If there is a bit of the parable that makes us uncomfortable or challenged beyond our comfort zone, we have understood well the message of Jesus.

The Franciscan Biblical scholar Robert Karras has written a book entitled EATING YOUR WAY THROUGH LUKE’S GOSPEL.   If you read Luke’s Gospel from cover to cover, you will find some 50 references to food.  Much of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel is centered around table fellowship.  Jesus sits down with all sorts of people.  Jesus will share a meal with anyone from a Pharisee to a leper.  Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners much to the dismay of the more proper scribes and Pharisees.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is dining at the home of a leading Pharisee.  Jesus has obviously been invited for more than pleasant conversation.  The people at the meal are observing him carefully.  He is known for not following protocol during his table fellowship.  As the story proceeds, the dynamic shifts from the people observing Jesus to Jesus observing them. He is a wisdom teacher offering lessons in humility.

To help us understand today’s Gospel,  it has been rightly said the dinner table mirrors society.  What you eat, how you eat, when you eat, with whom we eat with tells us a good deal about yourself.  And eating is a primary way of maintaining relationships.

Reflecting on today’s Gospel, imagine that a rough-looking, rather unkempt stranger came to your door and asked for something to eat:  How would you respond?   Let me suggest three possible responses:

“Go away or I will call the police.”

Another response could be:  “Wait here on the porch, and I will make you a sandwich.”

A third response might be:  “Come right in and you are welcome at our dinner table.”

Now there are good reasons for each of these responses.  I do not wish to make any judgments about any of these responses.  But who eats with whom is a primary way of developing relationships.

Going back to today’s Gospel parable.  What is often true in the parables of Jesus is that we go from the known to the unknown.  In this parable, the known for all is that we are familiar with eating together at table.  What is the unknown that Jesus is pointing to is two very important lessons on what the kingdom of God is like.   So we ask what is God’s kingdom like?

First Lesson:  Jesus is observing how the guests are choosing places of honor at the banquet table.  Where we are seated at the banquet is indicative of your place of honor.  For those of us invited to wedding banquets, the bride, or perhaps the bride’s mother, has somewhat carefully chosen who seats with whom at the wedding banquet. The places of honor are somewhat predetermined.

There is a side of all of us that welcomes a bit of honor and recognition.

Jesus invites us to take the lowest place and hopefully the host will invite you to come higher.  But please notice that this parable is not about clever maneuvering so that you will be honored when the host invites you to come up higher.

Rather Jesus is challenging that side of us that wants to be honored and recognized.

The meaning of the parable can be found by recalling the Last Supper with Jesus and his disciples in which Jesus knelt down and put a towel around his waist and washed the feet of his disciples.  Jesus gave the example to the apostles of how they were to be His followers.

The first lesson from this parable is that his disciples, rather than jockeying for places of honor, were to humbly serve one another.  The way of humble service is to characterize table fellowship in the kingdom of God.

The second extremely important lesson can be found in the latter part of the parable when Jesus says: “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.”

This second lesson speaks to the hospitality of God that the Church is to embody.  All are welcome without prejudice in the kingdom of God.  Jesus is the embodiment of God’s hospitality.

How do we as a parish community welcome the outcasts into our parish community?  Do we welcome all people without regard to their race, their sexual orientation, their marital status or whatever there is about a particular person?

And do we feel at home eating where the poor, the crippled, and the outcasts eat or is this below our status and way of life?  This is a challenge, is it not, to go beyond our comfort zone.

While our parish community is primarily white Caucasians, how can we be more welcoming to people of all cultures and nationalities and races?  Shame on us if all do not welcome everyone in our midst.

What is your sense of welcome and what is my sense of welcome to someone who has a different sexual orientation than you or I.  The clear message of the Gospel is that all of us are God’s beloved sons and daughters.

No matter what your marital status is you are welcome in the kingdom of God and therefore you are welcome in the Church and in this parish community.  All are welcome.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus has a strange way of looking on whom to invite and who are the most important.  The point is everyone is invited to the banquet of Jesus.

As we gather for this Eucharistic meal today, we reflect on how we have gathered for this meal.  Do we see each other as brothers and sisters?   Do we see ourselves as servants of each other?  Do we see ourselves as the servants of all who are poor?  Are all welcome to this table of the Lord?

If there is a bit of the parable that makes us uncomfortable or challenged beyond our comfort zone, we have understood well the message of Jesus.

Have a Blessed Day.