The Kingdom’s Value System Revisited 

It is quite difficult to find a connection or prevalent theme that unites all the readings for this Sunday. There is, however, an emphasis on vivid rhetoric to demonstrate a comparison. The second reading, from the Letter to the Hebrews, contrasts two spectacular scenes portrayed through the covenants of Moses and Jesus. The Gospel compares two guests discerning their seat arrangement at a wedding banquet. Choose wisely.

The Letter to the Hebrews takes the form of a homily with ancient ties to the Jewish synagogue style of interpreting Scriptures of the past in light of the present moment. The audience in the reading were reminded not to think of returning to Mount Sinai, where there was “a blazing fire and gloomy darkness and storm and a trumpet blast” (Heb 12:18-19). This might have served as an attempt to instill fear about returning to a time that this author highlights as frightful. If the law of Moses was not obeyed fully, so goes the logic, one was fully doomed. In contrast, the new community the author is addressing is reminded to approach Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the new Jerusalem. There you will find “countless angels in festal gathering” (Heb 12:22). Jesus is there, whose blood speaks more vividly than that of Abel. 

The message from Hebrews is clear. You are here now; stick with this new covenant based not on your actions, but upon the action of Christ.

This Sunday’s Gospel is about guests angling for a seat of honor. In Roman dining rooms, where the guest reclined at supper mattered. The closer to the host, the higher one’s status for the evening. “Rather,” says Jesus, “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.’” (Lk 14:10). Praised in this scene is the one who acts with humility, who is later exalted. 

There is a keen simplicity in this Sunday’s readings, characterized by choosing the covenant where Jesus is the bridegroom and sets a heavenly banquet in motion. Choosing wisely implies a humble path within the community of faith already living with expectation and following the precepts left behind in the Gospels. This rather uneventful path will one day be revealed for what it is, a gathering of folk worthy to dine with angels in a festal gathering. 

How does one get there? Perhaps by invitation only, like the bridegroom who invites one to a higher place. In the kingdom’s value system, the follower of Christ is invited to act with one’s neighbors in the same manner as Jesus: “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. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous” (Lk 14:13-14).