The Lectionary and Scripture Interpretation for Ordinary Time
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Overview and Connections
Today’s readings focus on humility. In Jesus’ Middle Eastern culture, social transactions were driven by honor and shame. Wise people understood that honor was somehow paradoxically found most in humility. Being humble has a bad rap in modern times. It’s often seen as implying a reduced sense of self-worth. There is a necessary balance that I think is best captured by The Message rendition of Luke 14:11:
If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face. But if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.
Sirach 3:17-18, 20, 28-29
Sirach 3:25-4:10 is a section on social conduct, and 3:17-24 discusses humility within that culture. What should be our posture before God? This passage provides a meditation on that question.
The passage opens in a manner that calls to mind the opening of The Rule of St. Benedict: “Listen my son to the words of the master.” The root of the word listen in Latin is obider, from which we get the word obedience. Listening implies action.
V17 tells us to work hard, but don’t trumpet your success.
V20 then tells us don’t try to reach for what exceeds your grasp. There’s a necessary balance here because we know from experience that we must sometimes try to reach beyond our grasp. A child would not learn to walk otherwise, nor will we ever grow if we don’t sometimes push the boundaries. Discernment is always necessary, and there will often be times when we do try to reach for what exceeds our current grasp. And that is the point we always encounter a merciful and gracious God.
V28 envisions pride as a sort of parasite that eventually kills the host.
What “sublime” things are you chasing that distract from God’s clear calling?
Think of someone you would consider authentically humble. What characteristics in them might you be able to emulate?
Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-24a
Chapter 11 is sort of the “faith hall of fame.” The beginning of chapter 12 encourages us to draw on the strength of our forebears in faith to inform our own life of faith.
Today’s passage is a study in contrasts: the revelation as given on Mt. Sinai (“the Law” – see Deuteronomy 4:11-12) with that given on Mt. Zion (“the gospel, the good news”).
Mt. Sinai in vv18-21 is painted as a place of terror and distance from God. Many people still approach God with fear and dread, living in religious systems that emphasize separation rather than access. They have not yet realized the inadequacy of trying to earn God’s favor through performance.
The word approach in v18 and in v22 is the Greek proserchomai, from which we derive our word proselyte. This word implies something other than spatial imagery. We come to the mountain to be transformed, much as Jesus was transfigured on the Mount. Although Mount Sinai is not named here, all the elements allude to Exodus 19-20 and Deuteronomy 4-5: a manifestation of God’s presence to Moses on Mt. Sinai.
Vv22-24 give us Mt. Zion, a place of joy, access, and participation. Fear gives way to joy. Zion evokes Jerusalem as well as the heavenly city of God, established at the end of the ages.
Today’s reading contrasts Mount Sinai – a place of terror and distance from God – with Mount Zion – a place of entering fully into God’s presence. Where are you on the journey? Many people get stuck on Sinai, with a fearful image of God. Many are making the journey from Sinai to Zion but are tired and weary, in need of an encouraging word. Some have reached Zion and know its joy. Perhaps you are being called as a messenger from beyond to those still on the way.
Luke 14:1, 7-14
Where the Sirach reading evoked the beginning of The Rule of St. Benedict, the Luke reading evokes chapter 7, a chapter on Humility.
V1 sets the scene at a meal in the home of a Pharisee. This indicates that the Pharisees accepted Jesus as a social equal. But they are watching him, a word which implies hostile intent; they want to trap him. But we can also imagine that this is typical behavior at these events, where everyone watches one another, like a small town. “They had him under close scrutiny.”
There are other places in Luke where a meal is a scene of conflict (5:29, 7:36, 11:37). There are also places where the Sabbath is a setting of conflict with Pharisees and leaders (6:1-11, 13:10). So a meal on the Sabbath is sure to be explosive!
Vv7-9 identify the problem as status-seeking behavior. V7 makes it clear that, while the Pharisees might be scrutinizing him, he is also taking note of them.
The setting in v8 of Jesus’ parable is crucial to understanding this passage. Any place in scripture that refers to a wedding feast should be assumed as a symbolic reference to the end of time when God establishes his reign on earth. This story is about something far more than behavior at one individual meal.
Jesus’ solution to this problem is humility (vv10-11). Honor-shame was profoundly important in ancient cultures and was a strong motivation for action. In v10, Jesus is redefining honor and shame. Proverbs 25:6-7 is a similar injunction, advising against being overly ambitious in the presence of those in authority.
V11 provides a contrast between our doing and God’s doing. We exalt; God humbles. We humble; God exalts. God will do the humbling and the exalting. God determines authentic status. A more literal rendition would be “everyone self-exalting will be humbled and everyone self-humbling will be exalted.”
Vv12-14 may appear at first glance to be disconnected from the previous passage, but they do, in fact, also speak of honor-shame. To invite someone to a meal was to accrue honor. For the invitee not to return the invitation would be very shameful. To invite someone who could not invite you back was shameful. Culturally, this was how it was done: an endless cycle of you feed me, I’ll feed you; you enhance my status, I’ll enhance yours. It was a patronage system where everyone had strict roles and expectations. It was also a system that kept everyone in their prescribed place.
To invite, as Jesus suggests in v13, those who could not invite you back was cultural suicide. These types of people not only couldn’t advance the social status of the host; worse, they would actually lower the rank of a person who invited them to dinner. Leviticus 21:17-23 decreed that these types of people couldn’t even make offerings in the temple. The handicapped of a society represent those people whom a society would deem to be outside the sphere of its care and concern.
In Luke’s community, Christians of high rank would be sharing meals with Christians of low rank. Remember that Paul had fussed at the Corinthians for disparity in meal settings (1 Cor 11:17-34). It was a situation leading to lowering the rank of the higher ones which would have created division.
In v14, Jesus assures them that they will, indeed, get their reward, but not until the end of time.
In this passage, Jesus was advocating a disruption of his society at its most basic level. He interrupts the endless cycle of taking care of only those who can already care for themselves, and envisions a society where all are cared for. It’s hard for us to imagine how the original audience would have heard this. Perhaps for those of us in America, it would be similar to someone proposing a socialist system or even a communist system for our society as a way of solving the problems that our capitalistic society is unable to solve.
Who is missing in our social gatherings and Eucharistic communities?
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© 2025 Kelly Sollinger