Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Psalms 137-139
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Luke 14:8-11
Jesus: Whenever someone invites you to a wedding dinner, don’t sit at the head table. Someone more important than you might also have been invited, and your host will have to humiliate you publicly by telling you to give your seat to the other guest and to go find an open seat in the back of the room. Instead, go and sit in the back of the room. Then your host may find you and say, “My friend! Why are you sitting back here? Come up to this table near the front!” Then you will be publicly honored in front of everyone. Listen, if you lift yourself up, you’ll be put down, but if you humble yourself, you’ll be honored.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
Being a colonel in the Army and particularly in my last assignment as Chief of Staff of the Army Medical Department’s training facility for medical personnel, I had to sit at a lot of head tables. Quite frankly, my wife and I hate it. A lot of people want to add another seat or two or five or ten so they can get to sit at the head table, but let me tell you, it’s not so great sitting up there. I’ve had to do it too many times and never volunteer.
Usually you and your wife are separated so you don’t even get to sit together. The host wants everyone to mix and mingle and everyone to have the opportunity to meet each other at the head table. So your best friend doesn’t get to talk to you. And then you’re limited to talking to the person on your right and left. That’s it. Bending around to talk to someone two or three seats down the line just isn’t too kosher. And if you’re hearing isn’t all that great, like mine, you can’t carry on a conversation with anyone farther than the person next to you anyway.
Then there is the problem of the food. Sure the head table gets served first, but the polite thing to do is wait until at least half of the crowd is also served before eating. So if the crowd is large enough to warrant a head table, by the time half the tables have been served, your food is cold. You have to pretend it tastes really good though because you’re the guest and that’s the polite thing to do.
Now you have your food and you know everyone is watching you eat. Do you eat fried chicken with your fingers or with a fork? And which of those six forks at your plate do you use first? Everyone is watching so you don’t want to make any mistakes, right? So there you are with a drawer full of silverware in front of you three or four glasses two or three plates and your sitting elbow to elbow. You don’t even know which set of dishes is yours to be honest. Great fun so far sitting at the head table.
Then you try to carry on a conversation with someone you barely know or might have met for the first time. If you’re a slammed against the wall introvert like me, this gets really awkward. I talk about my kids, the weather, the Spurs, but since I’m not that big a sports nut, that conversation lasts about two seconds. Where do you go from there. If I’m the guest speaker, I really don’t want to talk at all, because I want to concentrate on what I have to say in a few minutes, but that’s not going to happen either because the people on your right and left think they are also obligated to maintain a stream of awkward conversation.
So all this time, I stare out across the room at all the round tables with everyone else laughing and talking across the tables and enjoying group conversation with one or two introverts at the table just listening and this introvert is stuck between two other introverts trying to look like we’re having a great time sitting at the head table. What a blast! Nope. Don’t ever put me at a head table if you invite me to a party. Jesus was being really kind when he gave that advice to all those gathered around Him that day.
And besides, He’s right. If you sit at the head table and someone more important comes in, someone gets bumped. That’s just the way it is. Protocol puts the ranking people at the table. If you happen to be at the end of the table, guess what? You’re either sitting by the kitchen door or on the floor. All the other spaces are full and you get left out. That’s certainly no fun.
So the right answer? Remember that we all put our pants on the same way. The round tables in the middle really do have more fun at parties and banquets than the head table. Don’t ever envy those guys sitting up there that get their food first. I’ve been there too often and it’s not a good place to be. Trust me.
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