"An Equal Place" | Charissa Simmons | Sunday, August 31, 2025

I grew up in a very large family. Every time we gathered with extended family for a meal, say at Thanksgiving or Christmas, there was a kids’ table. Many of us were familiar with this concept. We couldn’t physically fit everyone at the same table, so there was a smaller table set up, usually in another room. The table setting wasn’t as fancy. Oftentimes, there wasn’t even food on the table—you had to go and get it from the big table or wait for someone to come and offer it to you. But the biggest difference for me was that the kids’ table was a lot more fun.

As my siblings and I grew up, there were almost always still some children around, but there were a lot more grown-ups around too. And we definitely couldn’t all fit around one table. So, there was still a kids’ table, but now some grown-ups had to sit at that table too. I was, and still am, the first to volunteer to sit at the kids’ table. It’s not as fancy. I have to go hunt down my own food. It’s smaller.

I don’t choose to sit at the kids’ table to earn brownie points with the grown-ups in my family so they’ll notice my sacrifice and think good things about me. Honestly, it’s more selfish than that. The kids’ table is simply the more enjoyable place for me. Even though the kids’ table sounds a little like the lowest place that Jesus is talking about in the parable we just heard.

This passage is called the parable of the wedding feast, but it’s different than the parables Jesus usually tells. Usually, there’s some kind of a twist to Jesus’ parables—a surprise ending or an unexpected piece that makes you think about things a little deeper, to look for what might be going on beneath the surface of the words. But this parable seems more like direct advice: don’t put yourself in the place of honor, lest you be asked to move to a lower place.

The society that Jesus lived in was extremely hierarchical, and there were many ways that hierarchy was expressed and manipulated. One way was where someone sat at a banquet or a feast. Normally, in this kind of an event, the guests were seated in a big U-shape with the host right in the middle of the head table, and guests arranged carefully with the most important next to the host and the very least important at the very tips of those U’s, furthest from the host and the important conversations and action.

But the seating wasn’t static. And if you were near the host and someone more important than you arrived, you would be asked to give up your place to that person. Now, probably not everyone is going to politely shift one spot all the way down the table for you. So, you would have to move to the very end, where there was space. Kind of a walk of shame.

So it seems that Jesus is saying that, to avoid this embarrassing situation, you should sit at the far end of the table, whereupon the host will notice you and invite you to come closer, and you can walk with pride to a place of honor at the table.

Now, in this parable, Jesus is referencing a verse of scripture—one that the Pharisee, whose home he was in, and most of those assembled would have known. It comes from the 25th book of Proverbs: Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place of the great, for it is better to be told, “Come up here,” than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.

So Jesus says, “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled.” And then he adds the flip: “And those who humble themselves will be exalted.” So we shouldn’t exalt ourselves. We shouldn’t put ourselves above other people because we’re likely to be knocked down a notch. Instead, we should humble ourselves, put ourselves below others, so that then we will be exalted.

But if we are humbling ourselves in order to be exalted, isn’t that just a way of exalting ourselves? It’s a conundrum. And maybe there is something parabolic in these words of Jesus. After all, Jesus is poking at the honor–shame hierarchy of that time, calling out the prideful and promoting a different social order—one of acceptance that embraces those on the margins, the needy, the poor, the wounded. These are the people Jesus tells his host that you should invite to your next meal. Genuine humility is lived out in acts of service, not in hopes of future glory.

Well, I’ve been thinking about the ways that we place people in hierarchies today, and thinking about that kids’ table. We exalt productivity in our society today. Success and achievement are nearly always directly related to what we produce. We idolize those who produce entertainment in music, sports, and media. Our résumés highlight college degrees and publications. We humblebrag about our long to-do lists and our short free times. And we teach our children to be productive members of society.

And this isn’t all bad by any means. We need people to produce things, and we need productive members of society. But it isn’t the best measure of our value as human beings. Children are so often placed at the lowest place at the table, or even at a separate table, because they aren’t seen as productive. They seemingly haven’t proven their worth yet. But that is a mistake.

In Godly Play here at Trinity, we give children what we call “work time” after we’re done with the lesson of the day. It is a time for the children to respond to the lesson in a way that they choose. Sometimes kids will play with the story materials. Sometimes they’ll build something or they’ll do some artwork. It really is up to them to choose what to do within the confines of what’s available in that room.

And during this time, the adult mentors don’t check on the children’s work. We don’t ask them about what they’re doing or making unless they engage us first. We don’t look for any kind of outcome. There is no expected product. Work time is about process, not product. Because the point of this time is simply an invitation to be with God and respond to that invitation in a way that is best for them.

It requires a fair amount of trust in children and a whole lot of intention to put away our own need for a product to somehow show what they have learned that day. And for me, it is a profound gift to be in the presence of children in this way—to simply be in sacred space and time with small beings who feel no need to be productive and instead are fully engaged in the process of being human.

So, I’ve just returned from a sabbatical. That was another profound gift. And during my three months away, I took the concept of Sabbath during that sabbatical very seriously. And I rested. I rested hard. And midway through the time, I realized that what I was really resting from was the need to be productive—resting from the requirement to produce anything that didn’t come from my own desires. And in that rest, I remembered the gift of being loved simply because I am—the gift of God’s grace. I rediscovered my own belovedness, that I am beloved of God just because I am me. I don’t have to earn or strive after God’s love. It’s already mine.

And the same is true for you. Your productivity is not the measure that God uses to determine your value, your worth, or your place at the table. The measure that God uses is that you exist.

There is no hierarchy at the table in God’s kingdom—the kingdom that we are working to bring about right here and now. There’s an equal place at the table for everyone in the reign of God. There’s a place for you at the table. Come as you are and sit wherever you like.