Jesus can feel like the guest who spoils a party—the one who stands in the doorway, notices every flaw, and starts rearranging the seating chart. Many Pharisees saw him that way: not fun, not flattering. But look closer. He is not ruining the celebration; he is teaching us how to finally enjoy it.
Hosting can be exhausting. The menu, the timing, the conversations that must be managed so certain people do not collide. Beneath the lists and the candles burns a deeper pressure: the need to impress. We carry it into our homes, our jobs, our social feeds. Show that life is curated, successful, enviable. Spend more. Prove you belong at the head of the table.
Jesus cuts through the performance: “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” That is not a threat; it is a lifeline. He invites us to take the low place, to stop elbowing for status, to stop measuring our worth by the brand of the bottle or the glitter of the guest list. Prestige promises happiness and delivers anxiety. It cannot heal the real griefs we carry—fractured families, illness, the ache of not enough time, and the certainty that we are mortal.
So Jesus gives a different script for our parties. Do not plan the evening around reciprocity. Do not curate the room so that your stock rises by association. Set a table where repayment is not expected, where the poor, the lonely, the overlooked can sit without needing to perform. Let the menu be simple, and let the welcome be lavish. When the pressure to impress evaporates, joy can breathe. Conversation turns honest. Laughter loosens. Gratitude enters the room like music.
We have all tasted this before. Think of a simple supper with the few people who know us best—no posturing, no keeping score. At some point the clock slipped from our mind. The world grew small and warm. We were just there, together, and it was enough. That is a faint aroma of the Kingdom of God: the joy that appears when love outweighs status.
This is the kind of celebration Christ is building in us. He is not anti-party; he is anti-pretension. He wants a people who throw feasts where no one needs to pretend, because the host already delights in them. Imagine our parish like that—meals that make room for those who cannot repay, hospitality that says, “You matter. Stay.” A place where the sorrowful laugh again, where the lonely feel seen, where newcomers find a name card already waiting.
This week, resist the urge to curate a perfect evening. Leave room for interruption. Invite someone who rarely gets invited. Share something that cannot be posted online: your time, your listening, your table. Watch how freedom rises when no one is auditioning for approval.
And then come to this altar with the same posture. Here we arrive as the ones who cannot pay the bill. Here the true Host lifts us, not to flatter, but to heal. He gives what endures—mercy, friendship, peace—and sends us out to host the world in the same way. Drop the need to impress and start the feast. That is the celebration the world is starving for.