At first glance the advice Jesus gave on taking a spot at a banquet seemed to just be common sense. Society was very regimented and social standing was incredibly important. One who was more “important” than another person would receive a better seat at a banquet. Class A celebrities got to sit closer to the host than class B celebrities. Even if the celebrity status was based on the number of sheep in their flock.

So when Jesus told folks they should take a seat of inferior status so they would not get bumped down and embarrassed, it sounded like just smart, social maneuvering. No one wants to end up red-faced because they are being demoted publicly. And who wouldn’t want to be singled out by the host and brought up to a higher seat? That Jesus is a pretty shrewd operator, it would seem.

The truth is Jesus is more shrewd than we may give him credit for in this teaching. In a society where people are looking to place themselves above others, Jesus is getting them to think about who they are below instead of who they are above. Now, instead of saying, “I am better than this person so I can sit farther up front than they are sitting,” they begin to say, “I might not be as cool as this person, I better sit behind them.” What a difference in attitude Jesus is calling us to take.

And if the host is busy and most of us are not as important as we think we are, it is possible that even if we sit farther back than we need to sit, the host might not notice or have the time to move us. Or we may not be important enough for him to bother with us! So all we can conclude is that perhaps we were right in placing ourselves where we did. We really are not more important than that person. Whatever the case, it teaches us to approach the situation with a whole new attitude.

While our society is not structured quite like in Jesus’ day, we still have our levels and think about people of higher and lower status. We might stand in line for hours to get an autograph of a famous baseball player, but we probably are not going to ask the kids playing in the empty lot down the street for their autograph! Nor are we going to be so anxious to get the autograph of the person on the minor league squad as we are to get one from someone in the majors.

We may notice what the person ahead of us in line buys at the supermarket if they are paying with food stamps but if the person has the cash, we wouldn’t think to criticize their purchases. I love the story that tells of the farmer who having taken his load of wheat to the grain exchange stopped by the Cadillac dealership to buy a new car. The salesperson was new and didn’t know the farmer. He felt he could not waste his time on someone so poorly dressed. He did not know the farmer had the money with him to pay cash for the car. The salesperson lost the sale, the commission, and the opportunity to sell another car to the man later. In large and small ways, we are often making assumptions about the worth of a person. And often we are making the assumption that we are better than they.

Today, as in Jesus’ day, people often think in terms of reciprocity. If you give me a gift at Christmas then I have to give you one. If you hold the door open for me then I need to hold the next door open for you. At one level it is just a matter of being polite but what happens when the other person doesn’t respond in a manner that we think is appropriate? What happens when we hold the door for them and they just walk on and let the next door fly shut in our face? What do we think of the person when we have spent a lot of time and money on picking out just the right gift for them at Christmas and they give us nothing in return? Jesus teaches us how to avoid the upset of not receiving in return: give to those you know can’t return the favor.

When we think about it, this is the type of giving that God does. There is nothing we can really give God because God has everything. Even our lives belong to God so God does not give to us in order to receive something back. God gives because God loves us and because we have needs. Jesus teaches us that God is not one who decides to stop blessing us because we haven’t said thank you often enough or because we haven’t put enough money in the offering plate at church. God gives because it is the nature of the God of love to give. God gives because God loves us and wants us to be whole and joyful in our lives.

Since we are created in the image of God, it is part of our nature to be givers who do not have strings attached to the gifts. As God’s people we are not fully who we were created to be when we think in terms of gift reciprocity. We must be the kind of gift givers that God is if we truly want to be happy. Unfortunately most of us know the frustration of feeling hurt and angry because someone has slighted us by either not giving us a gift or giving us a gift that is “less valuable” than the one we gave them. We know how it eats at us destroying our sense of happiness and destroying our relationship with that person. What does it get us besides being angry and depressed? Absolutely nothing!

So Jesus teaches us to take another route. Look at gift giving and party throwing as an opportunity to reach out to those who are in need. Some congregations have begun to hold Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinner for anyone in the community who wants to come. There is no cost for it and, most importantly, it is actually held on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. They don’t give people a dinner like a holiday meal. They give them a real meal on the real holiday. Giving for these people is more important than being with family. They know that not only for those who are poor but for those who are alone, having a nice meal with people on the holiday is the most wondrous gift of all. They know they are not alone. They know that nothing is expected of them except that they enjoy the meal. They know they are loved by these people and that, therefore, it just might be possible that God loves them as well.