to dine with us. Her doing all that we had asked her to do would not be reason enough for her to think she had earned a place at our table. We would reason, “She was simply doing her job, her duty, and that does not suddenly give her the right to join our family.” This modern comparison is actually not quite as striking as the point that Jesus is making in the context of his culture. At that time, being invited to a nobleman’s table was a high honor—tantamount to being a part of the master’s own