One of the things that amazed Jenny and I when we were living in Canberra was the attention paid to status. Many of the people we served worked for the government. One’s status was reflected by the designation and level within the department one served, and the suburb you were expected to live in commensurate with that status. If you were congratulated on a promotion, the next question would be, “And how soon are you moving?’ Anxiety levels were high when there was a change of government, as it often signalled the restructuring of departments, some of which might be merged, while others might be dismantled altogether. This would trickle down to a possible change of status, not always for the better.
One could be free from this phenomenon in the churches, where all levels and none gathered for worship and ministers, elders and boards worked hard at nipping status awareness in the bud.
I remember a major anniversary celebration at Ainslie Church of Christ, a cathedral site that had been generously allocated by the Federal Government. The final service was steeped in pomp and ceremony, with bishops and moderators from various denominations gathered as honoured guests and sitting in the front rows reserved for them.
Ainslie hosted a youth outreach venture, ministering to some of the city’s most disadvantaged young people. These kids were shepherded by a dedicated husband and wife team, streetwise and full of heart, who did not exactly prioritise the finer points of church protocol.
That night, they bused in about forty of their wild flock. The young ones filled the remaining seats in the sanctuary, a restless presence throughout the proceedings . As the service drew to a close, the organ thundered and the dignitaries began their stately procession down the aisle.
Just then, Colin—the youth leader, who was outside – called out, “Okay, all out! Hot dogs for everyone!” Instantly, the young mob sprang to their feet and surged through the surprised procession, eager to be first in line.
The image that stays with me is from a few minutes later: a bishop in full regalia, standing with his hot dog, chatting amiably with a tattered teenager. It was a moment of grace—status dissolved, hunger met, and communion shared in the most unexpected way.
I thought Jesus would approve!
This morning Luke invites us to the third dinner party hosted by a local religious leader with Jesus on the guest list — a sign of Jesus’ notoriety, but also a sign that members of the religious establishment, many of whom have become “hostile toward him,” are “watching him closely.” Read it here in Luke 14:1, 7-14
How is Jesus going to behave? What will he say? Will he observe the correct protocols? What will he do that we can use against him? How can we destroy his credibility and his following?
One of the earliest Christian hymns is recorded in Paul’s letter to the Christians in Philippi. The hymn’s lyrics describe Christ’s signature move as kenosis, emptying himself of divine attributes in an act of loving humility. The song goes like this: “though he was in the form of God,” he did not “regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him…” (Phil 2:6-9).
Luke’s story appears to echo this paradoxical celebration of humility and exaltation. Yes, it seems it is possible to hold both together when we understand that one is the pathway to the other.
But is Jesus being just a little mischievous? Maybe I’m projecting onto him some of the old laconic humour that came out of the Gallipoli trenches where the diggers lampooned their stiff British superiors. It appears Jesus knows how to play the crowd at the expense of those whose motives are toxic. I see him having fun here and enjoying the spectacle of a disturbed dinner party. But how quickly wit and humour become radical prophecy and an illustration of the essence of the realm of God.
I’m now drawing largely on commentary from the SALT Project and incorporating some reflections of my own.
It’s a dinner party, but for Luke, the atmosphere is tense. Some local religious leaders have already taken up a hostile stance toward Jesus, and they’re looking for a chance to trip him up.
This backdrop of tension makes Jesus’ actions all the more vivid and striking. After noticing how the guests “chose the places of honour” at the table, he brazenly offers them “a parable,” essentially a paraphrase of the advice in Proverbs 25:6-7 “Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place of the great, 7 for it is better to be told, “Come up here,” than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.”
Jesus echoes what the devout would have already been taught:
Listen — if you really want to be honoured at a dinner party like this one, don’t go for the best seat right away, since someone even more honourable than you might show up and force you to give up your seat, and that’ll be embarrassing. Instead, take the lowest seat, and then your host might make a show of calling you up toward a better one. Then everyone will notice you, and you’ll be sitting pretty!
The Salt Project declares: How helpful! But there’s more here than meets the eye, for Jesus is subversively, deliciously skewering the honour hierarchy in at least three ways. First, any effective jockeying for honour in a social gathering needs to be covert; once it’s brought out into the open, it becomes tacky, cringeworthy, and therefore dishonorable. Exposure is precisely the effect of Jesus’ “helpful tip” for the ambitious guests. It’s a bit like your mother telling you, in public, not to chew with your mouth open. In other words, by publicly advising them in this way, Jesus is effectively calling them out!
Jesus then offers a sweeping aphorism: “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” This initially sounds like a straightforward call to humility — but, in the context of the dinner party and the advice from Proverbs, this summary creates a conundrum.
It reminds me of Charles Dickens’ character, Uriah Heep, undone, repeatedly protesting his humility as a cover for his prideful deviousness.
And who can forget, Mac Davis’ hit of the 80s:
O Lord it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way
I can’t wait to look in the mirror
‘Cause I get better lookin’ each day
To know me is to love me, I must be a wonderful man
O Lord its hard to be humble, I’m doing the best that I can!
Is strategically sitting at the “lowest place” really a case of “humbling oneself”? Isn’t it just another scheme, just another attempt at being “exalted,” at shrewdly jockeying for “the places of honour”? Thus, the whole idea of honour-manoeuvring is exposed as a sham and a shame.
Jesus immediately follows up with another recommendation, this time encouraging the dinner’s host to hold future banquets not for those who can return the favour down the road, but rather for those who can’t: “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” Jesus paints a remarkable picture: imagine the ambitious status-seekers strategically taking the “lowest place” at the table — and thereby ceding the “places of honour” to those typically excluded from such events altogether. The tables are turned! The last shall be first!
Jesus, like a court jester, pierces and scrambles the honour hierarchy, calling out and confounding the prideful, and opening up the gates of acceptance, the gates of salvation, to the impoverished, the marginalised, and those left behind. God’s table overturns the world’s petty pecking orders. The privileged are summoned to do the same. Genuine humility doesn’t serve today for the sake of exaltation tomorrow. Genuine humility means getting out of the manoeuvring-for-exaltation game altogether, and building a more just, hospitable world.
Last week, Jesus warned us about how religious practices like sabbath-keeping can be distorted into self-serving parodies that blind us to the essence of God’s realm. Today, he shows that even commonplace events (like dinner parties) and laudable virtues (like humility) can be twisted into creating hollow schemes of higher and lower, insider and outsider. Attempts at “exaltation” come in all sorts of disguises.
It is feared that today’s protests, in contrast to last week’s, are heavily disguised by white supremacists using anti-migration as a rallying point for their cause of proudly preserving national identity. Ultimately, the call to unity is a virtue-signaling device that sows division. Sadly, many will participate, failing to see the interests that are being served.
The arrival of God’s dawning realm dismantles the status structures of the world. In God’s Great Banquet, the rich and powerful, the privileged and prestigious, won’t sit at the head table.
Rather, “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” will sit there, the very people typically left out and left behind in worldly life, and indeed the very people to whom and for whom Jesus declares his inaugural good news of Jubilee. As Mary sang, the mighty will be humbled, and the lowly lifted up. The tables will turn and are turning even now!
How can we take part today in this table-turning revolution? Neither by seeking out the “places of honour” to be exalted now, nor by sitting at the “lowest place” to be exalted later. Jesus tantalisingly locks shut both of these doors and so sends us out on a different kind of mission with a different kind of spring in our step, a journey in which “being exalted” isn’t the goal at all. The goal is to honour and rejoice in the full presence of our Creator. The goal is to forget all the ego-stroking devices that we use to make ourselves feel significant. The goal is to truly love ourselves by fully loving God and fully loving our neighbour. The goal is love. But not just any love. Jesus envisions a love freed from all crass attempts at exaltation, at scoring points, at earning righteousness. A love for its own sake, without ulterior motive, without scheme or advantage, without quid quo pro. A truly generous love, a love that does not seek to be “repaid.”
Jesus stirs the pot in our everyday encounters. Not out of mischief, but as a demonstrator of the saturation and marination of God’s love for all.
Wondering Pilgrim 