Lectionary blog: Aug. 31, 2025
12th Sunday after Pentecost
Proverbs 25:6-7; Psalm 112;
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16; Luke 14:1, 7-14
I’ve been working my way through Michael Rhodes’ book Formative Feasting: Practices and Virtue Ethics in Deuteronomy’s Tithe Meal and the Corinthian Lord’s Supper (Peter Lang, 2022). Rhodes argues that sharing meals is the central means by which Scripture cultivates moral formation toward justice and whole-community solidarity. As envisioned in Deuteronomy (and elsewhere), the feasts of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles were meant to inculcate the wisdom and delight of social leveling, where the rich are brought lower and the poor are lifted up. The descriptions of New Testament commonwealth, both around the table and around the world, further this idea of solidarity and justice through social leveling.
The lectionary passages this week all address God’s wisdom of humbling the exalted and exalting the humble.
In Psalm 112, the person who fears the Lord and delights in the commandments is said to have wealth and riches in his house (1-3). Yet, those riches aren’t a reward but a tool for righteousness. The rich person is “gracious, compassionate and righteous” (4). Here compassion and grace aren’t just attitudes or emotional experiences but practices. The rich person lends graciously, practices justice (5) and gives freely to the poor (9). For those with resources, caring for those in need is not just the right thing to do but is the performance of basic wisdom and justice.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the author insists that Jesus’ followers should actually follow what the Lord commanded and practiced (imagine that!). Just as Jesus commands and commends hospitality to foreigners (Luke 10:8-12; Matthew 25:35), his community is to do the same (Hebrews 13:2). Just as Jesus commands his followers to visit and care for those in prison (Matthew 25:36), the author of Hebrews insists that Jesus’ community needs to care for those in prison and for those who suffer from governmental mistreatment (3). Just as Jesus declares that one cannot serve both God and wealth (Luke 16:13), Hebrews declares that his followers cannot be lovers of money (5).
In summation, the author of Hebrews encourages her (Team Pricilla!) readers to please God through doing good and sharing (16). The consistent ethic of care, where humans expend their resources to welcome foreigners, take care of prisoners and give away money rather than hoard it, reflects the ongoing value of humbling the wealthy and powerful, and exalting the poor, oppressed and migrant.
Jesus’ ideal feasts raise the social standing and material well-being of the poor and those commonly excluded while at the same time lowering the social standing and material well-being of wealthy hosts.
Finally, we turn to the Gospel account of when Jesus-as-Pharisee was included in a Pharisee’s table fellowship. Jesus takes the opportunity to give a practical excurses on Proverbs 25:6-7. Community meals aren’t an opportunity to exalt oneself. That kind of posturing will inevitably lead to strife and embarrassment. We know this, right? When someone tries to show others how important he is, do we like that person? No, we do not. Jesus was simply telling people what they already knew. It feels much better to be honored by others after acting humbly than it does to be shamed by others after acting pridefully.
The last paragraph of the Gospel reading is particularly important. When party planning, Jesus says that hosts shouldn’t invite those who can practice reciprocity. If I can invite you to a party and you can invite me back, we have repaid each other. Instead, Jesus tells his followers to expend their resources to welcome, honor and include the poor and people with disabilities. Such meals, and the social and physical capital expended to fund them, will be repaid in the resurrection, not in this present world (Luke 14:14).
Drawing again on Formative Feasting, Jesus’ ideal feasts raise the social standing and material well-being of the poor and those commonly excluded while at the same time lowering the social standing and material well-being of wealthy hosts. Both are to be celebrated (James 1:9-10)!
A couple millennia before French sociologist Marcel Mauss’ The Gift analyzed the ways that exchange of wealth builds relationships and builds/undermines hierarchies, the Bible offers a master class in how meals, guest lists and sharing can have social impacts. A humble host who welcomes the poor and the foreigner has tremendous capacity to enact justice and solidarity through social leveling. From the Torah to the Epistles, exalting the humble and humbling the exalted has been God’s technique for creating the Beloved Community.
