28th August 2016 – Sunday 22C

SEATING ARRANGEMENTS
(Luke 14:1, 7-14)
When I wrote about this reading three years ago, here in Australia we were preparing for a federal election. This time around we live in the ‘aftermath’ of another federal election. I say aftermath because the result was not as some expected, or indeed, would have preferred: the government was returned with the slimmest majority, one seat. There are many new and unfamiliar, faces in this new parliament. As much as members might like to choose their own seat, these arrangements are decided by others. For all it’s an exercise in humility, accepting a higher place or lower.

A place of honour:
a moment to be humble,
offered not chosen.

But there is another aspect of this reading which touches the life of the parliament: the temptation to legislatively look after friends and benefactors, while forgetting, or even ignoring, the plight of “the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind”, and more.

The banquet table,
sign of hospitality
prepared and ready.

Send out
invitations,
not to friend and neighbour,
but rather to those who cannot
repay.
        Jeff Shrowder, 2016.
 
 
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