Grab a Seat! No...Not That One...

There's a parable in which a guest arrives at a wedding banquet, chooses to sit at the place of honor and is forced to do the "walk of shame" when a more eminent guest arrives to claim the seat of honor.  The lesson is to take the lowest seat, so the possibility of being honored with an invitation to take a higher seat exists.  If one starts at the top, there's no place to go but down.

If that scenario played out in real life, I wonder what the disgraced guest would do in the future.  Would he decline all invitations, recalling his humiliation?  Would he try again, taking care to take the lower seat?

It may be that attempting to prematurely elevate oneself socially, and receiving an embarrassing "correction" is no different from any other tree root sticking out across the path of life.  Maybe a second lesson (not addressed) from this parable could be, "If you DO make this particular mistake, are you able to recover, move on, and learn from the error?  Will you make this particular error again?  Or will you blame the host and eschew further invitations?"

I recently had a front-row seat to a similar scenario, and the participants' responses were interesting:

Basketball tryouts finally arrived, after much anticipation and a week of conditioning drills/scouting by the coaches.  "Sammy" was confident he would easily make one of the teams.  He had played team basketball before, attended a pricey basketball camp, had good shoes and played pick-up basketball almost daily.  "Joey" was not as confident.  He had not played on a team or attended a camp, nor did he have basketball shoes.  Furthermore, he pulled a muscle during the conditioning week and had to dial back his activity.  But, Joey loved basketball, and he wanted to try to make a team.

As the tryouts loomed, Sammy minutely dissected each person's chances of making the team.  He had confident criticism ("He's no good") for most of the hopefuls, three in particular.  His own confidence never wavered. 

And...neither Sammy nor Joey made the cut.  The three boys who had incurred Sammy's harshest assessment of their skills, did make the team. 

Joey was disappointed, but philosophical, and resolved to try again next year. 
Sammy shifted blame to his grades and stated he was finished with basketball.
Joey still has a chance for the "seat of honor." 
Sammy (unless Time, the Great Healer changes his perspective) does not.

Choose your seat wisely...but if you do not choose wisely, learn from it.