Progressive reflections on the lectionary #79

Monday 25th August 2025

Luke 14:1, 7-14 How to win friends and upset people

The lectionary serves up one of Luke’s many dialogues between Jesus and the pharisees this week, this time he tells them a story about who should sit where when it comes to banquets. Big deal? Well maybe, yeah. After all, this goes to the heart of Jesus’ radical teaching, his upside down way of looking at the world. Not for nothing would the shared meal become the totemic institution of Christianity, whether what we are left with really represents Jesus’ radical egalitarianism is worth some thought.

In the story today Luke has guests navigating the complexities of social status and hierarchy. Imagine the social disaster of being turfed out of a seat at the fancy end of the table in favour of someone else, and having to go and sit with the plebs. Nightmare! You’ll never hear the end of it. Shared meals in first century Palestine were very important experiences, and gaining honour was life itself.

So I’m going to suggest that in this story Jesus does a couple of things - firstly he critiques the hierarchies of his social world as they are seen within the Greco-Roman dining culture. In this context you find dinner guests trying to get status by getting good seats at the table. Jesus resists the idea that human worth is measured in the sort of honour that is gained by such things. The rich man at one end of the table is not of greater worth than the poor woman at the other.

For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. (14:11)

In the prevailing culture Jesus points to the way that marginalisation is increased, and the gap between rich and poor - inimical to a just and fair society - is increased.

Instead of going along with the unjust and socially destructive ways that society demands, Jesus advocates a radical reversal. Don’t invite the wealthy and powerful, but “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” Doing this means that the power at the heart of the reciprocal economy (you look after me, I’ll look after you) is subverted. Its own power is removed. Care for the people who can do nothing for you.

At the heart of Christian identity, and symbolised by our core ritual, remains the idea that all are invited to the shared meal. The ritual of a shred meal itself, for some elements of the Church, is understood as ‘sacramental’ - a holy, or sacred, symbol. But of what? It seems to me that fundamentally what it symbolises is the reversal of hierarchies, the turning upside down of all social norms. It also symbolises the suffering that is part of realising this extraordinary socio political vision.

In that context the banquet, and later the communion table, become symbols of the upside down nature of God’s ‘kingdom’. A world where the first are last, and the last are first. Remember the key prophetic question: What does God require of you? Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly…

In reflecting on this short story of upside down thinking, perhaps we should think about our own practises - how we behave in the world and how that is reflected in our communal religious gatherings. Have we successfully shaken off the honour/shame way of thinking? Does the reversal of status carry over into our thinking, or are we still creating exclusive spaces? How can we change our ways of thinking and behaving to reflect Jesus’ insistence that this is not the way to live?

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