When Jesus gives dinner party advice, we are prepared to dine. But, how does this relate to real life?
Jesus says when we are invited to a wedding feast, we shouldn’t automatically sit in the best seat.
It’s best to sit in a bad and dishonorable location—so, when we’re invited to take a better seat, then we’ll actually be honored.
This may be good dinner advice, but it’s also a test! Are we behaving in a humble way, as Christ teaches us, or are we puffing ourselves up with pride?
This test extends to us today.
When we gather for Divine Liturgy, we are, in fact, attending the great Heavenly Banquet. It’s a wedding feast between Christ and his bride, the Church.
But, beware!
Where are we sitting? How are we acting? Are we using Liturgy, and, in extension our entire church experience, to be humble and serve? Or, are we using church to show off?
Think back to the last parish assembly or parish council meeting you attended. . . were people demonstrating servant leadership, or insisting on their way only?
Servant leadership is all about humility and looking after others. Insisting on your way and on your preferences is to sit in the best seat, and Christ may ask you to move down.
The good news is that we don’t have to worry about our own honor (and fight for where we think we ought to be seated).
Christ, as the host, bestows honor on us so that no matter where we sit, we’re in the best location possible.
We no longer have to fight for the seat we want, so we free to serve by helping others find their seats.
The Reading
Now it happened that, as he went into the house of one of the chiefs of the Pharisees, they were observing him carefully. And look: Before him was a certain man with dropsy. And speaking out, Jesus addressed the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to heal or not?” And they were silent. And laying hold of him he healed him and sent him away. And he said to them, “Who is there among you whose son or ox will fall into a pit, and he will not immediately pull it up again on a Sabbath day?” And against this they were powerless to return an answer. And taking note of how they were choosing the chief places at the table, he addressed a parable to those who had been invited, saying to them, “When you are invited by someone to wedding festivities, do not recline at the best place at the table, in case someone more honored than you has been invited by him, And the one who invited both you and him will come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man,’ and you then will proceed to take the last place. Rather, when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes he will say to you, ‘Friend, go up to a higher place’; then there will be glory for you before everyone reclining at table with you. For everyone exalting himself will be humbled, and the one humbling himself will be exalted.” And to the one who had invited him he said, “When you prepare a luncheon or dinner, do not call to your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors, lest they invite you in return and it becomes a recompense for you. Rather, when you prepare a celebration invite the destitute, the crippled, the lame, the blind, And you shall be blissful, for they have nothing to repay you with; for it will be repaid you in the resurrection of the just.” (Luke 14:1-11)