Jesus eats at the home of a prominent Pharisee. Jesus actually might seem to be a little rude as a guest, but Jesus is being carefully watched by the Pharisees. Things might already be a bit tense.
First, the heals someone at the banquet and it just so happens to be a Sabbath day. He asks the other dinner guests if they would help their ox in trouble on the Sabbath, then he heals the man.
He also sees the dinner guests selecting their own seats. He gives them a parable about letting others selecting their own seats at a banquet and the importance of humility. On one hand, it is wise advice. It is best to wait a bit at a big banquet to see where it might be appropriate to sit. But it is a parable, so Jesus is probably speaking about something on a spiritual level. This seems to be a general concern about exalting oneself before others and the importance of humility.
Jesus further states that at banquets, one should not invite their friends, but rather the crippled, lame, and poor. This is because the friends can pay the person back by having a banquet, whereas the poor cannot. Again, this is another parable, so Jesus is talking about things on a spiritual level. It totally is fine to invite one's friends to banquets, for after all, Jesus attended banquets and ate with this friends. But it means more to God that we do things for other people who cannot repay us by inviting us to a party or at least without the expectation of repayment. This is the true heart of the servant.
In some ways, it also parallels the banquet of the Kingdom of God that Jesus is hosting. Jesus extends an invitation to us - the spiritual crippled, lame, and poor - who cannot repay Jesus.
Jesus tells a final parable in which a man has a banquet, but all the invited dinner guests decline. So, the man invites the poor, crippled, and lame to fill up the banquet and seems to revoke the invitation of the original invitees.
There probably are a number of applications of this, but for me, it reminds of me trying to throw a party for friends and they blow you off. I have done the same, whether because it was inconvenient to go there, had prior commitments, or may have felt socially inappropriate to go. There are legitimate reasons.
But in the parable, it does not seem like there are appropriate reasons to decline the invitation to dine with God. What also comes across is God's disappointment and hurt feelings that people declined the invitation.
Going back to the setting of the parable, this is also a very literal application to the banquet that Jesus was eating. Granted, he did not arrange the banquet, but a Pharisee did take the effort to invite Jesus to dine with him among his friends. How many other Pharisees liked Jesus enough to invite him to dine with him? The record is silent and this comes across as an isolated occasion.
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