We’re hosting a gathering of church friends and people are taking seats in our living room. There’s an assortment of chairs, from the love seat to folding chairs, from nicely upholstered armchairs to the piano bench. Not too surprisingly, the biggest most comfortable looking armchair goes unoccupied almost to the last. Someone will perch bravely on the hard bench or even on the bricks of the fireplace hearth before he or she will plop down in the nicest chair in the room.
I’d like to think that my brothers and sisters in Christ have learned well Jesus’ lesson in this Sunday’s Gospel reading, Luke 14: 1, 7-14. Like Jesus directed guests at a Sabbath afternoon meal, they want to leave the best seats for someone else, choosing something uncomfortable for themselves. And sometimes it does work out as Jesus and the Old Testament reading from Proverbs 25:6-7 suggest. Beth and I will notice some older dear soul squirming on a hard surface and insist she or he move to the nice chair.
Sometimes, though, some thoughtless younger person, or even I myself, will notice the empty chair and grab that comfy spot with no further consideration. Leaving the good seat for someone else is a lesson that keeps needing to be learned.
It’s not, of course, actually about seating arrangements at social events, although what happens in such situations is a fairly graphic clue to people’s spiritual attitudes and lives. In verses 7-11, Jesus simply used how people chose where to sit as an illustration of the general spiritual principle that humility is the route to honor in God’s sight.
Extended, that spiritual attitude of humility becomes generous hospitality in verses 12-14 as Jesus calls upon us to practice social relationships in a way that benefits others, particularly those most needy, rather than ourselves.
Though there is a promised reward at the resurrection in verse 14, the tenor of the whole passage is toward a way of life that runs counter to both ancient and contemporary cultural norms which suppose that we will normally do that which brings advancement and opportunity to ourselves. Instead, spiritual advancement calls for suppression of our immediate, present advantage in favor of others, again especially in favor of those most disadvantaged.