“The Place of Honor”
Original sermon given on Sunday, August 31, 2025 written and delivered by Pastor Jeff Leininger at First Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church.
Watch the sermon live.
“The Place of Honor”
Luke 14.1, 7-14
Luke 14.1, 7-14
In the name of the living God and the risen Christ. Amen.
They’re watching him closely, this group of religious leaders suspicious of the upstart Rabbi Jesus. The setting: a banquet; the time, the Sabbath; the theme: honor.
Midway through the banquet, however, Jesus begins observing them… closely, and in a sense this morning we could say he’s observing us too.
What he observes is both something particular about their culture; and something universal for all humanity. First century middle eastern culture is what cultural anthropologists call a predominantly “honor vs. shame” culture. That is, your identity, who you are in the community, was largely dependent on your relative position compared to those around you. Perhaps nowhere was this more on display than at the banqueting tables of the Mediterranean world. This isn’t just about the quality of cuisine, but it’s about the positioning of the guests.
Jesus observes them jockeying for positions of honor — seeking “first place” as it were — next to the master of the house, the Chief Pharisee, and the Lord gives them a little advice in this little parable about wedding banquets.
I have some experience with weddings. I’ve been an usher, the punch-server, a musician, a groomsman, a best man, and a groom (once). But I have officiated something like over 150 weddings. I’ve married some couples who are right here, in church this morning; some of ya’ll, I’m hoping to do in the future. (If you think 150 is a lot, consider this: one of my predecessors, Pastor Henry Wunder, shepherded First Saint Paul’s for over 60 years. He officiated over 5,000 weddings. So we’ve got a ways to go here people.)
I don’t know how many of those 5,000 ceremonies included a banquet — these were poor German immigrant couples in the 1800s — nor how many Wunder would have been invited to, but I can tell you that I have been invited and attended almost every wedding banquet for every couple. So, I know how the seating chart works. The preacher, usually, is seated by either the grandparents or the retired pastor. If the grandfather is the retired pastor, then there’s 100% chance I’ll be sitting by him. Bet on this in Vegas, it’s a sure thing. Which is all quite fine with me — what a joy!
This is to illustrate that when we devise seating charts for wedding receptions today, we have different priorities than in Jesus’ time. The bride and groom today don’t so much consternate over the positions of “honor” but instead about the relationships and the dynamics. Who’s going to enjoy talking with whom? Who’s going to get along with whom? Let’s make sure that no food fights break out at our reception. (You laugh, but I can tell you a story.) Where do we stick the crazy aunt? (Just kidding: no wedding I’ve performed has ever had a crazy aunt. Guaranteed.)
But in Jesus’ day, where you sat said everything about who you were, and specific seats designated positions of specific honor in that society.
Now you can understand better the “walk of shame” our Lord warns them about. “Oh, there’s my seat up there, right up in the front. Right next to all the important people. Right next to the Chief Pharisee, the most educated, politically connected, influential, and wealthy person in my community. Don’t mind if I do. I’ll just saunter up there, right in front of everyone and then take my place. (I feel like this should be a comedy sketch.)
But wait. Just when I settle in my seat, and start sipping the house red, here comes someone more important, more connected, more influential, and wealthier than me, who’s supposed to be sitting right where I’m at. Now, I have to get up, everyone silently gawking at me as I slump to the very least of seats, all the way at the end of the table next to the crazy aunt.
Jesus offers some good advice: “Yeah, don’t do that.” But of course, the point of this morning’s gospel isn’t “how not to embarrass thyself whilst thou sitteth at a wedding reception.” Nor is it advice for couples trying to devise the perfect seating chart. (You can instead find something for this on theknot.com. I’m not making this up: “The Lowdown on Wedding Reception Seating Chart Etiquette: Get butts in seats—the right way.”)
Rather, this Holy Word of Scripture is giving us an important lesson on the Christian life, but an even more important lesson on eternal life.
The lesson of the Christian life is that the baptized receive honor not with themselves at the center, but with Christ at the center. In humbleness and sincerity, we point to our Lord Jesus in everything we do. “He must become greater; I must become less,” John the Baptist said (John 3.30).
The sacred irony is that we have been given the Holy Spirit in Baptism (as little Oliver will in a few moments), and Christ himself has called us his own body, and promised to work through us in powerful ways, and yet it can never be about us. The less there is of us, the more there is of Christ, the greater honor resounds to his glory. “He who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” The only honor we ever really get is Christ exalted for us, in us, through us.
This is so counter to our world, in every culture and every time, not just the honor vs. shame cultures. The way of the world is to rule it over others; the way of the cross is to place yourself under others. The way of the world is to seek your own gain; the way of the cross is to seek first his kingdom. The way of the world is to strive and connive and your way up to that front seat; the way of the cross is to take the seat of least honor and let the Christ be honored in you.
This is how, incidentally, the Christian church grew exponentially in the first three centuries — not by political influence; not by wealth; not by the most educated; not in the seats of power, but rather they embodied the sacrificial, life-giving love of the Lord Jesus who dwelled within them by the Holy Spirit.
So that’s the important lesson of the seating chart for the Christian life: we live lives of service, sacrifice and humility, that Christ would be honored and not us.
Now, the lesson for eternal life. This gospel account is certainly more than good advice on banquet seating; it is also more than a lesson on Christian humility (although it is that). But most importantly it points us to an eternal truth about who God is, and who we are in relation to him, and how we might finally enter the eternal banquet of heaven. The image of heaven throughout scripture is described as a banquet, a feast of victory, a wedding reception. But how do you get in? Who’s invited? Well, it’s certainly not because of us — our own works, merits, humility, honorable living, worldly recognition, piles of piety stacked up before God. If that was the case, ain’t none of us gonna make it. (And if you think you are, then you’re living the worst kind of lie.) Rather it is because of him, Christ, our Lord, who took our seats of shame on the cross, and gave us instead the seats of honor.
How humbling, awe-inspiring, life-changing that he, at the top seat at the table, walks all the way down to the shameful end, and takes my place. This is the heart of the Christian gospel. That when our Lord took up the cross and walked to Golgotha, he walked the walk of shame… for us. They mock him, spit upon him, jeer at him, and then place him on an instrument of shame… for us, our salvation, our forgiveness, our place at the banquet. The whole point of Roman crucifixion was not just to inflict pain — they could devise even more effective ways of doing that. But also shame. Not just pain but shame. Crucifixion was always intended as a public event — for deterrence, yes, but most importantly, public shame of the individual.
And yet the witness of our faith is that, in the words of St. Paul, “Christ Jesus, being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped [held onto like a trophy], but made himself nothing, take the very nature of a servant… he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on the cross” (Phil 2.6-8).
And again, in the book of Hebrews: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning (that is, disregarding) its shame...” (Heb. 12.2).
Our Lord Christ, worthy of the greatest honor, enthroned over all creation, eternal, Holy Righteous, who we deserve not even to be in the same room with, let alone sitting next to him at the place of honor — yet, he takes the place of shame on the cross and gives us instead his righteousness and holiness as a gift.
There is no other way to his table, no other entrance to the banquet than to cling to him alone in faith.
He has spread another banquet for us this morning. It doesn’t seem like much — the most common and ordinary meal you could provide in those days: bread and wine. Hardly a feast at all.
But in, with, and under these ordinary forms, something extraordinary is given: Christ himself, for the sinful, the lowly, the shamed. His life for yours; his honor for your shame.
And we all come up together equally, regardless of who we are, or what demons of the past afflict us, or what anxious thoughts of the future constrict us. There’s no seating chart at the Lord’s table. No positions either of honor or shame, but now only him for us, in us, and through us.
Come soon Lord Jesus. Amen.