Servant of all

 ‘…For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted,..’ (Luke 14:11)

                                                      Pic: Carmelites online commentary on mass readings

Luke 14:1-14 (Year C: Trinity+14)

No mincing of words

This week’s account from Luke has Jesus in more trouble with the religious authorities. It never ends. In last week’s reading, he stood up to them on the question of the Sabbath. Now we have another story set on the day of the Sabbath. This time, Jesus is sitting to dinner while the hosts are ‘watching him closely’. Among the pleasant company at that meal were the ‘lawyers and Pharisees’ whom Jesus had already put in their place on more than one occasion. Jesus did not mince his words in last week’s story by using the words ‘you hypocrites’ (although it should be pointed out that Jesus did not speak in English – not even Elizabethan English) to some of the synagogue brethren.  Surely not an approach to win many friends and influence the influential!.

Although this Sunday’s reading is edited to omit verses 2-6 which involved yet another miracle – this time of a man with dropsy (nowadays referred to as a condition of swelling due to excess water caused by some failure in the body) who was healed on the spot and sent away – the healing story links last Sunday healing story with this Sunday’s teaching by Jesus on the role of true authority and service. Someone with a condition of bodily swelling was possibly excluded from the festive table on the Sabbath on grounds of ritual impurity. In those times many persons were excluded for one reason or another just as they are today but for the same or different reasons.  Added to the story of the healing of the man is a parable about a banquet where someone presumed a place at the top table only to be shown where to go. Tagged on is another parable about banquet invitations. Jesus commends open invitations with a preference for the poor, the dispossessed and the marginalised – all of whom cannot ‘repay’ the host.

So, there is a thread running through all of this – compassion trumps a false moral absolutism; compassion leads us to service and not self-promotion; and in service we seek out those in need and not those who will advance our agenda of self-interest. It is about others and not us.

Playing hierarchy

In the parable, the guests were already lining up and taking their places at table in rank order.  Just like a wedding or funeral ritual in many cultures. So-and-so must sit beside the Mayor while the priest’s husband must sit beside another so-and-so and so on… Humans love this sort of thing and nothing like a bit of liturgy for dressing up and playing hierarchy! (see Mark 12:38-39). Moreover, in the Greek, Roman and Jewish customs of the time place of honour, social respectability and family belonging were everything. To ‘lose face’ especially in being demoted to a lower place in the social hierarchy was a big deal.   Jesus was not necessarily attacking the ritual of social hierarchy such as it was or may be today. Rather, he was making a fundamental point that anyone who finds himself or herself in a place of honour by virtue of social status or education or anything else is there to serve the common good. This is service leadership and its goes to the core of Christian discipleship. 

Like the mother of John and James (see Matthew 20:20-28) one might seek the ‘first place’ or the ‘top place’ – we are only human – will we, however, accept the call to serve, to suffer, to follow, to be with, to be behind, to be ahead, to go against the current and to bear the pain and price of some role of leadership and ministry-service (same word really)? Will we allow ourselves to be led in relation to where the community sees our service than presume it for ourselves? Will we respond to a call to ‘do good’ and ‘save life’ (Luke 6:9) in the communities where we are planted and, possibly, beyond following discernment? Will we see the value and necessity of what is to done in this frail community at this opportune time and in this way? Perhaps not what we thought or expected? Or, will we seek to ‘choose the places of honour’ (v.7)?  We might choose our own place but God, working through others, has a remarkable capacity to undo some of our choices.

And after all that we might walk away because ‘it is too hard’ or because others have told us that it is too hard and that we are not right for the task by virtue of our height, our age, our sex, our accent, our level of formal education, our disabilities and fragilities, our orientation or our past life. The Holy Spirit has ways around man-made rules and perceptions and standards and surprises us all the time.

Choosing the last place

So, if we seek fulfilment of our deepest wishes to be of service then choose the ‘last place’ and do no presume anything else. God will look after the rest. He is present in our churches – challenging as that may be to see at times. The ‘reward’ for love is love. Knowing that we have loved and that we are loved is everything when we come to the eternal banquet at the end of our lives.

The evangelist Mark (9.35) sums up what Luke is telling here by way of parable:

Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.

In a different context St Paul writes (1 Corinthians 9:19):

For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them.