Friend, Go Up Higher

Most of us keep a wall of honors somewhere. It might be the framed diploma in the den, the sales award on the office shelf, the photo with the bishop, or the honor-roll sticker on the back of the minivan. Most of it is harmless. Then a wedding seating chart puts us at the table by the kitchen door instead of near the head table, or someone else gets the corner office we thought we had earned, and something in us flinches. Underneath the flinch sits a conviction we rarely examine. We believe our worth is measured by where other people seat us and by being noticed in those seats, and that if we don’t claim the good seat for ourselves, nobody is going to hand it to us.

Today’s readings take that conviction apart in two directions. In the Gospel, Jesus is at dinner in a Pharisee’s house on the sabbath, and he watches the guests jockey for the places of honor. So he tells them a parable: take the lowest place, so that your host may come and say, “Friend, go up higher.” Paul, meanwhile, is sitting in the least honorable seat the Roman world had to offer, a prison cell, waiting on a verdict that could mean his death. And he writes, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

Franciscan Media remembers Saint Wolfgang of Regensburg today, a tenth-century monk who longed for solitude and kept getting called back to serve. And this evening the Church begins the Solemnity of All Saints, the feast of everyone who took the lowest place and heard the Host call them higher. So here’s the question these readings put to you and me: whose word are we waiting for to tell us where we sit?

The Readings

First Reading: Philippians 1:18b-26

What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in that I rejoice.

Yes, and I shall rejoice. For I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I shall not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If it is to be life in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again.

Gospel: Luke 14:1, 7-11

One sabbath when he went to dine at the house of a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees, they were watching him.

Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he marked how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, “When you are invited by any one to a marriage feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest a more eminent man than you be invited by him; and he who invited you both will come, and say to you, ‘Give place to this man,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Scriptural Analysis

Today’s reading picks up in the middle of Paul’s report from prison. Some are preaching Christ out of rivalry, hoping to make his chains heavier (Philippians 1:15-17), and Paul’s answer is a shrug: “What then?” Christ is proclaimed, “and in that I rejoice.” Bonnie Thurston, in the Sacra Pagina commentary, notes that the next words, “Yes, and I shall rejoice,” shift into a future tense with a volitional sense. Paul is making a decision. Her comment on it is simple and hard: “Paul cannot choose his circumstances, but he can choose how he will respond to them.” Saint Thomas Aquinas explains how Paul can rejoice in preaching done from bad motives. When good comes out of an evil cause, “one should rejoice in the effect but not in the cause,” the way the Church rejoices in the redemption without approving the betrayal that set it in motion.¹

“For I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance.” Dennis Hamm, in the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, notes that scholars hear an echo of the Greek version of Job 13:16, where Job trusts that God will acquit him despite false accusations. The word for deliverance, sōtēria (soh-tay-REE-ah), literally means salvation. What counts for Paul, Hamm says, is the judgment God will render on the last day, “the day of Christ.” Thurston observes that Paul leans on two kinds of help, the Philippians’ prayers and the Holy Spirit, human and divine. The word for “help” was used in marriage contracts for providing for a spouse, and in medical texts for the ligament that holds the body together.²

“It is my eager expectation and hope that I shall not be at all ashamed.” Thurston unpacks the word for eager expectation, apokaradokia (ah-poh-kah-rah-doh-KEE-ah), built from “away,” “head” and “to watch.” She pictures someone craning the neck to catch a glimpse of something: “intense watching.” A man in chains is supposed to hang his head. Prison was a shameful affair in the ancient world, Hamm notes, and Paul expects no shame at all, because “Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.” The verb is megalynthēsetai (meh-gah-loon-THAY-seh-tie), which Thurston says literally means “made large.” Hamm hears the opening of Mary’s Magnificat, “My soul magnifies the Lord” (Luke 1:46): to magnify someone is to cause him to be held in greater esteem. Aquinas adds that Christ cannot grow larger in himself. He grows “in us, i.e., in our knowledge,” when his greatness shows in what we do with our bodies.³

“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Thurston points out that in Greek “Christ” and “gain,” Christos and kerdos (khree-STOS, KER-dos), sound alike, and that “gain” is usually a money word, the profit on a deal. Hamm says Paul’s relationship with Christ has changed his very idea of life. Living now means being in relationship with the risen Lord, and death has become “the door to being ‘with Christ.’” Aquinas explains the phrase with an image any sportsman will recognize. We call our life whatever moves us to act, “as hunters call hunting their life.” For Paul, “the whole principle of our life and activity is Christ,” and death is gain because the life with Christ that is still imperfect here is perfected there. The Catechism quotes this verse to explain why “Christian death has a positive meaning.”⁴

“Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two.” Hamm points out that the verdict wasn’t Paul’s to decide, so “choose” really means “prefer.” Thurston explains that the word for “depart” means to break up, to undo, to loose; it was used for a ship breaking from its moorings and for soldiers breaking camp. Aquinas names the two pulls. Charity’s love for God moves Paul “to be with God,” and charity’s love of neighbor makes him want the Philippians’ good. He adds that the verse refutes the opinion “that the souls of the saints are not with Christ immediately after death.” The Catechism takes up the same line: “the Christian can experience a desire for death like St. Paul’s.”⁵

Then Paul settles it. “To remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.” Thurston says the passage shows Paul “with a clear, personal preference that he sets aside in favor of the Christian community’s greater good,” which is exactly what he will ask of the Philippians in the next chapter (Philippians 2:4). She notices how he describes staying: “I shall remain and continue with you all,” a verb that carries the sense of serving or waiting on others, and he serves with them, side by side. Hamm puts it plainly: “Paul’s life is no longer about Paul.” Then the last line: “so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus.” Hamm explains that boasting was “a lively art” in Philippi, where more public inscriptions of self-celebration have turned up than in any other Roman colony. The Christians there have learned to boast in Christ Jesus instead (Jeremiah 9:23-24; 1 Corinthians 1:31).⁶

We turn now to the Gospel, which returns to yesterday’s dinner table. Pablo Gadenz, in the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, notes that after the healing of the man with dropsy the guests had nothing to say. They were busy choosing the places of honor. Eating bread at a Pharisee’s table isn’t enough, Gadenz says; they also need God’s word spoken through Jesus (Deuteronomy 8:3). Luke Timothy Johnson, in the Sacra Pagina commentary, notices the verb behind “he marked”: Jesus “grasped [with his mind] how” they picked their seats. They were watching him, and he was watching them. “Both parties are obviously observing closely!”⁷

On the surface the advice is ordinary etiquette, and Johnson points out that Proverbs gives nearly the same counsel: “it is better to be told, ‘Come up here,’ than to be put lower in the presence of the prince” (Proverbs 25:6-7). He explains that “shame” and “honor,” aischynē and doxa (ais-KHOO-nay, DOK-sah), were profoundly important motives in Hellenistic culture. And the host’s greeting carries weight. To be called “Friend” and invited higher, Johnson writes, “suggests a special intimacy and, more than that, equality with the host.” Saint Cyril of Alexandria, in the Catena Aurea (kah-TAY-nah OW-ray-ah) of Saint Thomas, notices how gently Jesus teaches here: “He does not harshly chide, but gently admonishes; for a word of advice is enough for the wise.”⁸

Then comes the line that turns etiquette into a parable. “For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Johnson explains that the passive voice is the biblical way of saying God will humble, and Gadenz agrees that both the humbling and the exalting are God’s work. Johnson adds that Hellenistic moralists counted lowliness, tapeinophrosynē (tah-pay-noh-froh-SOO-nay), as a vice; it became a distinctively Christian virtue because Christians follow a lowly Savior. Gadenz notes that Mary sang the same reversal in the Magnificat (Luke 1:52), and that Jesus “preached this message because he lived it”: “he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him” (Philippians 2:8-9). Johnson’s conclusion is the sharp one. Jesus is aiming at the frame of mind that seeks exaltation in any fashion, which means the clever guest who takes the low seat to get moved up hasn’t escaped the parable either.⁹

Saint Basil the Great saw that trap. Fighting your way to the bottom seat, he says, is its own kind of pride: “resistance or opposition is a far stronger token of pride than taking the first seat at meat.” Saint Bede reads the wedding feast as the Church, the marriage feast of Christ, where no guest should exalt himself “by boasting of his merits,” and he sums it up: “whoever exalteth himself because of his merits, the Lord shall bring low, and him who humbleth himself on account of his mercies, shall He exalt.” Gadenz agrees that the parable, which looks like a lesson in manners, is “ultimately about how to enter and recline at table … at the messianic wedding banquet in the kingdom.”¹⁰

Put the two readings side by side, and Paul turns out to be the guest who took the lowest place. He sits in chains, the most shameful seat in the Roman world, in a colony full of men carving their honors into stone. He has a clear preference for heaven, and he sets it aside to stay and serve the Philippians. He keeps his head up, and the only verdict he’s watching for is the Host’s. That’s the voice in the parable: “Friend, go up higher.” Paul has stopped arranging his own seat. To live is Christ, to die is gain, and either way Christ is magnified.

Daily Application

The interior movement these readings ask for is to let God be the one who decides which seat we get to take. That’s harder than striking a humble pose for an evening. Most of us know how to fake taking the lowest place; we wave off the compliment so that someone will repeat it. Johnson and Basil both see through that. The trouble is that in our hearts, many of us desire to be exalted, by any means necessary. We enjoy the recognition and praise: we may even desire it. Paul shows us the remedy for that desire. When Christ is your life, your honor is no longer in your hands, and you stop needing the esteem and praise of the world to tell you who you are.

Today, start with an honest inventory. Aquinas says we center our life on whatever gets us moving, the way a hunter calls hunting his life. How would you fill in that blank? My work, my kids’ achievements, my status in the parish, my financial success? Those things can be good. Paul’s question is what sits at the head of the table in our lives. Examine what you center your life on, and in one instance, take one lowest place today on purpose, and keep quiet about it. Let a coworker have the credit you could claim. Give up the good parking spot. Serve at the parish dinner without your name in the bulletin. And when the day hands you a seat you didn’t want, remember Thurston’s line about Paul: you can’t choose your circumstances, but you can choose how you’ll respond to them.

Finally, let the readings point you toward your own death, as November, the month of the faithful departed, opens. Paul could call death gain because he had already settled what his life was. The Catechism quotes Saint Thérèse of Lisieux in her last days: “I am not dying; I am entering life.”¹¹ This evening the Church begins the Solemnity of All Saints, the feast of everyone who took the low seat in this life and heard the Host say, “Friend, go up higher.”

Saint Wolfgang of Regensburg knew Paul’s dilemma from the inside. Franciscan Media tells how he taught in a cathedral school, became a Benedictine monk at Einsiedeln, and was later made bishop of Regensburg by Emperor Otto II. He reformed his clergy, preached with vigor, showed special concern for the poor, and went on wearing a monk’s habit. “The draw to monastic life never left him.” At one point he left his diocese to devote himself to prayer, “but his responsibilities as bishop called him back.” Franciscan Media’s reflection pictures him “as a man with rolled-up sleeves,” for whom doing what had to be done was the path to holiness.¹² Like Paul, he had a clear preference, and he set it aside for his people.

Let Christ be your life today. Take the lowest place, serve where you’re needed, and wait for the Host to say, “Friend, go up higher.”

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Notes

1. ↑ Bonnie B. Thurston and Judith Ryan, Philippians and Philemon, Sacra Pagina 10 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005), 62; Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Saint Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, trans. F. R. Larcher (Albany, NY: Magi Books, 1969), chap. 1, lect. 3, at isidore.co.
2. ↑ Dennis Hamm, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 85; Thurston and Ryan, Philippians and Philemon, 62.
3. ↑ Thurston and Ryan, Philippians and Philemon, 63; Hamm, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, 85; Aquinas, Commentary on Philippians, chap. 1, lect. 3.
4. ↑ Thurston and Ryan, Philippians and Philemon, 63; Hamm, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, 86; Aquinas, Commentary on Philippians, chap. 1, lect. 3; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), no. 1010.
5. ↑ Hamm, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, 86; Thurston and Ryan, Philippians and Philemon, 64; Aquinas, Commentary on Philippians, chap. 1, lect. 3; Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1011.
6. ↑ Thurston and Ryan, Philippians and Philemon, 65-66; Hamm, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, 86.
7. ↑ Pablo T. Gadenz, The Gospel of Luke, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2018), 265; Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, Sacra Pagina 3 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991), 224.
8. ↑ Johnson, Gospel of Luke, 224, 226; Saint Cyril of Alexandria, quoted in Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels, Collected out of the Works of the Fathers, vol. 3, St. Luke (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1843), on Luke 14:7-11.
9. ↑ Johnson, Gospel of Luke, 224, 227; Gadenz, Gospel of Luke, 265.
10. ↑ Saint Basil the Great and Saint Bede, quoted in Aquinas, Catena Aurea, vol. 3, St. Luke, on Luke 14:7-11; Gadenz, Gospel of Luke, 265.
11. ↑ Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1011.
12. ↑ “Saint Wolfgang of Regensburg,” Saint of the Day, Franciscan Media, accessed October 28, 2026, franciscanmedia.org.

Books Cited

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• Bonnie B. Thurston and Judith Ryan, Philippians and Philemon, Sacra Pagina 10 (Liturgical Press, 2005)
• Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Saint Paul’s Letter to the Philippians (The Aquinas Institute)
• Dennis Hamm, SJ, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture (Baker Academic, 2013)
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition (Doubleday / Image)
• Pablo T. Gadenz, The Gospel of Luke, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture (Baker Academic, 2018)
• Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, Sacra Pagina 3 (Liturgical Press, 1991)
• Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels (Baronius Press)