TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY
TIME Sept 1, 2019
In the Gospel today Jesus gives the Pharisees, and us, some
good advice on how to behave at banquets and social functions. “When you are invited, go and take the
last place so that when the host comes to you he may say, “My friend, move up
to a higher position.” Then you will
enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table.”
What is this
all about? Is Jesus just dispensing some
good advice about manners? Is he acting
sort of as an early Emily Post? Is this
just ‘appropriate social behavior’ Jesus is talking about?
Obviously, I
think not. Part of the problem is that
our reading leaves out 5 verses. We hear
verse one and then jump to verse seven.
What about verses 2 thru 6??? // Would you like to know what happens in the
missing verses? Of course! We’ve been gipped!
Our first
verse states that “the people were observing him carefully.” Why?
Because this was a set up. It was
a trap. Because they invited Jesus on a
sabbath, the holy day when work was not allowed. And in the missing verses it turns out there
was a man also invited who had dropsy, what today we can endima, a painful
swelling of the limbs, that would be pretty obvious. They planted this man right in front of Jesus
on a Sabbath to see what Jesus would do.
This was a trap.
In the missing
verses Jesus asks, “Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath or not?” When they refuse to answer, Jesus heals the
man, then asks: “Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern,
would not immediately pull him out on the sabbath day?” But they were unable to answer his question.” AND THEN Jesus gives this advice about where
to sit at a banquet. What is going on
here? //
In the Gospel Jesus constantly preaches a theme of reversal: The first shall be last and the last shall be
first. Whoever saves his life will lose
it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. Unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth
and dies it remains just a grain of wheat.
But if it dies it produces much fruit.
Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles
himself will be exalted.
Over and over
again Jesus teaches us that the way forward involves going backward. That to go up you must go down. To truly live you must die. This theme of reversal is very close to the
center of His preaching and His life.
This is also
what Jesus Himself did. His whole life
was about emptying Himself so that the Father could completely fill Him. In the beautiful hymn from the second
chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians, read every Palm Sunday, St. Paul
poetically expresses this:
“Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours
in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality
with God something to be grasped.
Rather,
he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and
found human in appearance, he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death, even death on a
cross.
Because
of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above
every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in
heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
What
Jesus is instructing the Pharisees about where to sit at table is a concrete
specification of what His whole life was about, about all Jesus lived and all
Jesus preached: go down in order to be
brought up.
We
see this also in the life of Mary, Our Blessed Mother. When the angel Gabriel appeared to her to
announce that God had chosen her to be the mother of God’s Son,
Mary did not seek her own advantage, but empties herself of all of her plans and
desires, in order to make herself totally and completely available to God’s
Will for her. “I am the handmaid, the
maidservant, the slave, of the Lord God” she stated. “Let it be done to me according to YOUR
Will.” Mary let go of her own
desires to place herself fully at the disposition of God’s Will, just as her
Son emptied Himself totally, to be completely filled with God’s power and God’s
plan.
So
instructing the Pharisees in today’s Gospel about where to sit at banquet and
social functions, Jesus is doing much, much more than giving them good advice
on etiquette. He is giving them instead
a concrete example of the spiritual principle of self-emptying, of dying to
self, in order to allow God to fill us with God’s grace and love.
This
way of Jesus is radically different from what our society teaches us daily
about self-promotion, about how to get ahead, about maximizing our influence,
power and benefits. Jesus’ way is
profoundly counter-cultural. And it is
not easy.
The
way of Jesus is about dying to selfishness and ambition, to open ourselves to
God’s Will
for us. As Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, “not
my will, but Thine be done.” So we,
as Jesus’ disciples, are called to work, pray and open ourselves to the grace
to deny our self, to take up our cross, and to follow Jesus.
Maybe
that means accepting a call to religious life or priesthood. Maybe that means taking care of an aging
parent even though you will have to forfeit a great job opportunity. Maybe that means giving up vacation time to
spend time helping with refugees at the border.
Maybe that means stifling our tongue, swallowing the quick, cutting
comeback, and bearing insult in silence.
Maybe it means working for compromise and cooperation rather than
scoring a hit on political enemies.
Maybe it means taking the last place, at a banquet, or in line, or
selection of desert, or whatever, because you are certain and secure in the
knowledge of God’s tender love for you.
Jesus
shows us the way. To win life we must
die to self. To gain we must loose. To be filled we must become empty. To have the higher place we must choose the
lower. The last shall be first, and the
first shall be last.
Such
is the wonderful, counter-intuitive, topsy-turvy world of the Spirit. God bless!
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