Saturday in the 30th Week of Ordinary Time, November 4, 2023

Luke 14, 1; 7-11

On a sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully. He told a parable to those who had been invited, noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honor. A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him, and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then you would proceed with embarrassment to take the lowest place. Rather, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place so that when the host comes to you he may say, ‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’ Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

After the Lord has healed the man with the dropsy who was brought into the house in order to test him as to whether he would heal on the Sabbath, the Lord tells a parable.  We should note that the atmosphere was cold due to the silence of the Pharisees in response to the Lord’s counter-challenge regarding healing on the Sabbath.  The Pharisees did not answer the Lord Jesus posed to them, then silently watched Jesus heal the dropsical man, and finally did not answer his challenge.  With the healing, Jesus confronted their claim of authority to interpret and teach the Law.  The parable will confront their false sense of importance: a person’s importance is not defined or assumed by that person but is acknowledged by others.  This gets at the idea that no one has appointed them as teachers of Israel — they are self-appointed and are therefore not legitimate.

“He told a parable to those who had been invited, noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table.”  The Lord Jesus seizes on a quite ordinary situation unfolding before him and uses it to explain a spiritual truth.  Now, we should imagine here a dozen or more Pharisees, each claiming social distinction and perhaps acuity in interpreting or teaching, or perhaps pointing to the honor due their age, contending with forced civility for the higher places at the table.  This is significant because an admission of another’s primacy puts a man further back in the pack in terms of respect.  None of them ask their host where they should sit.

“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honor.”  The Lord speaks of a wedding banquet particularly to avoid embarrassing the Pharisees seeking to recline at places of honor at this feast.  This deferral that the Lord advocates does not make much sense to them.  For them, the purpose of a feast was to jockey for and take the seat of honor.  “A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him, etc.”  When many guests are invited, the chance of any particular guest being the most distinguished is small, but pride and the need for recognition often trample over prudence.  “Give your place to this man.”  That is, the place you have usurped for yourself.  The rebuke is public and a definitive statement that you are not worthy of this higher place.  How can you claim it anywhere else after this?  “You would proceed with embarrassment to take the lowest place.”  But the feast now turns to ashes in your mouth and your lowly neighbors, delighting in your comedown, refuse to talk to you.

“Go and take the lowest place.”  That is, the place furthest from the host and the most respected guests.  By taking this seat the guest shows himself unwilling to esteem himself greater than the others and simply glad to have been invited at all.  “My friend, move up to a higher position.”  This guest willingly receives his mark of importance from the host, whose house and feast this is, rather than making a claim that can probably not stand up.  He does not appoint himself the most distinguished but receives this appointment from the only one who can make it.  “Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table.”  That is, those near him at the table who have also been appointed to sit in their places by the host.

We can see this as the Lord repudiating the Pharisees and their self-appointed position as the teachers of Israel and also as a lesson of humility for all of us.  None of us can properly judge himself or others in terms of virtue or wisdom and so we should simply be content with the place assigned to us and not strive to be known as greater in any way than another, for “who distinguishes you? Or what do you have that you did not receive, and if you hast received, why do you glory, as if you had not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4, 7).