Reflection From

Fr. John

August 31, 2025

Imagine hosting Jesus for dinner. Imagine attending a friend’s dinner party where Jesus is the guest of honor. What would be the topics of conversation and who would you invite to that party?

This week in the Gospel, we encounter Jesus eating dinner at the house of one of the leading Pharisees on the Sabbath. Jesus’ miracles and profound teachings made Him quite popular. He must have received many different invitations. In the Gospel this week, in the midst of observing those invited to dinner, Jesus tells the parable of those invited to a wedding feast. He mentions, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honor... Rather, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place so that when the host comes to you he may say, 'My friend, move up to a higher position.'” (Luke 14:8-10) Jesus must have been observing that many of the guests who were invited were taking seats of honor and seeking to exalt themselves. Maybe one of the guests who had occupied a higher seat of honor had been asked to sit at a lower place as a result of another guest who arrived. Jesus used the context of this dinner with a leading Pharisee to provide us with a profound teaching on humility.

Jesus in the Gospel this week tests the genuineness of the motivations of those guests at dinner with Him and of his dinner host’s intentions. Jesus is not concerned with outward signs of humility, but with the intentions of their hearts. Had they invited Him only to boast of having hosted the Lord in their home? The Latin root of the word for humility is humilitas, which means “lowness”, “lowly”, or “earthy”. Instead of reaching out and trying to obtain glory for ourselves, Christ is telling us to allow others and ultimately God to be the one who exalts us. As Christ suffered and was then exalted to sit at the right hand of God the Father in Heaven, so too will we receive our just reward from God the Father. Jesus tells those at table with him, “When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors... Rather, 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.” (Luke 14:12-14) Do we have this same motivation in the way we serve and give to others, or do we give only with the hope of getting something back?

My grandmother would often say, “Don’t give with one hand and take away with the other.” Similarly, Sir Winston Churchill is quoted as saying, “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” What are those great gifts that the Lord has given to us and how does He want us to share them freely with others? When we truly learn to give freely and expect nothing back, we imitate the love of God, in whose image we are created. We also learn one of life’s greatest lessons, that it is truly better to give for the sake of the other than to receive. Let us strive to do at least one good thing for another this week who cannot repay us. In this way we will become more like Jesus and become those saints God is calling us to be.

Father John

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