REFLECTION “ENTITLEMENT OR HUMILITY” 

 31 AUGUST 2025 

By Rev Dr Fei Taule’ale’ausumai  

One of the most awkward social experiences you can have is arriving at a big dinner or wedding reception, walking into the banquet hall, and not knowing where to sit. Some people dash straight for the head table, assuming they belong up front. Others hang back, hovering, waiting for someone to wave them over. It’s much less awkward if there are place names on the tables, but that is usually for posh weddings, not for funerals.    

Jesus noticed this same dynamic at a dinner in Luke’s Gospel. People were pushing for the best seats — the places of honour. He saw entitlement at work. And he told a story: “When you are invited, don’t take the place of honour… but take the lowest place instead. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” 

We’ve all encountered entitlement in one form or another at school, at work and even within our own families. At work when a promotion went to the boss’s nephew. Perhaps at an auction when someone with deeper pockets won without blinking. 

Or perhaps, like me, you’ve seen it in the most ordinary of places: the supermarket. I have a friend who never looked at the price of anything. She did her weekly groceries with her son’s credit card, and so she simply filled the trolley. No glancing at sales. No comparing brands. No checking whether cheese was $10 or $20.  One week she introduced me to a delicious, very expensive cheese Castello it’s so delicious i asked, “How much did this cost you?” She laughed and said, “I have no idea. I don’t look at the prices.” 

It struck me: the ability not to look at the price is itself a privilege. It’s entitlement. She wasn’t the one paying. If she were, I’m sure she would be checking the price tags just like the rest of us.  

That is a form of entitlement, for some of us there is nothing wrong with that its quite normal — but it’s still entitlement. Because when you aren’t paying the bill, you can afford not to count the cost. But most of us do have to count. We add up every item in the trolley, we swap out the expensive items for the one on special, we weigh the luxury against the necessity. 

Entitlement still shows up in so many ways today. It shows up when: 

Some voices are always given the podium, while others go unheard. 

Some people assume their place at the head of the table, while others are never invited in. 

All of us, at one point or another, have encountered entitlement. That subtle, sometimes blatant, sense that someone else has access to resources, opportunities, or recognition that we don’t. Sometimes it feels unfair. Sometimes it stings. Sometimes, if we’re honest, we may even recognize entitlement in ourselves. 

This is the human condition Jesus names in Luke 14. In his time, as in ours, society rewarded those with power, wealth, or connections. The “best seats” at the table were taken by the entitled. But Jesus flips it upside down: 

Don’t assume the head of the table. 

Don’t claim the right to the best place. 

Instead, choose humility. 

Jesus illustrates that it is not the proud who are lifted up, but the humble. It is not the entitled who inherit grace, but the ones who know their need. 

Jesus noticed this same human tendency at the dinner table in Luke 14. He told a parable about guests who rushed for the best seats, presuming they belonged at the head of the table. In their eyes, their entitlement gave them priority. But Jesus warns when you assume the place of honour, you may end up being asked to move lower, shamed in front of others. 

Instead, he says: “When you are invited, take the lowest place.” Humility, not entitlement, is the hallmark of discipleship. 

We live in a society that rewards privilege. Those who can afford it get fast-tracked.  After all my travelling during my Sabbatical I have now been upgraded to a Gold Airpoints member, this is the second time in my life.  It comes with the Koru lounge privilege, being able to pick your seat at no cost, extra baggage allowance and one upgrade to a higher class on your next overseas trip.  My thinking, well the price I paid for those tickets I’m entitled to that privilege.  Well, in reality, I have a brother that manages the pilots for Air New Zealand and he got me a buddy ticket for the Auckland-Shanghai return leg of the journey so a business class seat was less than half price in fact the same as an economy price so why not.  I continued the second leg of my travel also in Business Class on Air China, not because I could afford to but because in all my years of travelling around the world on long haul flights, I knew what to expect.  In my younger days I was agile and thinner and had lots of stamina.  In all honesty, if I couldn’t travel business class to the UK, I would have chosen somewhere else in the Pacific to travel to.   

Many of you can relate to the aging syndrome that suddenly catches up with us at the best and the worst of times.  My rationale is that yes, I am entitled, I have worked hard all my life, and I have earned it.  For me, if it does not hurt anyone else in the process.  If I didn’t do it, it would hurt me physically.  So, I guess I justify it medically.   

The Gospel calls us to reimagine this system. What would it look like if the last were first, if the overlooked were welcomed, if the humble were lifted? 

Do I see myself as entitled to the best seat at the table, or am I willing to take the lower seat, leaving space for others to be lifted? 

The world we are called to enable and participate in is not built on entitlement. It is built on grace. And grace is a gift that can never be bought, outbid, or charged to someone else’s credit card. ¹ 

And yes, it even shows up in the church, when clergy or leaders assume they deserve a certain place of honour. I know, as a Samoan woman minister, what it feels like not to be seated at the head table even though I have a clerical collar around my neck — and yet to not even have my name called because of my gender. You eventually get a bit sick and tired of the blatant exclusion and so I choose not to attend many of these occasions, I just don’t need it in my life.  I am now very selective with where I go particularly in Samoan circles.  Entitlement plays itself out in countless ways. 

But Jesus is clear: God’s realm is not built on entitlement. It is built on radical hospitality. He says, “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind. And you will be blessed.” 

In other words, don’t just invite those who can repay you. Don’t just surround yourself with the entitled. Create space for those who never expect a seat at the table. Lift the humble. Honour the overlooked. 

What Jesus is suggesting in his story telling is radical. It breaks every rule of reciprocity and reputation. In that society, meals were about mutual benefit — “I invite you today, you invite me tomorrow.” But Jesus imagines a different table — one where grace is the currency, and where those on the margins are given the seats of honour. 

In a world of networking and ladder-climbing, Jesus calls us to stop measuring people by status, title, or usefulness. 

In a society where many still go hungry, he asks us to create tables of real hospitality, where those who are excluded are welcomed first. 

For the church, it is a challenge to be more than a club of the like-minded. We are called to be a community where God’s extravagant welcome is visible — where the stranger is embraced, the poor are fed, the excluded are given voice. 

So, when we go about our lives, we need to ask ourselves: 

Do I assume the best seat at the table? 

Or am I willing to take the lower seat, leaving room for others to be lifted? 

Because at the table that Jesus invites us to there are no head tables for the entitled. There is one table — the table of grace. And at that table, every seat is a gift. None of us earned it. None of us paid for it. All of us are invited by the mercy of God. 

So, we are called to sit humbly and act justly. Let us welcome widely. Jesus reminds us, the last are first, the humble are lifted up, and grace is served to all.  Amen.  

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