The real meaning of service

 Sunday 31 August 2025 

(Year C: 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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

Lectio Divina*

Sirach 3:17-29

Psalm 68

Hebrews 12:18-24

Luke 14:1-14

Meditatio

In the Book of Sirach we encounter the message of humility as an antidote to human folly and pride.  Sirach reminds us that humility draws God's favour and help. Being humble - honest with ourselves and about ourselves - opens the way to wisdom.  Humility is shown in how we treat others.  This is true greatness and the world around us needs to see this in practice. God knows we have enough of egotism in public life, the church and media.

In this week’s story from Luke Jesus is in more trouble with the religious authorities of his day. It never ends. In last week’s reading, he stood up to them on the question of healing on the Sabbath. Jesus addressed the leader of the local synagogue and others as ‘you hypocrites’ (Luke 13:15) .  Surely not an approach to win many friends and influence the influential!.

This time, Jesus is sitting down 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.  

We hear a parable about a banquet where someone who presumed a place at the top table was shown where to go. Jesus commends open invitations with a preference for the poor, the dispossessed and the marginalised – all of whom cannot ‘repay’ the host.  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 especially those without power and social standing and not about 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 top politician while the priest 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 should be there to serve the common good. This is service leadership and its goes to the core of Christian discipleship. 

• 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 just seek to ‘choose the places of honour’ (Luke 14:7)?  

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.
one God, now and for ever.

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.  However, leadership is costly.

Are we ready for service?

Will we, however, accept the call to serve, to suffer, to follow, to be with, to be behind, to be ahead of and to go against the popular current and to bear the pain and price of some role of leadership and ministry-service? 

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 not 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. We approach the holy mountain of Zion in a posture of humility and service and not superiority and dominion over others (Hebrews 12:22)

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

Oratio

(Collect of the Word for this Sunday - Church of Ireland)

O God, you invite the humble and the sinful to take their place in the festive assembly of the new covenant: teach your Church always to honour the presence of the Lord in the poor and the outcast, so that we may learn to recognise each other as brothers and sisters gathered together around your table. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

Footnotes * 

These readings are taken from the Sunday lectionary used in most Catholic churches. The source is BibleGateway.com: A searchable online Bible in over 150 versions and 50 languages (using the New Revised Standard Version - anglicised catholic edition).