“Meditating on Manners”
Rev. Roberta Howey
Lawrence Park Community Church
August 31st, 2025
As we end August, I wanted to focus on a reading that felt a little bit lighter. It is not often we have Jesus giving lectures on etiquette to people around him, and well he sounds a little bit sassy in this reading.
Etiquette and manners are a part of our lives that, while not life and death, do hold serious weight. No, whether someone has elbows on the table or uses a fork the incorrect way will not abolish systemic systems of oppression. But they are a part of communication.
When I was a child I was in day care. And one of the things we would have to do at lunchtime was practice our manners. We would learn how to eat with our mouths closed, how to say please and thank you, and how to frankly not behave like a pack of hyenas. When we had our elbows on the table, we would have to get up, and walk around the table while everyone sang “Robbie Robbie if you're able, keep your elbows off the table. This is not a horse’s stable!”. You learn quickly how to have basic manners in that setting, along with a wee bit of trauma.
Elbows on the table, using the right piece of cutlery, sitting in the chair correctly, what is the point? Why does any of this matter? And how does it matter to Christ?
If manners are the language of communicating through body language, then etiquette is the grammar. If I am inviting someone into my space, I want them to feel good. Exactly how I do that may differ depending on what the occasion is. If it is my best friend I invite her in and show her she is family by keeping things casual, lounging on the couch together. If it is a distant family member I may be more formal and break out the good tea box. On the rare occasion that someone may be a rival (hypothetically!) I want them impressed and intimidated that I know how to treat them socially. All require skill and tactfulness to make sure I communicate my intentions.
Intentions mean everything, especially in Jesus’ time. Remember that social order is how we don’t descend into chaos. Everyone knows who you are based on your class and economic standing, political power, religious status, and military prowess. If you don’t show appropriate manners in treating someone as a superior, inferior, or equal, then anarchy rules. We don’t have police or social media to enforce the laws, written and unwritten. Only a tight-knit community that needs to assume that anything outside the norm is a threat that needs to be addressed immediately.
In short, Good Manners are how someone shows they know social order, and how to read the room. Etiquette is the way we do it. Do I break out the fine china for my best friend, or have my political enemies sit right beside me? Absolutely not! I follow the rules and follow them well. If I show that I know who this person is in the pecking order, and therefore follow those rules that society dictates, well then I am following the rules and am a good person. I am following the rule-book, just like you. There is an idea that we are both approaching on equal footing, and in return getting something for our social labour. You visit me, I treat you well, we can conduct business and know we won’t be scammed or shamed later on.
But what happens if we have two different sets of rules? This happens all the time. We have hundreds of cultures and share so many backgrounds that we are bound to get miscommunication. For example, my friend from Turkey offers me tea. I am a polite Canadian and don’t want to inconvenience her at all, so I say no. But in Turkey, that may be an insult, saying I wouldn’t even try her tea, it is beneath me. That isn’t what either of us mean, but that undercurrent of what certain manners mean resides. Similarly, in Canada slurping your soup is considered incredibly rude. But in countries like Japan, noise is good, it means you are enjoying yourself! And don’t get me started on how these rules create a class system that we, at least in theory, don’t use in North America.
All of these nuanced rules can feel like a tortuous prank on those from other cultures, or neurodivergent folks. Why can’t people say what they mean and mean what they say instead of creating a bunch of ridiculous rules. I don’t blame anyone who tosses the rulebook out the window and sits however they darn well please.
The nuance Jesus gives here is that we are invited to look at that rule book again. Look at why we focus on giving the place of honour, the most respect, to the person with the highest social standing. Often this has been done with the hope that the person with a higher social standing will favour you later on. But instead, Jesus asks us to use those same rule books and turn the world on its head once more. To be humble when we go somewhere else, and to invite people often ignored by the world inside. Whereas the rules around manners are meant to keep the norms of societal power, Jesus is asking us to consider upturning the norms with those same rules. Instead of worrying about offending society, force society to look at itself and question why we consider some to be more powerful than others.
When Jesus asks us to sit in the lower social standing, or to invite the oppressed in, he is asking us to remember that if we can’t throw out the rule-book, because we still need rules, then we can reform them. To remember the most important part of manners is to say what we mean, and mean what we say. And frankly, the most important thing we could be as Christians as well. To say we love all our neighbours, and mean it. To mean to care for others, and to say it. To treat each and every person we meet as worthy of our care and God’s love. Just as we are.
In many societies the worst thing we could accuse someone of is being rude. Accusing them of racism or of committing fraud, but of simply upsetting the social order by being rude and deviating from that manners rulebook. I think this parable is Jesus asking us to question why the rules are there in the first place, and what that means. It doesn’t mean throwing them out entirely! After all, inviting everyone to a banquet, including the marginalized, means feeding them and hosting them with dignity. But question why the hierarchy is there in the first place.
%20(4).png)