Christ the Host, We the Guests: Lessons from the Table

The Preacher: Met. John Gregory

Lessons: Ecc 10:7-18; Ps 112; Heb 13:1-8; Lk 14:1,7-14

Beloved in Christ, today the Gospel takes us to a meal. Luke tells us that on the Sabbath, Jesus entered the house of a Pharisee to eat, and everyone was watching him. Imagine the scene. The air thick with expectation. People eyeing one another, taking note of who sits close to the host and who is left at the edge. Every word and movement of Christ weighed, every silence judged.

It is there, in the midst of that scrutiny, that Jesus begins to speak about the table itself -

about where to sit, about who belongs, about who is honored and who is forgotten. At first it sounds like advice about manners. But as always, Christ is pointing deeper. He is not simply telling us how to behave at banquets. He is opening a window into the Reign of God.

And that is important, because each of us knows what it is like to wonder about our place at the table. It begins when we are children - who is chosen first for the game, who is invited to the birthday, who is left out. It continues when we are older. We notice who seems to matter in a room, who gets heard, who goes unseen. Even in the Church, we feel the pull of status - who sits in front, who carries authority, who is honored and who is overlooked.

Jesus looks at that very human struggle and says something startling: “When you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place.” This is not about strategy, about trying to look humble so you might be exalted later. It is a revelation of how God’s Reign works.

From the beginning of Luke’s Gospel, this song has been playing. The Theotokos sings it in her Magnificat: “He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.” The Reign of God is a place of great reversal. The ones who push themselves forward are brought back. The ones who bow in humility are raised up.

This is not theory. It is the way of the Cross. Glory is found not in climbing higher but in descending lower. St. Isaac the Syrian once said, “Descend into the depths of your own humility and there you will find glory.” The way up is down.

But Jesus does not stop there. He goes further. He shifts the focus from where we sit to whom we invite. “When you give a banquet,” he says, “do not invite your friends or the rich who can pay you back. Instead invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.”

This must have stunned his hearers. In their world, meals were about alliances. You invited people who could return the favor. Banquets secured relationships. They were about influence, obligation, reputation. And Jesus sweeps it aside. Invite those who bring nothing but themselves. Invite those who cannot repay.

Notice who he names: the poor, the lame, the blind. He does not say vaguely, “invite others.” He names those most often forgotten. He brings them to mind because we prefer not to. Without them, he says, the table is not complete.

The Fathers of the Church heard this clearly. St. John Chrysostom thundered from the pulpit, “If you cannot find Christ in the beggar at the church door, you will not find him in the chalice.” Strong words. They cut deep. They remind us that the presence of Christ is not confined to the altar. If we honor him in gold and silk but ignore him in the poor, we have missed the Gospel.

St. Basil the Great said something similar: “The bread you do not use is the bread of the hungry. The garment hanging in your closet is the garment of the naked.” For Basil, what we keep back for ourselves is already taken from those in need.

These are not comfortable sayings. They are not meant to be. They echo Christ’s own call: to widen our tables, to break the logic of repayment, and to practice hospitality that mirrors God’s mercy.

And what better place to see this than in our own Divine Liturgy? Every time we gather, we come as the poor. We come as the blind and lame in spirit. We come unable to repay. And yet we are invited. We approach the chalice not as the worthy but as the needy.

St. Ephrem the Syrian said, “Stretch out your hand to receive the Body of the Lord, not to grasp but to be filled.” That is the posture of the Reign: not grasping, not competing, but receiving as gift.

And here is the heart of it. If we dare to receive Christ in the mystery of the Eucharist, then we must learn to recognize him in the faces around us. The table of the Lord extends into our homes, our streets, our neighborhoods. The hospitality we practice here must become the hospitality we live out there.

So let us ask: who is not at our table? Who is invisible in our parish, in our community? Perhaps it is the elderly neighbor who lives alone. Perhaps it is the young person who feels out of place, who wonders if the Church has room for them. Perhaps it is the immigrant who struggles with language, or the addict who struggles with shame. Christ names them because he wants us to see them.

The saints have walked this road before us. St. Maria of Paris, who died in the camps for her witness, once said, “At the Last Judgment I shall not be asked if I fasted well or if I made many prostrations. I shall be asked, did I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoner? That is all I shall be asked.” She understood that the Gospel is not measured in private devotions but in whether we have recognized Christ in those he calls his brothers, sisters and siblings.

Beloved, this parable is not only about how we treat others. It is also about how we see ourselves. For the truth is that before God, we are all poor. We are all crippled by sin, blind in understanding, lame in love. And yet God has invited us. He has set us at his table. We cannot repay. And still, he calls us beloved.

This is the good news. We do not have to scramble for position. We do not have to prove our worth. Christ has already given us a place. He has already made us welcome.

And so the Gospel today is not about etiquette. It is about the Reign. It is about a table widened by grace. A table where every seat is gift. A table where the humble are raised and the forgotten are remembered.

When we come forward today, let us come as the poor in spirit, thankful simply to be invited. And when we go out, let us carry that same spirit into our lives. Let us open our homes, our hearts, our parish, so that those who have no place may find one. For the Reign of God is not a scramble for honor. It is the great banquet of mercy, where Christ is both Host and Meal, and where every guest is welcome.

Glory to Jesus Christ.