Etiquette the Jesus Way

A Message on Sunday You Didn't Hear: Sunday, August 31, 2025

Friends,

Unfortunately, I was very ill on Sunday, August 31, and was unable to deliver my homily. So, here is a brief summary. 

It happened at the ballpark. We had bought seats up in the nosebleed section, but after the first inning we decided to move down into an open row below us. Sure enough, an usher soon appeared and told us to return to our assigned seats. It was embarrassing! 

That is a bit like the etiquette advice Jesus gives in Luke 14. 

When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place (Luke 14:8-9). 

At first glance, this simply appears to be an example of good manners. As Jonathan Swift once said, “Good manners is the art of making people comfortable.” In other words, do not embarrass your host or yourself. 

But now Jesus goes on to say: 

When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous (Luke 14:12-14). 

This is not just etiquette; it is a radical overturning of social expectations. The world says: you invite me, I’ll invite you. Jesus says: invite those who cannot repay you. 

A similar note is struck in this week’s lesson from Hebrews:

Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it (Hebrews 13:1-2). 

“Mutual love” and “hospitality are actually related words. The Greek makes the sense clearer: 

• Mutual love – Philadelphia, literally “brotherly love” 

• Hospitality to strangers – Philoxenia, love to the stranger, alien, or even the enemy 

The root word xenos means “stranger,” “foreigner,” or even “enemy.” Imagine how that expands the circle of hospitality in today’s society. 

John Newton, the former slave trader turned priest and author of the hymn, Amazing Grace, once wrote to an affluent friend, urging him to spend at least as much on the poor as on himself: 

Though you love your friends, prudence … will not permit you to entertain them, no, not for a night. What! you say, shut my door against my friends? Yes, by all means, rather than against Christ … who says of the poor, ‘Inasmuch as you did it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you did it unto me.’ The poor need relief. One would almost think that the passage in Luke 14:12–14 was not considered part of God’s word; for I believe there is no one passage so generally neglected by his own people.” 

This sort of hospitality is echoed in Psalm 112:9:  

“They have given freely to the poor,     

and their righteousness stands fast for ever.” 

And yet we know the reality: transactional relationships still dominate. Those on the margins are rarely welcomed at the table.

Proverbs puts it plainly: 

The poor are disliked by their neighbors but the rich have many friends (Pr. 14:20). 

And then comes the reminder: 

Those who despise their neighbors are sinners,    

but happy are those who are kind to the poor (Pr. 14:21). 

Jesus calls us beyond “polite” society into a just society. As the wisdom of Sirach teaches:  

The beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord;            

the heart has withdrawn from its Maker . . .  

The Lord overthrew the thrones of rulers          

and enthroned the lowly in their place (Sirach 10:12, 14). 

And Mary sings the same in her Magnificat: 

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones           and lifted up the lowly;       

he has filled the hungry with good things          

and sent the rich away empty (Luke 1:52-53). 

This is the etiquette of Jesus — a radical hospitality that overturns the world’s hierarchies. 

Our Baptismal Covenant expresses it this way: we promise to “respect the dignity of every human being.” No one is beneath our notice, our care, or our concern. 

We may not fully experience the overturning of all things until God’s kingdom comes in its fullness, but we already pray each week: “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” 

The time to begin living the etiquette of Jesus is now. So, here is the question: When you set your table this week, for whom will you make room? 

Jerry+