Last Updated on October 28, 2022 by GMC
A reflection on Luke 14:7-14
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)
©️2022 by Gloria M. Chang
On a sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully.
He told a parable to those who had been invited, noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honor. A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him, and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then you would proceed with embarrassment to take the lowest place. Rather, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place so that when the host comes to you he may say, ‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’ Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table. For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Then he said to the host who invited him, “When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Luke 14:1, 7-14 (Lectionary)
Who among us can repay the Lord for all his benefits?1 Like the poor, crippled, lame, and blind, none of us can requite the Lord for all his bounty and goodness. The Suffering Servant, descending from the very throne of God to the lowest place on earth at Golgotha, shows us the kingly way. “Follow me.”2
This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
John 15:12
Let those who cannot repay the Lord welcome those who cannot repay. Solidarity with Christ is its own reward.
“Blessed are those who have been called
Revelation 19:9
to the wedding feast of the Lamb.”
Jesus loves his poor, blind guests
Who can’t repay him for his fests.
References
1 Psalm 116:12.
2 Matthew 8:22; 9:9; 16:24; 19:21; Mark 2:14; 8:34; 10:21; Luke 5:27; 9:23, 59; 18:22; John 1:43.
Related posts:
Friend, Go Up Higher
A Feast for Watchful Servants
The Kingly Child and Flower
Holy Thursday
Dear Gloria, thank you for your reflection. May the humble be exalted, not exhausted.😇😊
May the exhausted “soar on eagles’ wings.” 🦅
“Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is God from of old,
creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary,
and his knowledge is beyond scrutiny.
He gives power to the faint,
abundant strength to the weak.
Though young men faint and grow weary,
and youths stagger and fall,
They that hope in the Lord will renew their strength,
they will soar on eagles’ wings;
They will run and not grow weary,
walk and not grow faint.”
Isaiah 40:28-31