22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

My dear parishioners,

God is Good!!!  All the time!!!  And all the time!!!  God is Good!!!

In today’s Gospel, Luke again uses Jesus’ table fellowship as the context for teaching. Much of Jesus’ teaching takes place in or around meals. Jesus also will share table fellowship with anyone from Pharisee to leper.

Learning humility. Jesus is dining at the home of a leading Pharisee. Jesus has obviously been invited for more than pleasant conversation. The people at the meal are observing him carefully. He is known for not following official protocol during his table fellowship. As the story proceeds, the dynamic shifts from the people observing Jesus to Jesus observing them. He is a wisdom teacher offering lessons in humility.

God’s logic. Jesus first observes how the guests tend to migrate immediately to the places of honor. This sense of entitlement is dangerous and could lead to shame. A more distinguished guest may show up, and the host would then give that person the more honorable place. The early guest would then be asked to move to a lower position; that would be shameful. Humility would dictate that when attending a banquet one should move to the places of lesser honor. It may be that the host will come and ask this guest to move up to a higher place of honor. This would be honorable, both for the guest and the host. The teaching of Jesus states the dynamic of reversal: self exaltation leads to humiliation while humility leads to exaltation.

Wrong guests. The second observation Jesus makes concerns the kind of people who have been invited to this banquet. All of the right kind of people are there: friends, relatives, the wealthy, and the influential. However, in the mind of Jesus, these are all the wrong kind of people. In every way, they can afford to be there. For Jesus the right kind of people would be the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. They could give nothing in return.

Of course, nothing would be needed because, by inviting these kinds of people, the host will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. There is no doubt that Lk wants his own community members to pay close attention to what Jesus says here. Things were not going smoothly between the rich and the poor in Lk’s communities. It is a never ending challenge.

Excerpts from “Sunday Homily Helps”, is used by permission of Franciscan Media. www.FranciscanMedia.org. All rights reserved

 Sincerely in Christ,

Fr. Aloysius