In Case You Missed It: August 31, 2025 Sermon
The Table Turns
Series: What Moves You?
Gospel Reading: Luke 14:1, 7–14
Introduction — Two Sabbath Scenes
Last week we stood in the synagogue on the Sabbath.
A woman, bent for eighteen years, could not lift her head.
Jesus called her, laid hands on her, and said, “Woman, you are set free.”
She stood tall and gave glory to God.
But the synagogue leader was angry. “Not on the Sabbath!”
Jesus replied, “You untie your ox or donkey to give it water on the Sabbath—
should not this daughter of Abraham be untied today?”
The message was clear: the Sabbath is not about restriction. The Sabbath is about release.
Today’s text is also the Sabbath, but the room has changed.
Not the synagogue—a Pharisee leader’s house.
Jesus heals again—a man with dropsy. This time there’s no protest. Just quiet.
All eyes are watching Jesus.
Into that silence, Jesus speaks.
Today our focus is “seats” and “invitations.” At this table Jesus shows how the table of God’s Kin-dom (the kinship-based reign of God) turns.
The World of the Sabbath Meal
Back then, meals were never just meals. They were stages of honor.
Where you sat told people who you were.
Higher seat, higher honor. Lower seat, lower worth.
Invitations mattered too.
You invited those who could invite you back.
Hospitality often hid a transaction—favor in, favor out.
So banquets buzzed with quiet competition.
Polite on the surface, calculating underneath.
Am I above or below? Who notices me?
Jesus Disrupts the Table
Jesus sees it. He always does.
To the guests he says:
“Don’t rush for the places of honor. Take the lowest place.
For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
To the host he says:
“When you give a banquet, don’t invite those who will pay you back.
Invite the poor, the forgotten—those who cannot repay.”
This isn’t etiquette. This is the Kin-dom breaking in.
The table turns:
from status to humility,
from transaction to grace,
from competition to compassion.
And note: humility here is not self-deprecation.
It’s receiving a new identity—I am a guest by grace, seated by God.
This scene also leans forward into the next story (14:15–24),
the great banquet that keeps widening until the hall is full.
The table keeps turning—and widening.
Our World of Competition
We may not fight over literal seats, but we know the game.
We compare. We measure.
Who has the better job, the nicer house, the stronger résumé.
Who stands at the center. Who stays on the edges.
Even at church, we notice whose voice carries and who is quietly present.
Our banquets aren’t just in dining rooms; they’re on our screens.
Polished gatherings. Curated friendships. Perfect tables.
We scroll, and we measure—Who was invited? Was I?
Into that habit Jesus asks: “Whose table are you building?”
If someone watched your week, whose table would they see you building?
I confess: I slip into comparison too.
When I do, Christ turns my heart’s chair back to its proper place.
A Story from My Home Church
When I was growing up in my home church in S.Korea, we shared a meal every Sunday after worship. The church had six districts, each with five or six small groups. Each week one or two groups took their turn preparing lunch for everyone.They did most of the shopping on Saturday.
On Sunday, after the 9 a.m. service, the kitchen came alive by 10—
chopping, simmering stews, and cooking rice in giant pots.
When the 11 o’clock service ended, many families went home—
and that, too, was Sabbath rest. But the choir rehearsed upstairs. Trustees and finance teams met. Sunday School teachers prepared for the 2 p.m. children’s service.
Around 12:30, scattered workers returned.
The choir came down. Ledgers closed. Teachers paused their planning.
We gathered at the same tables. Everyone was welcome. Everyone had a place.
As the pastor’s kid, I had a tiny “privilege.”
At the bottom of those huge rice pots a golden crust—nurungji—formed.
A little was saved for the senior pastor.
And the kitchen crew, who knew me, would break off a generous piece and slip it into my hand. I’d run outside. My friends were waiting, eyes bright.
We broke it and shared it—the smoky crunch, the simple joy.
Adults had given up part of their portion for the children.
My friends didn’t “earn” it; they trusted it would be shared.
Years later I realized: the beauty of that meal was not what sat on the plate,
but who gathered around it—
who made room, who shifted a seat, who shared what they had.
Grace, Not Wages (Wesleyan Thread)
The Kin-dom moves like this.
God first invites—prevenient grace.
We respond in trust—justifying grace.
At the table we serve and are changed—sanctifying grace.
This is social holiness: grace shaping me, forming us, and flowing toward neighbors.
Yes, there are blessings in serving.
But blessings are not paychecks; they’re overflow.
Think of a parent or any caregiver—love gives without expecting wages.
And in that giving, joy is born.
And hear this clearly:
“Invite those who cannot repay” is not a call to top-down charity.
That’s the old seating chart.
At Christ’s table, all of us become receivers—and all of us become givers.
Not “we who always provide” and “they who always receive,”
but neighbors who witness grace to one another.
A Call to SUM
This fall at Simsbury UMC we begin new fellowship tables.
We won’t choose our circle. We’ll meet people we don’t yet know.
That is the gift.
In surprise conversations and patient listening,
we discover Christ among us.
The Kin-dom doesn’t change the world by seating charts,
but by seating choices—
who we notice, whom we make room for, whom we refuse to leave at the margins.
We’ve already tasted this:
When we packed backpacks for children we may never meet, the table widened beyond our walls.
As the Georgia mission team prepares, the table is being carried further still.
This is the radical hospitality of Jesus—
invitations drawn by grace, not driven by return.
Next Sunday: Rally Day — An Invitation of Grace
(Sunday, September 7 · 10:00 a.m. Joint Service · Theme: Mission Possible)
Next Sunday we’ll gather at 10:00 a.m. for a single joint service,
followed by our all-church Rally Day celebration.
Our theme this year is Mission Possible.
Most of you have already received a mission invitation.
Today’s word is the key that opens that envelope.
We are not inviting you to programs or schedules alone.
We’re inviting you to a mission table.
Bring your voice, your gifts, your time next Sunday—
not for recognition, not for return,
but because your seat is already reserved by grace.
From that seat, grace will flow through you to others.
Metrics matter; mission matters more.
We do not want to be a church staring only at attendance, budgets, and statistics.
We long to be a church where love, justice, and grace overflow in our words and ways.
And the world is watching.
As they watched Jesus at that Sabbath banquet—
with suspicion, with curiosity, with longing—
they will look at our table.
What will they see at our table next Sunday?
Conclusion — The Table Turns
Here’s the good news: Jesus’ table is still turning.
From competition to compassion.
From transaction to generosity.
From pride to humility.
From exclusion to embrace.
From seeing seats to seeing faces.
And the invitation is open—
not only to the strong, but to the weary;
not only to the familiar, but to the forgotten;
not only to those who can repay, but to those who cannot.
Come. Bring your life. Bring your gifts.
Not to earn a seat—
but to join a feast where every seat is grace.
At the Lord’s table, it’s not about where you sit—
it’s about whom you see.
And when we see one another through the eyes of Christ—the table turns.
And when the table turns, we taste the Kin-dom of God.
Amen.