On a Sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully. He told a parable to those who had been invited, noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table.

“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honor. A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him, and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then you would proceed with embarrassment to take the lowest place.

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.’ Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Then he said to the host who invited him, “When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. 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.”

A wedding banquet is an ideal opportunity to strengthen bonds of friendship, family ties, or neighborliness. Surely, family members, friends, and neighbors are expected to be invited.

In truth, Jesus’ criticism of the social convention in his time is not to be understood as a general prohibition of inviting friends and relatives.

Jesus himself is a guest at the wedding at Cana (Jn 2:1-12); he and his mother are probably relatives of the bride or the groom. In the parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin (Lk 15:3-7, 8-10), the villagers who have found their lost property invite “friends and neighbors” to celebrate with them.

There are legitimate reasons for inviting kinsfolk and neighbors for celebration. What is to be avoided is selfishness, which excludes the less fortunate people and the expectation of the reward that comes with reciprocity. Jesus urges his audience to extend their hospitality to new groups: the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.

These are the people who are on the fringes of or outside the village community. The challenge of Jesus is therefore more acute: people must go beyond not only the lines of kinship and close alliance, but also the lines of purity which are important to them.

Ultimately, the reason behind this change of ethos is the host of the eternal banquet: God. His Kingdom is not reserved to a select few. He prepares his banquet for everyone: the just and the sinners, the good and the bad, the intelligent and the uneducated, for those on the margins and those rejected and scorned by society.

In the end, the Kingdom of heaven is the only banquet that counts. To miss out that banquet is the greatest tragedy that can happen to anyone. The people at the margins of society have a powerful patron: God. To include them in a table fellowship here on earth is to assure oneself of a place of honor in heaven.