When I was younger, I loved to fly. I didn’t get to do it very often, so when I did, it was a big deal. Of course, when I was younger, taking an airplane was different. They served you actual meals on the plane, and everyone got dressed up, like they were going to church.

I remember the first flight I took; I was probably seven or eight. The flight attendant came and retrieved my brother and me, asking if we’d like to see the cockpit. Um, yeah!

So up we marched to be greeted by the Captain and more buttons, toggle switches, and gauges than we had ever imagined could be crammed into such a comparatively tiny space. The captain shook our hands, and we got a pair of wings to pin to our shirts. All these years later, and I still remember it.

But while I used to love flying, as I’ve grown older and had to do it more regularly (and I don’t think I’ll burst anybody's bubble to say it), flying no longer carries the same romance it used to.

Nowadays, if I’m honest, the whole thing can be rather stress-inducing. Trying to time your arrival at the airport so that you get there with plenty of time, but not so early that you have to sit waiting to board for two hours.

Checking in, you have to pick the right line. Are you a first-class flyer or a premier club member, or are you simply part of the great unwashed who has to cram into economy?

Then you have to figure out the newest rules for going through security. But first, you have to find the right security line. Do you get into the fast line with TSA PreCheck or Global Entry? What do you have to take off? Belts, maybe, but not shoes anymore. All your electronic devices go in one plastic tub instead of a separate one for each. It is a crapshoot every time.

When you finally get to take a seat at the gate, you have to figure out which boarding group you are in. Are you a Diamond or Platinum club member, in the military, or traveling with small children? Did you pay extra for a higher boarding group? First Class, Business Class, or Economy.

The whole process is meant to put you in some kind of ranked order. You pay more, you get to skip the line. You pay less, and lines are what you get.

Regardless, you’re being told repeatedly where you belong by some authority. Ticket agents, TSA officers, gate agents, flight attendants, and that voice reminding you, "While on the moving walkway …"

In philosophy, that kind of identity mapping has a big fancy name, interpellation. It’s a word from Louis Althusser, who said that societies train us to answer when they call out, "Hey, you." The way you answer and what you answer for is who you become.

When the TSA officer waves you to the long line instead of the short one, that’s the system saying, "Hey, you, ordinary traveler, economy class, this is your place." And without even thinking, you shuffle to your assigned line, look for your assigned seat. That’s interpellation. Being told who you are.

Did you know that in the Old West, stagecoaches sold different classes of tickets, too? John Claypool talked about this. Apparently, there were three classes of tickets. First class was the most expensive, and third class was the cheapest.

As we've noted, on an airplane, there are significant differences between first class and the cheap seats. First class gets to board before everybody else. They get good stuff to eat and drink. And the seats are usually bigger, less crowded.

But on the stagecoach, all the seats were the same. What differentiated first class from third class wasn't hot towels and fancy drinks. It was responsibility.

If the stagecoach broke down or got stuck, first-class ticket holders didn’t have to do anything. Second-class ticket holders had to get out and walk alongside until it was fixed or dragged out of the mud. And if you were in third class, you had to get out … and push. You jumped down into the mud and helped.

Claypool said that system captured our human instinct to equate first class with privilege, with not having to get your hands dirty, with not being inconvenienced by whatever’s happening outside your comfortable little cabin. And he said that kind of stratification is exactly the political tree against which Jesus swings his ax.

Now, in our Gospel this morning, Jesus wasn't talking about airplanes or stagecoaches, but he was talking about the same kind of social choreography. In Luke 14, he's at the house of a Pharisee, a local leader and a man of influence. Folks are watching Jesus closely, but Jesus is also watching them. He notices how everyone angles for the best couches at the banquet.

In that world, meals weren't just about food. They were an exercise in drawing up seating charts of the social order. Banquets were where you showed who was important and who wasn’t. The closer you reclined to the host, the more honor you had. The farther away, the more invisible you became.

It's the same game, with fewer boarding groups and more couches. The logic is the same. You're constantly being told who you are, where you belong, and how much you matter.