Last week we talked about the story from Luke 14 wherein Jesus encountered people vying for favored places at a banquet table and showed them a better way. Here is the story again, in case you’ve forgotten.

7 When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; 9 and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. 11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

12 He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Before we leave the tale, we should look at the broader, cosmic implications it carries. The Bible is multi-layered like that. It can have particular meanings in the here and now, while still bridging across years into eternity.

This story echoes well beyond a particular banquet table. Jesus’ words alter our conception of community itself, and with it, our purpose for being together. Jesus doesn’t just offer advice here, but two changes in direction.

The first change happens in paragraph one, where inward becomes outward. Initially the guests at the table are choosing their own places, trying to take honor. They’re like Hungry, Hungry Hippos, scooping up all the honor marbles before they disappear. Jesus makes clear that honor is not taken, but given, at the invitation of the host. The flow of honor inverts 180 degrees. It’s a reminder that what we give in life is more important than what we grasp at. This is true of individuals, but also of communities. We gather to give honor, to share goodness. The community’s arrow does not point inward to itself, but outward to the world.

The second change happens in paragraph two, where Jesus suggests that invitations and honor be extended to people who usually get excluded from the process.

In the normal course of things, the circle of honor is closed. Only certain people get invited, those who can extend invitations in return. One gives honor expecting to get honor back. The group is shifting a finite supply of honor back and forth, creating nothing new.

A couple days ago, we talked about how God speaks to us where we are, then brings us to something more. We used the story of the dinner guests from Luke 14 as an example. Attendees of a banquet were trying to claim the highest spots at the table. Jesus told them, “If you want honor, that’s not the way to achieve it. And by the way, there are more important things than just your own honor at stake in your actions. The honor you give is more precious than the honor you get.”

Jesus’ habit of talking to each audience in their own language about their own situation influences how we read his words. They certainly apply to us! Human beings have enough in common that phrases spoken 2000 years ago in a different part of the world can touch us meaningfully today. But the words may not apply in the same way if we have different assumptions about life than the original audience did.

If the point of trading dinner chairs was, “Here’s how to give and receive honor,” the question arises, “What if that’s NOT the point of our lives?” We don’t live in an honor-intensive society the way the people around Jesus did. We mark prestige and purpose by different signs: money, power, might, effect on the world. Honor exists, but the word doesn’t mean the same thing to us that it did to them.

This is not a problem if we understand that Jesus was speaking to people in a certain context, then try to find the parallels between that context and our own lives. We could easily find the exhortation, “It’s not the money you get, but the money you give that brings fulfillment.” We could do the same with power shared or might exerted for the sake of people in need. All of these would be permissible interpretations of the basic lesson, translated into our lives.

The problem arises when we try to lift Jesus’ words out of their context, making each utterance into a universal law for all people to follow at all times. This doesn’t uplift God’s word, it breaks it.

If we try to make universal law out of all the passages in Luke 14, we go from this:

“If honor is the point, here’s how to get it. But giving it is more important.”

To this:

“Honor IS the point. Be humble so you get more of it! Also share it.”

Those are two different readings. The first acknowledges the viewpoint of the audience, but doesn’t make it the center of the universe. The second claims that the viewpoint of the audience and the good thing that God is trying to teach us are equally important, equally central.

The first interpretation says, “Your experience is valid, but you need to learn more about what it means.” The second says, “Your experience is everything, and it is coequal with God.”

Ep. 36 - Places at the table and the economy of honor. Do we live by human scarcity or by God's infinite love? Living out the words of Luke 14.
The Geek and Greek podcast is a show where two reverends talk honestly and clearly about faith, Christianity, scripture, and life. 
Follow us at GeekAndGreek.com!

​Listen to more Geek and Greek podcasts here: geekandgreek.com/

Ep. 35 - Who gets to determine whether we're faithful? Jesus offers a radical possibility in Luke 13. Justin and Dave talk Biblical origins, fire pits, and the power of healing.
The Geek and Greek podcast is a show where two reverends talk honestly and clearly about faith, Christianity, scripture, and life. 
Follow us at GeekAndGreek.com!
​
Listen to more Geek and Greek podcasts here: geekandgreek.com/

The Bible is a tricky thing. We tell our Confirmation students that it’s more like a library than a single, unified book. It consists of dozens of books, each from a different perspective, written to different audiences at different points in time. Even the four Gospels—the eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus Christ—take unique and challenging approaches. They don’t agree with each other completely on wording, emphasis, or order of events!

This is neither a weakness, nor a mistake. God is in a real relationship with us. God speaks with us where we are, taking into consideration who we are. Each of us needs something different. Each of us understands differently. That’s how it was when the books of the Bible were written, each to a different community. That’s how it remains today.

This claim influences how we understand God’s word. Seldom did Jesus say to the people around him, “You are totally wrong and your viewpoint has no basis in reality!” Instead, Jesus tended to adopt the language and framework of the people around him, then expand it into something more than it was. God meets people where they are, then makes that “where” bigger and more meaningful than they realized it could be.

This Sunday’s reading from Luke, Chapter 14 is a great example. Jesus was invited to dine with important members of the community. He noticed guests jockeying for favored position, near the host, vying for importance and credibility.