by God. And when we try to live within this gift economy, things are transformed.

Take a simple example. During the summer holidays, a local church opened its doors and invited any families to a fun day. There was a bouncy castle, crafts, fishing games, and all sorts of children’s activities. And there was no charge – it was all free. You might think it no great deal, just a few games for children. But the fact that it was free was transformational. One mother said, “It was so fantastic to find everything was at no cost – even a bouncy castle in a church!” Another said, “I had just spent my last bit of cash at the charity shop on school shoes for the new term, so to come and find all this for free was a real gift.” An example of how the gift economy can touch lives.

So, back to my opening question: when did you last receive something you did not deserve? Perhaps I can suggest an answer – just a few moments ago, when at the start of worship we prayed the confession and heard the leader declare God’s forgiveness. That promise of forgiveness and acceptance is free. We have not deserved it and cannot earn it. It is God’s unconditional love for us. Recognising this and living it out opens for us a turnaround experience, where we leave behind the world of exchange and enter an entirely different value system: the world of gift.

The same happens when we receive Holy Communion. We are again taken into the gift economy. We are fed by God’s precious gift of Christ’s body and blood. We have done nothing to earn such a close relationship with God. Here God makes himself vulnerable in a way that conveys his unconditional love for us – and we are transformed. When we begin to live by such values, our lives start to mirror God’s giving. Then, like that local church, we too create situations where others are touched and influenced for the better by our overflowing love.

George Herbert, the 17th-century Church of England priest, illustrates this well. Early in life he held powerful positions at the Royal Court and enjoyed prestige and influence – a beneficiary of the exchange economy. But his fortunes changed, and he became vicar of a rural parish in Wiltshire, valued instead as a caring and devoted pastor. He wrote many poems of Christian faith, reflecting that God’s love could never be earned but only received as pure gift. One of his most beautiful poems, simply titled Love, speaks powerfully of this transforming, unconditional grace.

Love

George Herbert

LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
            Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
    From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
            If I lack’d anything.

‘A guest,’ I answer’d, ‘worthy to be here:’
            Love said, ‘You shall be he.’
‘I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
            I cannot look on Thee.’
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
            ‘Who made the eyes but I?’

‘Truth, Lord; but I have marr’d them: let my shame
            Go where it doth deserve.’
‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘Who bore the blame?’
            ‘My dear, then I will serve.’
‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’
            So I did sit and eat.