“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, don't recline at the best place, because a more distinguished person than you may have been invited by your host. The one who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this man’, and then in humiliation, you will proceed to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and recline in the lowest place, so that when the one who invited you comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ You will then be honored in the presence of all the other guests. For everyone who exalts him self will be humbled and the one who humbles him self will be exalted.”
(Luke14:8-11)
The central teaching of this parable is evidently humility. Jesus gave clear indications about this aspect when earlier on the disciples started quarreling about who among them would be the greatest. He took a little boy and stood him by his side saying: “for the least among all of you is the greatest” (Luke 9:48). Then he narrated this parable giving an especial color to the same fact pictured in the book of Proverbs: “Don't work yourself into the spotlight; don't push your way into the place of prominence. It's better to be promoted to a place of honor than face humiliation by being demoted.”(Proverbs 25:6-7).
Humility is not a characteristic that can be obtained by force; on the contrary, it comes naturally when a person understands the right position he occupies in Creation. As a person becomes more and more conscious of the working of the natural laws, his vision of the gigantic mechanism at work in Creation becomes correspondingly sharper showing the exact functions that mesh into one another and his own real function inside it. He will see that he is but a tiny piece among the many creatures which adjust and lubricate the system allowing its perfect functioning. Therefore, he would never again “think of himself more highly than he should think” (Romans 12:3); he would try to avoid self delusion because “For if anyone considers himself to be something when he is nothing, he is deceiving himself” (Galatians 6:3).
One who achieves this recognition will never exalt himself. He will never feel any necessity to do so, besides such behavior would seem ridiculous to him, a product of ignorance from those who could not grasp the true role humans have to play in Creation. True humility sprouts from the heart. It is not a product to be offered to consumers. Without true humility one cannot do anything valuable.
The coming of Jesus is not a proof, as most people supposes, that humanity is so important to God that He sent His own son to the earth to redeem every one from his or her guilt. The coming of Jesus proves, indeed, the immense Love of the Almighty, Love which is well above the human capacity to comprehend. Only the immensity of this Love could send a part of Himself to help human beings, who were on the verge of destruction, creatures that became incapable of fulfilling their minimal tasks in the gigantic mosaic of Creation.
The majority of the believers are arrogant, like the Pharisees of the Biblical times who were so eager to take “the front seat in the synagogues and to be greeted in marketplaces.” (Luke 11:43) They are like those running to the first seats at the party, believing that they are much more important than they really are. Now they are going to be forced to the last places and the majority will be finally expelled as unworthy of the invitation.
“Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:12) said the Master. Only a minimal fraction of the invitees will be among “those invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb!” (Rev 19:9).