Generally speaking, I enjoy flying. Boarding, however—not so much. There’s the anxious hovering at the gate itself once the boarding announcements begin. The shoving between and within boarding groups once the actual boarding begins. The shuffling through the jetbridge to the airplane. And then the anxious, annoyed and exasperated, hovering and shoving and shuffling on the airplane itself as people attempt to locate and access their seat, and, perhaps most importantly, as they compete over those precious, oh so precious, overheard compartments.
According to a 2019 study published in the journal Physical Review,[1] some of this anxiety could be alleviated by boarding according to principles of Lorentzian geometry. Please don’t ask me to explain the ins and outs of Lorentzian geometry to you after the service—I can’t—but the upshot of these principles & of their research was that slower passengers—generally, those with the most luggage—should actually board 1st. This, according to math, is apparently the optimal way to board—reducing time & maximizing space. But, we don’t do it this way; we seat by boarding group. Why? Well, boarding groups are a money-maker. People will pay to board first, because most people like to be first. First to be seated; first to begin enjoying their Bloody Mary’s & Biscoff cookies; first to access that overhead storage directly above their seat. And so we all pay for that desire, that desire to be first, with chaotic and congested boarding.
I don’t know that Jesus had much interest in Lorentzian geometry. But, as we see in today’s Gospel, Jesus did have an interest in seating arrangements. Or rather, Jesus had an interest in people’s interest in seating arrangements, because Jesus had a deep interest in people, and He knew that where people sat or tried to sit spoke to where they stood, or thought they stood. In our Gospel, Jesus is at a dinner, and he is watching how the guests are choosing their seats. Most of the guests, it seems, think of themselves as Boarding Group 1 kind of folk, and are choosing “the places of honor.” And then, as Jesus often does, He begins telling parables in response to what He’s seeing and hearing around Him. And, as is also often the case with Jesus, what He says may seem, well, not like good cocktail or dinner party chatter. He implicitly criticizes His fellow guests and His host—criticizes them, in the case of the guests, for how they’re choosing their seats; and, in the case of His host, for his choice of guests.
And yet, despite Jesus’s critical note, there is good news here—for the host, for the guests; and for us. Note the immediate setting: it is the sabbath, the day of rest. And note the broader setting: we did not read these passages today, but Jesus has just been involved in a series of so-called “sabbath controversies,” where Jesus has confronted, and been confronted by, the religious authorities over the nature of sabbath observance. In the preceding chapter, for example—the Gospel reading appointed for Proper 16, last Sunday—Jesus healed a disabled woman on the sabbath and was criticized by the authorities for doing “work” in supposed violation of the sabbath. Jesus responded by decrying the absurdity and inhumanity of their criticism—and then He did it again. In the verses directly preceding today’s reading, Jesus has again healed on the sabbath—this time, a man with severe swelling.
Now, in these healings, Jesus was not just trying to push the authority’s buttons, to be a rule-breaker and a trouble-maker. Rather, Jesus was illustrating the true meaning of sabbath, of rest: rest not only as the cessation of activity, but rest as restoration and renewal, as release from that which ails and afflicts. And Jesus is doing the same here, at dinner.
The theologian Walter Brueggeman, who died just this June, characterized the essence of sabbath not as the abstaining from activity as such, but as resistance:[2] resistance to, and ensuing release from, the relentless striving of this world—for money, for status, for the best seat at the table or on the airplane. And in this resistance, Brueggeman argued, there was rest, true rest.
Today’s dinner guests’ and host’s strategic socializing reveals an anxiety, a profound anxiety about the world and their place in it. Rather than just enjoying the company and the food, they seem determined to use hospitality as an opportunity for self-aggrandizement. How exhausting! And so, at today’s dinner, Jesus—far from just finger-wagging—seeks to heal those gathered from that anxiety and its consequences. He invites His host, the guests, and us, to resist that urge to always strive for the “best” seat, to resist the anxious and exhausting ways of this world: and not just for an hour on Sundays, but always. Jesus invites us, today and every day, to rest in the assurance that God—the ultimate host—has already set a table—or chartered an airplane, if you prefer—with the right seats for everyone. And these seats can’t be bought or sold; they don’t go to the folks with the most frequent flyer miles; they don’t depend on how much we make, or where we come from, or who or how much we know. They depend on God’s graciousness—and our God is gracious.
It may well be that, right now, when we look at our own lives and at the lives of those around us, it doesn’t feel that way: it may not feel like there are the right seats, or even enough seats. There is much injustice in the world, and, even for those of us who are well-off, we have nevertheless likely lived rejection, disappointment, & betrayal. Nevertheless, however turbulent the times, however poor the conditions may seem for rest, we are invited to rest in Christ, and assured that Christ, who “is the same yesterday and today and for ever” is with us and for us.
To actually experience this rest does require something from us, however: it requires faith, and faithfulness. It requires faith in the sense of humility, or the opposite of pride. Rather than living convinced that we are, or always deserve to be, first or number one, it requires acknowledging, as Sirach reminds us, that God is our “Maker.” As such, God is ultimately in control; He has final say on who sits where, whatever our notions. And He is the “Maker” of all. None of us then comes from better or worse “stock,” so to speak: we all come from God’s stock. It also requires faith in the sense of confidence, confidence that even when we suspect we’ve been seated in the wrong place, we have a God who “will never fail….or forsake [us],” and thus we already have and are enough.
And in this in-between time, as we may stand in the aisle, so to speak, wondering whether we will ever get to just sit down, and whether there will be enough leg room and baggage space when we do, we are, as the author of Hebrews reminds us, called to be faithful to God and His commands—not shoving and shouting at each other as we make our way, but continuing in “brotherly love;” welcoming the stranger; providing for those in need; respecting our bodies and those of others; using our wealth for good, rather than seeing it as a good in itself. And we are called to do this not with an attitude of superiority, or with the expectation of advancing our own position, but as “a sacrifice of praise to God,” in thanksgiving for all He has done, is doing, and will do for us, through Christ.
And in such faith and in such faithfulness there is rest, true rest. AMEN.
Sermon by Mrs. Lorraine Mahoney, Postulant for Holy Orders
The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
August 31, 2025
[1]S. Erland et al. “Lorentzian-geometry-based analysis of airplane boarding.” Physical Review 100, no. 062313 (December 2019): 1–13, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.100.062313.
[2] Brueggemann, Walter. 2014. Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now. Westminster John Knox Press.