Le Freak/So Chic

How in the world can I ever explain disco, especially to a group of people, many of whom are too young to have experienced it? It’s hard to believe that people—maybe even your mom or dad—went out in public with feathered hair, platform shoes, and bell–bottoms. They did dance moves The Hustle and The Bump. They listened to songs like Le Freak/So Chic, YMCA, and Stayin’ Alive on 8-Track.

If you weren’t born yet, I’m sure my description of the disco era sounds like some crazy nightmare I conjured up the last time I was in the grip of an especially high fever. But it wasn’t. Disco was about America being caught in the grip of Saturday Night Fever. For a few years in the 1970s an incessant rhythm section provided the soundtrack to our lives.

There was a club in New York City that was at the very epicenter of the disco trend, and it was called Studio 54. Everybody that was anybody was there, and the club’s exclusivity was a big part of its draw. On any given night about 1500 people would be milling around outside, and one of the club’s owners would stand outside to personally admit people or turn them away.

You’re too ugly! Get out of here!

Go get some new clothes!

You’re too fat! Come back when you’re on a diet!

But if you were an heiress or a movie star, you’d be motioned in. And people who were neither rich nor famous still hung around outside, because if you were especially attractive you still might get lucky and be admitted to the club. There are stories of all kinds of crazy things people would do to get into Studio 54: women dressing up as Wonder Woman, people taking off their clothes, guys trying to bribe the owners into letting them in, people ditching their dates when only one of them was chosen…

It’s amazing to me that people would put up with that kind of abuse just to get into a disco club. But Studio 54 was more than that. Admittance was the ultimate status symbol of New York Society. It was an honor. You were one of the rich, famous, or beautiful people. Or maybe all three.

Of course, to have your entrance to the club barred was the ultimate slam. Sometimes the gossips columns would run a story about an up-and-coming actor or model that was inexplicably turned away. I guess so-and-so isn’t as famous as they thought they were! What a dishonor.

Honor and dishonor. The in-crowd and the out-group. The guest list and the z-list. Making reputations and breaking reputations. And in the middle of the party, surrounded by the flashing lights and incessant beat, we’ll find Jesus.

One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched... When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: "When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, 'Give this man your seat.' Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, 'Friend, move up to a better place.' Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 14: 1, 7 – 11)

Nobody likes a social climber, right? Jesus is giving some common sense advice that wouldn’t be out of place in a Dale Carnegie book. But there’s something more there—Jesus is telling a story to illustrate a spiritual truth. What he’s really talking about is the Kingdom of God.

Jesus is traveling around the countryside telling everyone who will listen about a God who loves them and wants to show them mercy and has such a wonderful new way of life for them. And the tax collectors, and the drunks, and the whores, and the two time losers embrace him because they know he’s the only second chance they have. But the Pharisees, the most religious people of all, can’t see the Kingdom of God even when it’s right in front of them. Isn’t it ironic that the very people who claimed to have the most profound spiritual insight turned out to be the most blind of all? Jesus makes the same point by telling a different story a little later on:

Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 18: 10 – 14)

Rather than embrace the Christ, the Pharisees stayed secure in their own reputations.

Jesus’ story still speaks to us today. We’re not part of the family of God because of how much we know, how devout we are, or because of our connections. The only reason that we find ourselves part of the family of God, and that is the mercy shown to us by Jesus Christ.

I’m working my way through the book Celtic Daily Prayer. I’d like to quote Tuesday’s reading:

“’Pray for me. I ask you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me.’ If ever you go to a black church that’s a phrase you’ll hear almost every person use when they stand up or come forward to testify—sometimes it’s like punctuation, not heart-felt at all, but it’s still an important reminder.

“If you attend mass you will say, ‘I ask… all the angels and saints and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.’

“And George MacLeod, founder of the Iona Community, as he quotes the old spiritual, echoes the same words:

It’s not my brother or my sister
but it’s me, O Lord:
standing in the need of prayer.
We are so warm in our own self-esteem
that we freeze the folks around us.
We get so high in our estimation
that we stand isolated on a mountain
top of self-righteousness.
that is why You came: Lord Jesus:
not to save the lecherous but to turn
the righteous to repentance
And it is me, O Lord.”

Let’s continue on in starting in verse 12:

Then Jesus said to his host, "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." (Luke 14: 12 – 14)

Everybody and their sister are trying to grow their church, because the church in America is shrinking fast. There are all kinds of books and techniques about how to reverse this trend and have a "successful" church. We all want to find young families that will tithe, and serve, and fit in. And Christ takes our carefully prepared invitation list and crumples it up and tosses it in the trash can. He’s not going to be screening people at the door, and he doesn’t want us to, either. “Whosoever…”

Ultimately, we don’t need to worry about seating arrangements in the party, because we’re all seated at one table, together. And there’s only one person in the place of honor—Jesus Christ.