At formal meals, where a person reclined could communicate more than convenience. Hosts and guests were conscious of rank, and desirable places could publicly signal who was considered important.
Jesus turns this familiar social competition into teaching about humility and honor.
Greco-Roman and Jewish banquet culture could arrange guests according to status. Public meals therefore became occasions where honor was displayed and negotiated. Being moved upward by the host could increase honor; being displaced from an assumed high place could cause public shame.
Similar status concerns appear in Jesus' criticism of religious leaders who love prominent seats, greetings, and titles. The problem is not furniture itself but the pursuit and display of social precedence.
The setting makes Jesus' advice more than a lesson in polite table manners. Choosing the lower place means refusing to seize honor for oneself in a culture highly sensitive to rank.
Jesus repeatedly connects such reversals with God's kingdom: those who exalt themselves will be humbled, while those who humble themselves will be exalted. The banquet becomes a miniature picture of a larger reversal of human status.