-
As summer is waning, we carry many memories of meal gatherings with family and friends. The sharing of food is one of the most common elements in the gospel of Luke. It progresses the narrative along and provides the setting for major teaching moments in the gospel. So let us reflect on today’s meal narrative through Jesus’ Mediterranean world lens. The meals were very powerful means of communication. Above all, meals affirmed and gave legitimacy to a person’s role, and it also carried a status symbol in a given community. For this reason, most meals in antiquity were attended by people of the same social rank much like the protocol of an exclusive club gathering of our time. Accepting an invitation to dinner in the ancient Mediterranean world obligated a guest to return the favor. It was not uncommon for guests to decline the invitation, especially if they realized that returning the favor was more than they could or cared to handle. Crass as this may seem to our modern sensibilities, this practice of reciprocity was a key factor in the economic life of equals in Jesus’ day. Moreover, inviting people who cannot return the favor is viewed as cultural suicide. To associate with such is to dishonor one’s own status. One’s social equals will then shun future invitations, and a host of means will be socially ruined and even ostracized.
The fact that the ruler of the Pharisees invited Jesus to dine at his house indicates that the Pharisees accepted Jesus as a social equal. But the host and his guests were “watching” Jesus closely. The word used here and elsewhere in Luke implies “hostile observation”. So, this invitation to dinner lends itself to ‘testing the Rabbi from Nazareth’ at close quarters. As in every such controversial setting Jesus responds by telling them a parable. Jesus is very insightful, as he employs deep teachings of ‘wisdom’.
One tradition in the Hebrew scriptures, especially in the wisdom literature, frequently highlights the irony of inverted expectations. Thus, Sirach’s sage teaches that love is experienced in giving, rather than receiving; that greatness is revealed in humility; that wisdom is a better listener than talker. The Psalms tell us that God becomes the dwelling of the homeless, the liberty of prisoners, and refreshing rain for dry hearts. So, Jesus censures people who take the seats of honor at a feast. Take the least honorable places, he tells them, and then the host can invite you to a more honorable place. Jesus is rebuking the pride of those people who go for the honorable seats. The paradoxical reversals occurs because the person who is prideful has not asked the question: ‘what does my host think of me?’.
It is not only guests who have the problem of ego-enhancement. The host does too. Elite house parties, whether hosted in Greek and Roman times or our own day, are honored by the best and brightest who attend. Such worldly wisdom is reversed as well. It is better, Jesus says, that we invite the unwanted and discarded to our dinners and be happy when they cannot repay us. For our payment will be in the life-after, in eternity.
Humility helps us acknowledge who we are, and this invites us to a constant conversion and growth. God determines true honor, and at the resurrection of the righteous, God personally will reward and honor the host who has been gracious to those unable to return an invitation. This statement surely stung the Pharisees, who believed in the resurrection (Acts 23:6). Having set a trap for Jesus, they are themselves trapped by Jesus, whose teachings truly turn the world upside-down.
Humility makes us accept our “creatureliness” and turn to the Creator for grace and security. We realize our true selves in being at home with the Father; after all, we are in his Image! The acknowledgment of our creatureliness makes the life of God to flow in us. In this way, the words of Jesus come true: “the one who humbles himself will be exalted”! Our humility makes us recognize that every good in ourselves is a gift from God and is meant to be given back to the Lord by sharing it with others.
Fr Tom Kunnel, C.O.