Seats of Honour

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, August 31st, 2025:
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Luke
14.1, 7-14
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On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, the lawyers and Pharisees were watching him closely. When Jesus noticed how the guests chose the places of honour, he told them a parable.

“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honour, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; 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.

“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 honoured in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

Jesus said also to the Pharisee who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case 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. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

As I was praying with the Gospel for this Sunday, I noticed something that I felt was a mistake. I looked at the passage in other translations to see if I was simply getting a bad translation, but that was not the case. I wondered if anyone else would read the same error as me.

I continued to pray with the passage, thinking that perhaps the Lord was calling me to focus on another aspect (and not the part I felt was wrong). After a few days, the Lord showed me the problem: me! 

Okay, so that isn’t exactly how it happened, but let me explain. In this Gospel, Jesus shares a parable that teaches the listeners not to take the seats of honour at table but to take, instead, the lowest seat so that the host may come and say “move up.” The problem is not with the parable but with my pride! Everytime I read that parable, I see myself at a table sitting in the lowest seat, but I am always looking around, expecting to be moved up! 

In the translation we use at Mass it says, “He may say ….” There is no guarantee that I will be moved up to a better seat and, if I am seeking to be moved up, that is the same as taking the seat of honour in the first place! 

The point of the parable is to instill a desire for humility over pride. Hoping to be moved, anticipating being moved, has no connection to humility. 

Jesus goes on to exhort the people at that dinner to strive to give freely without thought of repayment. I find myself as uncomfortable with this second part of the Gospel as with the first. I can actually hear a voice in my head saying things like, “I give and I give, and what do I get in return?” Instead, I am called to give without seeking repayment and, in this giving, I am living the call to feed the hungry or clothe the naked or visit the sick. 

The love God calls me to does not seek repayment or honours! We know that love is patient and kind and all the rest, but do I live my life as a witness to this truth? Do I look for the honours and the love to be returned to me in kind? Of course, if honours and love do come to me, humility is accepting them, knowing that it is God’s grace that brings them to me.

Humility and love are the very things I am called to because they are the very things Jesus lived and the very things he witnessed in his Passion and death.

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Sr. Teresa MacDonald

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