Sunday Readings: Sirach 3.17-18, 20, 28-29, Hebrews 12.18-19, 22-24, Luke 14.1, 7-14
Jesus spoke to the leader of the Pharisees who had invited him to the meal. “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors. They may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. You will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous” (Luke 14.12-14).
At the dinner Jesus notices guests claiming the best seats and launches into the parable that skewers two kind of people, those who take the places of honor at banquets and those who invite people just like them, or better than them, to dinners they give. Invite the poor, Jesus tells the guests, the lame and the blind.
In his advice for making guest lists, Jesus prefers those who cannot repay their hosts with a return invitation and places of honor at their tables. Luke wants to widen the circle of those who eat at the tables of the elite rather than tighten the social circle. He wants our guest lists to help distribute food justly rather than cut people off as chronically inferior, deserving distance from us rather than place among us. Luke urges us to seek God’s blessings rather than honored places at earthly meals.
What meal(s) hold special memory for you? Who was there? Whom do you invite to your table?