|
22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time - C (August 29,
2010)
My
dear friends, if you listened only in a very superficial way to the
Gospel today, you might think that Jesus is offering advice for how to
get ahead in the world, almost a "how to make friends and influence
people" sort of thing. But that is not what Jesus is about.
In today's Gospel reading, as always, there is a challenge for all of
us. At the beginning of the Gospel, Luke tells us that Jesus was
invited to and went to a meal in the house of a leading Pharisee, and
Luke adds, "He was being carefully watched." Jesus was being watched
because he had already stirred up a lot of ill-feelings among the
Pharisees by exposing their hypocrisy and their fake religion and
religious spirit.
Left out of the reading that you just heard are the passages that come
right after that first sentence. Luke also says that as Jesus entered
the house of the Pharisee, in front of him was a man suffering from
dropsy who had come in uninvited. Jesus stopped what he was doing and
he said to the teachers of the Law, "Is it lawful to heal on the
Sabbath or not?" but none of them would answer. Jesus then took the
man, touched him, healed him and sent him to be seated. Then he
addressed them, "If your lamb or your ox falls into a well on a Sabbath
day, who among you does not hurry to pull the lamb or ox out?" And
again they would not answer. Then Jesus went on to tell the parable.
The Pharisees had very strict rules. They abided very carefully by the
613 laws of the Torah. They were human laws, but to the Pharisees they
were very important. They even took the place of God's law of love. So
Jesus was exposing their hypocrisy. When this sick person came in, they
would not even go near him because they might become "unclean." A sick
person was considered ritually unclean, and that is what they were
concerned about, being ritually clean.
But Jesus said, "That is not the way." He allowed the meal to be
interrupted and he told the parable about "Don't just take,
immediately, the highest place." Jesus was addressing people who were
very concerned about the rules. They had rules about status, about who
was important, more important and most important. And everyone knew
where each belonged. Jesus was almost making fun of what they tried to
do when he said: "When you go to a meal, why don't you just go to the
lowest place, and then everybody will notice how important you are,
because the host will have to come and say, 'Go to the highest place.'
" These were people who were ready to exalt themselves, give
exaggerated importance to themselves. Jesus wanted to remind them that
dignity and worth were not based on external factors.
Remember Matthew's Gospel where Jesus said, "Look at the flowers of the
field. They do not toil or spin, and yet how beautifully arrayed they
are. Are you not of much more value than the flowers of the field? Why
do you have this false sense of how to make yourself important? Accept
who you are -- one made by God, drawn into being by God's love."
My dear friends, that is what gives us our dignity and our worth. It is
not having a certain place or status. But we so easily fall into that
pattern of trying to exaggerate our importance.
Today, we might not have the same kind of rules about where to sit at
banquets and so on, although there may be some of that, and some of us
may always want to be in the top spot, in the spot-light. People
exaggerate their importance because they do not realize that the
externals do not make one important or give one value. Jesus wants us
to recognize the worth that we have because God made us in God's own
image. We do not have to put on airs and exaggerated ways to make us
feel important. Just being who we are, God will raise us up and exalt
us. Jesus challenged the Pharisees – and he challenges us -- even more
with his second example.
When you have a feast or some kind of a party, Jesus said, do not just
invite family members or wealthy people, people who you know can
reciprocate your hospitality. Instead, he said, go out into the
highways and byways. Bring in the poor, people who are crippled in one
way or another, people who are rejected, marginalized. They cannot
reciprocate.
Most of the time, we would not think of doing this. When parish
organizations or government organizations try to raise funds to help
the poor, they do it in a hotel and only rich people can come. You do
not see people from the streets there. we often wonder, why not? When
raising money for the poor, why not do it with the poor? Go to a
soup kitchen, have your meal there. Invite the rich people who can make
contributions, but let them mingle with the poor. We are sure that
would make a huge difference in our attitude toward the poor, if we
really sat down with them at a meal instead of having a meal where we
are all by ourselves.
In our typical events, we raise a lot of money, but it is only for the
poor, it is never with the poor. Jesus wants us to break through that
mentality and not just do things for the poor, but with the poor. He
said, "Do not just invite those who can reciprocate, also invite the
poor."
Our parish had the opportunity to do this last Sunday on the Feast of
Mary the Queen. Rich and poor parish organizations shared their food
with the rich and the poor alike. It was good to see the rich standing
side by side with the poor to receive the free food that was being
served. This is so different from just doing something for the poor.
That is what Jesus is trying to get across to us today. Do not simply
be with the rich and for the rich, but be with the poor and for the
poor in everything that you do. We must make sure that we do not become
exclusive, that we do not invite only people like ourselves. We have to
give up the idea of being exclusive. That is our hope for our parish
family. As we reflect today on what Jesus tells us, let us hope that we
will take to heart the deep message that Jesus proclaims, and that with
God's help we will live out what he asks of us.
God bless you.
|
|
