Continuing the Christological analysis of this parable, before we begin to shift away from the Gospels (having sufficiently made the necessary points that will allow us to take a step into one of Paul’s letters and then move on to our conclusions regarding the church at Laodicea and what, specifically, they are to hear Jesus saying), we recount many of the points that have been made thus far. Though Jesus continues at this meal for some time, and though we could spend days and weeks delving into the kingdom-of-God-and-messianic-banquet-related themes (such as a comparison to the healing of the blind man in the eighth chapter of Mark, and the two-stage process therein, which compares favorably to the two-stage process outlined in this parable of the great banquet; or an analogy of the complete lack of social hierarchy at work in Jesus feeding of the four thousand in that same chapter---all eat the same food at Jesus’ banquet and there is much leftover) that are brought to the fore through the sayings and parables that are to come in the fourteenth through seventeenth chapters, there has been enough redundancy to this point to more than lay the groundwork for what will be our final analysis, having reinforced the reinforcement of the grounding of the words that are on the lips of Jesus in Revelation, as they would have been heard in their context and within the prevailing traditions concerning Jesus and His expectations for His church (universal) and His churches (local bodies within their communities).
The “protoklisian,” and what it represents, must be a fresh and ready component of the summation of our thoughts as they begin to take shape. At the meal in which Jesus is in attendance, and within the meal that is the subject of the parable, there would have been a protoklisian. All in attendance would have seen this, and all listening to the parable would have held to this understanding and been able to envision it in their mind’s eye. As has been said, this place of honor in traditional society was the chief position at the head of the table. It would have been assumed that the messiah, because he would be naturally linked with the cherished idea of the messianic banquet and because of the natural extrapolations that would be made from his position in the chief seat in the greatest conceivable banquet, would take the chief position as the king of Jerusalem when he came (chief seat at chief banquet would equal chief seat in Jerusalem and the world). However, Jesus’ teaching in regards to the “eschaton,” or that which was the lowest seat at a banquet, in conjunction with His statements about the first being last and the last being first, demonstrate, quite remarkably, that the in-breaking of the kingdom of God that accompanied the presence of the messiah, as Jesus understood it, represented something of a role-reversing reality.
Not only was it role-reversing in the “last being first” sense, but it was role reversing because of the low position that He Himself was going to take as the Messiah---a role which would thwart and reverse the popularly (though not exclusively---there is no single Jewish voice in the 1st century in this regard) held notions about the activity of messiah that were prevalent in His day. Whereas popular imagery had the messiah dispensing death-related judgment to the enemies of God’s people, and ruling from a magnificently adorned throne like that of Solomon, the protoklisian that would be occupied by Jesus, as He walked out His mission, would not be an ivory-bedecked throne. As the analysis goes, and in accordance with Jesus’ teaching, such a “first” place of exaltation becomes a place of shame---a “last” place. Lest we attempt to fool ourselves, it is not to then be taken simply because it has become the last and shameful place.
For Jesus to then occupy the place that would truly be first in His eyes, and be the place of true exaltation, He would have to take the place that His world viewed as the last and most shameful place. This, of course, would be the Roman crucifix. Anecdotally, we can see that Jesus did indeed elevate this shameful place, as it would quickly move from the realm of that which was not mentioned in polite conversation, to become that which was employed by His church as the scandalous and ultimately glorious symbol and image of the inaugurated kingdom of heaven on earth. Again, this thinking is crystallized by this section of Luke’s narrative, and the sayings, stories, and parables therein, which is what makes it an excellent jumping-off point to begin the trek down the path of a conclusion.
Continuing to reflect on the nature of the cross, and doing so apart from any type of atonement theology or notions of soteriology (which are obvious components of the cross, but they simply do not have a place in this treatise), the Roman cross was known within Greco-Roman society (of which Israel was a part owing to the well-documented inroads of the process of Hellenization) as a punishment that was reserved for the lower class. It was reserved for slaves, rebel subjects (whose rebellion made them part of the lower class), and any would-be pretenders to kingly authority in defiance of Caesar. It was known as an instrument of “humiliores,” thus connecting it with humiliation, and so connecting it with Jesus’ thoughts concerning places to be sought and places to be taken, and the exaltation and humiliation to be achieved by such seeking and taking.
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