When she returned to her seat, the wife seemed upset. We had checked in for the flight — not a small achievement that morning, what with the long queues discharging themselves into the check-in counters at the speed of one person per five minutes. A 17th-century Filipino martyr was to be canonized in the Eternal City, and the travel agencies were having a field day.
When we were cleared at last, we decided to take it easy at the pre-departure area and plumped ourselves into the monobloc chairs, a cup of frappé in hand. And then the wife was paged.
Being paged at the airport could mean that: (1) Someone in a fedora leans on the jamb of the entrance door, a rolled warrant of arrest sticking out of his left breast pocket; (2) Security has found a baby Armalite in the luggage, which, because initially it looked like a boy’s Levis with one leg folded at a 45-degree angle, was detected only after an ad hoc committee made a thorough review of the image in the X-ray machine; or (3) A situation has presented itself analogous to and equally as alarming as any of the above.
Already we felt vanquished, especially the wife upon hearing her name announced over the public address system. She seemed like a prisoner sure of conviction, uncertain only of the length of her imprisonment.
When she came back after consulting the counter, I asked her what the matter was. She said something about her seat in the plane, that its food tray table was not functioning, and that we would be separated, because she would have to move from economy to business class — which she refused, declaring to the counter that she was staying with me no matter what, with or without the food tray table. I could not love her more than at that moment.
At boarding time, someone came to inform us that in the end they had decided to move the wife and me to business class. So unexpected this delightful piece of news was that I failed to change my aspect from downcast to upcast. And so it happened that in all humility we were able to travel with the politicians and the peers of the realm, all because of an unhinged food tray table.
There was in this something roughly analogous in Jesus’ parable, which Luke writes about. One Sabbath, Jesus was dining at the house of one of the Pharisees. He noticed that those invited to the banquet chose the best seats. This prompted him to say, “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 everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Without question, the wife could have left me to relish the perks of business class, and I would respect her decision and not resent it. But she chose to suffer the inconvenience of not having a proper place for her food rather than abandon her unworthy spouse, which must have impressed the management enough to grant both of us a place of honor.
My thoughts turn to the Eternal Banquet, the wedding feast of the Lamb. What happens there? Will we be rewarded with a place of honor for our humility, just as in the parable they were rewarded, those who chose the lowest place? Yes. But only — and this dawned on me during the flight – if this is the fruit of loyal, constant and faithful love.