Pot-luck Dinners and the Rhetoric of Politics

Growing up in a minister's family it seemed like half my meals were eaten at church pot-luck dinners. Tables sagging under platters of fried chicken and bowls of jello; plates crowded with potato and pasta and green bean salads, spaghetti, beanies and weanies and a deviled egg, with a wedge of pecan pie balanced on top. It was glorious! But here was the thing: the planners never really knew how many would come, and how much -- or what -- they would bring. There was always the latent fear that nothing would appear but desserts. This particular prospect, I'll confess, never alarmed me. Moreover, there was always this concern -- despite centuries of contrary evidence -- that there wouldn't be enough. The worst possible dread of a church pot-luck dinner was that someone would not get his or her share (particularly in light of the odd little elderly woman in our church who routinely went through the line with a plate and an open purse into which she deposited enough food to feed her neighborhood). It was this persistent fear, along, I suspect, with an appropriate measure of pastoral etiquette, that my parents always cautioned my brother and me to wait until the end of the line. "Go last," was the reliable message, "in case there isn't enough."

It was the same message around the table at home -- spoken with the eyes more than the lips -- when guests would join us for a meal: "Serve yourself last, in case there isn't enough."

I've thought about those pot-luck lines this week watching political convention coverage, seeing all those signs exclaiming "America First." Parsing various interpretations of that idea, I've wondered about the planners' intent.

If the idea is that, as Americans, we should think less about our partisan successes and more about the good of the country as a whole, I commend the idea. If the idea is that we should spend less time fretting over the particular advancements of one particular gender or race or state and more time encouraging the equal opportunity for all persons, I'm all for it. If the intent is to recall us all to a greater commitment to our common, rather than our special, interests, then I think we should print up a lot more of those signs.

But if the intent has been to inflame our nationalistic assertiveness and air of superiority above all else; if the idea has been that we should promote American prosperity, priority and security above the needs of the rest of the planet -- above the well-being of all people, regardless of where they live; above the values of justice and compassion and the stewardship of all creation -- then I think the prospect is misguided, contrary to the core values that gave our nation birth, and ultimately self-destructive. To say nothing of sinful.

Can't we, as a country, be proud without being prideful? Can't we, as a people, be grand without being grandiose? Can't we be patriotic without being dismissive and ultimately blind? God knows the world needs leadership, but it simply can't tolerate any more arrogance. It needs strength, but it cannot survive any more swagger and muscle. The world desperately needs imagination and productivity, but it can't sustain any more consumptive self-indulgence. The world has had to put up with too many tyrants and bullies, arrogant and self-righteous and even well-meaning nations who have put their needs, their appetites, their comfort, their satisfaction and their rationalizations first, and it is quite literally sick of it.

I don't know if the double-entendre of the signs was intentional, but if any of this latter insinuation soaked in with the ink, I think our country could be better served by a few less conventions and a few more pot luck suppers.

"The last will be first, and the first will be last" (Matthew 20:16).

"Whoever wants to be first among you must be the servant of all" (Mark 10:44).