The Chief Seats

Good morning and welcome to Our Daily Walk.
Audio version at http://tinyurl.com/2obyza

Extended family gatherings are great events to enjoy and remember. Some people live close enough to enjoy the company of their cousins, siblings, parents and grandparents on a frequent basis. For others, distance divides family and the occasion to get everyone together comes less frequently.

One thing that most families experience at these gatherings is food. We love to gather friends and family and enjoy a meal together. However, when you combine several families into one house not everyone can be around the main table.

When I was younger I remember seeing a huge dining room table filled with food. This is where all of the adults would sit. But for the kids and grandkids, we were to sit around a smaller kitchen table or around card tables.

As kids we all looked forward to the day when we could “move up” to the big table. Sometimes one of the kids would try to sit at the big table without being invited. But then they would be demoted to the kids table as soon as the adults came into the room.

In the days of Jesus, they didn’t have dining room tables like we do today, but they did have a certain pecking order, so to speak, as to where people would sit. In Greek and Roman culture the table was usually in a U shape and was very low to the ground. Instead of chairs people would recline on their left sides on cushions and reach out with their right hands to eat.

The head of the table was reserved for the honored guest. Then in descending order of importance the other guests were placed around the table. The least important person was the farthest away from the chief seat.

Invitations for a meal would most certainly specify a date, but would not always specify a time. Guests for a meal would come at various times, and the more important guests would often delay their arrival so everyone else could see them enter and be escorted to the seat of honor. Sometimes a person might assume that they were going to be placed at a more prominent seat only to find out that someone more important was already slated to sit there.

Jesus tells a parable of humility in Luke 14:7-14. This is the parable of the chief seats.

So He told a parable to those who were invited, when He noted how they chose the best places, saying to them: “When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place, lest one more honorable than you be invited by him; and he who invited you and him come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man,’ and then you begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher.’ Then you will have glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Then He also said to him who invited Him, “When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

This lesson shows the futility of self-exaltation. It is far better to be humble and exalted by others than to exalt yourself and then be humiliated by others as they put you in your place.

James 4:10 says, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.” 1 Peter 5:6 says, “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.”

On Our Daily Walk today, may we always seek to humbly do the will of God and not be concerned with who is the greatest or who is more honored. May we always be honored to be at the table of our Lord regardless of which seat we occupy.

Our thought for the day: “Humility is the acceptance of the place appointed by God, whether it be in the front or the rear.”

May God bless you on your daily walk.

© Our Daily Walk, Mike Baker, 2007. Permission is granted to copy these articles provided they are not sold and the author's name and copyright are included.