Devotion for the Week

… week of August 31, 2025

Did You Get the Invitation?

Choosing the invitation design for an important event can be nerve-wracking. But deciding whom to invite? Whittling down the list of desired attendees can be even more difficult than choosing the invitation itself. So much stress.

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus uses a dinner party as a teaching opportunity. In the ancient world, being invited to such an occasion was an honor, but figuring out where to sit once you arrived required a whole other stress-inducing decision. How embarrassing it would be to choose a place of prominence, only to discover you’re not that important and have to move down the table. How disappointing it would be to invite someone to your party but not receive an invitation to their next gathering. (Is that why you invited them, anyway?) So many of these social games we continue to play.

You might say that Jesus takes the stress out of party-planning because he encourages us to take an honest and humble view of it all: the view from God’s vantage point. In the realm of God, the last in the eyes of the world are first, and the first, last.

In the kingdom of God, roles are reversed, orders are disrupted, and convention is thrown out the window so all may know the grace, peace, and love of God. The divine Host throws amazing parties and desires everyone, especially those overlooked by the party-throwers and powerbrokers of the world, to have a chance to enjoy them.

Today’s gospel reading reminds us that at God’s table, everyone is invited and no one goes away empty. The party is freely offered and not a setting for social games. The table has no head and no foot but, rather, is a cloud of witnesses gathered around the life of the Crucified and Risen One.

The eucharist is the prime example of this feast. Did you get the invitation? Because you’re invited!