Playing the game

August 31, 2025 • Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
Scripture Lesson: Luke 14:1-14
Rev. K Karpen, Lead Pastor, COTV

[You can view the full worship video recording at: https://youtu.be/DLWQpSxe3dw]

Jesus was invited to lunch one shabbat. It’s the kind of a thing that he did quite a lot. This lunch was at the home of some Pharisee. The folks with whom Jesus didn’t always agree.

 And those folks were watching him close as they could to see whether Jesus behaved as he should. Would he play the game right? Would he break any laws? Would he follow the rules? Every word?  Every clause?

 Just then there appeared a man who was sick.
Jesus said to those people, “Hey, answer me quick:
You people who seem to think you’re so hot,
Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath, or not?”

Well, that whole pack of people stayed very quiet:
They wouldn’t affirm it, and they couldn’t deny it.
So, Jesus healed the man, and then sent him away.
He was playing the game in his own special way.

Jesus said “If on shabbat an ox or child fell,
you would drop everything to pull them out of the well!
Here’s my rules of the game,” he explained to them slowly,
“Treat people the same, treat the people’s needs as holy.”

Well, they didn’t kick him out, so Jesus sat there and watched
How the guests all wrangled for places, that shabbat.
And he spoke up again, with a piece of advice,
He said, “Please listen up, I don’t want to tell you twice.”

“When you’re invited to a banquet or you go to a wedding
(or a similar event of the type you may be dreading),
don’t try to grab a place, thinking that’s what you’re meriting.
Lest you’re told to come lower, which could be quite embarrassing,

“Take the lowest space instead, and see what may transpire.”
Your host may well invite you, “Friend, come and move up higher.”
You sometimes have to play the game, so play it with agility.
And maybe come to life with just a measure of humility.”

Then Jesus told the Pharisee, who by now regretted inviting him
“Here’s what you should have done,” he said, by way of gently chiding him. “When you give another feast like this, don’t bother with these fools.
Here’s a different way to play the game, a different set of rules.”

“Invite those who are poor, or weak, or lame or paralyzed,
Those ostracized, or marginalized, despised, demoralized,
Those who have no place, and no position otherwise.
Those are folks you need to know, with whom to empathize.”

 I’m sure this wisdom fell quite flat with those there in authority,
Who played the game of life from positions of superiority
But Jesus never played their games the way he was expected
He preferred to spend his time among the folks that they neglected.

Perhaps you don’t like playing games, I guess you’d have a point
And trying to jockey for a place may leave you out of joint
If you’re like me, you avoid the very place you’re told to be,
Consider, though, the space you hold, the place you’re called to be

 This story of the wedding feast might help us to get schooled
In the ways obeying the God of love may lead us to break rules
And when faced with those convinced of their superiority
We may be called to challenge their unjust authority.

I hope you get the point I’ve made, cause I’ve run out of rhymes
This poem has worn itself right out, and taken too much time
And if I’ve just confused you, about what all this might mean,
By all means take a look yourself, at Luke, chapter fourteen!

***

On Friday night, Charlene and I decided to go to an open mic night at a church a couple of blocks from our home. As you know, open mic events offer a mixed bag as far as entertainments go, but a poet friend was supposed to be reading some of her original work, and we wanted to support her.

The event had just begun as we arrived, and we went in to look for a nice safe spot at the back of the room, where we could sneak out once our friend was done. Just then a self-appointed usher swooped in to help us to seats in the front row, which of course was empty.

I think it is safe to say that she was not ushering us up higher in that Jesus way, but rather getting us to sit where nobody else wanted to. And of course we were stuck up there for the whole two hours.

 That makes me wonder, how did those of you here choose where to sit this morning? Maybe there’s a role you need to play, you sing in the choir, you make the tech work, you try to welcome everyone coming in. Maybe you come early so you can find a coveted spot in the back there.

If this is your first time here, welcome! Did you find the table set-up perplexing? It can be confusing, figuring out where our place is. Where to be, and when.

Last week, when I was done preaching uptown at St Paul & St Andrew, I settled in to worship with you, after the fact, on YouTube, and I listened to Benz’s powerful message, about what we’re called to do, where we’re called to be, at this peculiar and troubling time in our lives.

All week, one phrase from the sermon echoed in my head:
‘Hopelessness is the enemy of justice.’

I don’t know about you, but I needed that, I needed to hear that: ‘Hopelessness is the enemy of justice’, because my level of hope has been slowly eroding the past few months. And without hope, we become paralyzed. We start believing things are pointless. But Benz challenged us to breathe hope into those who may be ‘handcuffed by hopelessness’.

While I was still thinking about those challenging words, I got a message from Benz to please come to Newark the next day, to Delaney Hall, the huge ICE detention center in the middle of that city’s bleak industrial zone.

I had all kinds of vitally important things I was supposed to do that next day, but I decided instead to go out to Newark and join a small band of religious folks bearing witness on the road outside that place of sadness. And who did I see when I got there, but our own Pastor Ashley!

 There, on the side of that busy road, we prayed, we heard stories, we sang, and one of the songs we sang was that old song of resistance:

 We shall not, we shall not be moved
We shall not, we shall not be moved
Just like a tree, planted by the water
We shall not be moved No More deportations…

There was so much traffic noise, our tiny witness was in danger of being drowned out. But a funny thing happened, as we stood there, in that bleak place of hopelessness. So many truckers, seeing our little band with our handmade signs, started honking their horns in support! 

 It shows you the limits of my imagination, and my own prejudices, but I just never thought that truckers would be the ones with whom we would we would make common cause!

 But as they went by honking and waving, we started waving back and shouting, and I don’t know if the detainees inside the detention center could hear our little band of religious folks singing, but I know damn well they heard those truckers, and maybe, maybe someone’s handcuffs of hopelessness slipped just a bit. And I was glad I responded to the call to come to that place.

***

What is your place?
Where are you called to be right now?

What is your place in this beautiful and intentionally diverse community, this community called by the God of Life to dismantle oppression, build kin-dom justice and actively work towards the creative transformation of ourselves and this world?

And what is the place of the Church of the Village going to be and become, as we move forward?

As you know, we are at a pretty crucial moment in the life of this place. And I hope soon we can begin to work on a process to figure out the future of this faith community. It’s a process that will need you.

It will need everyone’s thoughts, ideas, energy and commitment.

***

Which brings us back to Jesus, at lunch with his frenemies the Pharisees. It’s interesting in Luke’s Gospel how often Jesus is hanging out with Pharisees.

He loves to engage with them, but he does it on his own terms.
He’s playing their game, but he’s not interested in following all their rules.

He has his own rules to follow, because in Jesus’ view, rules that are designed not to lift people up but to keep them down, are rules that must be broken. Those are rules that are made to be broken.

Broken not for the sake of breaking them, but because, for people of faith there is a rule that takes priority: the love commandment.

The commandment to love as you would be loved; to love your neighbor as yourself, to love the foreigner as one of your own.

That commandment to love, to do love, is the rule above all other rules.

So Jesus plays the game, but he plays by that different set of rules.
He plays the game, but he doesn’t let the game play him.

I think as we move forward as a beloved community of faith, it will be so important to hold onto the rule of love. Who knows? We may have very different opinions about how to move forward. We may have different ideas of what the future should look like.

 You know, the Church of the Village holds an amazing place in the life of New York City.  I ran into some NYU students the other day and they knew all about what goes on here. I don’t know that they’ll ever show up, but your witness goes beyond these walls, and your creed of radical inclusion is shaking our whole United Methodist denomination in the very best way.

And - the joyful nature of worship here always leaves me humming that old song:

 This joy that I found, the world didn’t give it to me, 
This joy that I found, the world didn’t give it to me, 
This joy that I found, the world didn’t give it to me, 
The world didn’t give it – the world can’t take it away.

Amen!

——————————————————————————————————

Now you know how we do, please take the next few minutes talking around these tables, move if you need to, or around your zoom room.

1. Share something about how you find your place in this place, and how you find your place in your life. 

2. Who or what tells you where to be, who to be, and what are you called to do?

3. What place can the Church of the Village hold as we move together into the future?

Copyright (c) 2025 - K Karpen
All rights reserved.