Homily for 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

 Preferential Option for the Poor

 Joseph de Veuster was a Belgian missionary priest working among the islanders of Honolulu. His bishop had trouble finding a priest to work in the leper settlement of Molokai. Joseph, better known as Father Damien, volunteered to go and work in the "living graveyard that was Molokai." His solidarity with the lepers was so complete that he contracted the disease himself and died at the age of forty-nine in service to the poorest and most abandoned. Some of his contemporaries accused him of imprudence and foolhardiness. Today, however, he is recognised worldwide as a hero of the faith: Damien the Leper.

 Father Damien made a total life commitment to the poor long before the church recognised the preferential option for the poor as a pillar of the church's social teaching. The Gospels teach us that as Christians we should give priority to the poor in the way we administer and dispense our resources. This is what we see in today's gospel reading. Some people see today's gospel as Jesus teaching table etiquette and good manners in choosing seats when invited to a dinner. But when we try to read it through the eyes of the early Christians whose assembly was mainly to share in the feast of the Eucharist, we begin to see that there is much more than etiquette involved here. Jesus is teaching the basic Christian virtues of humility and solidarity with the poor. And he does this in two stages using two parables.

 The first parable, on the One Invited to the Wedding Feast (verses 7-11), is addressed to Christians as those who are invited to the feast of the Lord's supper. Irrespective of social status and importance we come to the Eucharist as brothers and sisters of equal standing before God. This is the only place where employer and employee relationship, master and servant distinctions dissolve and we recognise one another simply as brothers and sisters in the Lord, as together we call God "Our Father." The Letter of James reports and condemns a situation where Christians "make distinctions" in the Christian assembly:

 If a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, "Have a seat here, please," while to the one who is poor you say, "Stand there," or, "Sit at my feet," have you not made distinctions among yourselves? (James 2:2-4).

 Jesus is challenging his followers to abolish the rich-poor distinction among them and to recognise and treat one another as brothers and sisters of equal standing before God. "For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted" (Luke 14:11)

 The second parable, on the One Giving a Great Dinner (verses 12-14), is addressed to Christians as those who invite others to the feast of the Lord's supper.

 When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind (verses 12-13).

 In this second part of his teaching Jesus goes beyond levelling out the distinctions and calls for a preferential treatment of the poor and the disabled among us. He calls for affirmative action. Give the preference to the poor and the handicapped. A chain is only as strong as its weakest point. That is why priority of attention is to be given to the weakest link in the chain. It is in the best interest of the entire chain. It is in the best interest of the Christian community to give priority to the poor and disabled in our distribution of resources.

 Does our parish community measure up to the criterion of preferential option for the poor? Do we consider wheel-chair access to our churches to serve “the crippled and the lame” a priority? What about providing sign-language translation in our services for the benefit of “the deaf” and braille Bibles and prayer books for “the blind.” This is what it means to "invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind" (Luke 14:13).

 In a certain community of priests the daily celebration of Holy Mass is an occasion for petty bickering. At the “I confess to Almighty God,” half of the community says “and to you my brothers and sisters” as in the missal. The other half looks round and seeing that there is no woman in attendance, says “and to you my brothers.” Should a woman be in attendance they say, “and to you my brothers and sister.” Why mention sisters when there are no women present, they argue. Yet, properly understood, Christian worship always includes more than eye can see.

 In the past we regarded Hebrews as one of the Letters of Paul. Today, it is generally believed (a) that Hebrews was not written by Paul, and (b) that is not a letter written to people who are absent from the writer but a sermon delivered to believers gathered in worship. With this understanding, today’s second reading from Hebrews 12:18-24 can be seen as an attempt by the preacher to give the congregation a better understanding of the mystery we walk into when we attend Christian worship. There are two parts to the reading. The first part begins in verse 18 “You have not come to …” and the second part begins in verse 22 “But you have come to …”

 First the preacher tries to correct a wrong impression that some people in the church have about Christian worship.

 You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom [that can be seen], and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice [that can be heard] whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them (12:18-19).

 These observable things were signs of God’s presence with His people in the Old covenant worship on Mount Sinai. They can all be perceived by the senses of sight, sound and touch. The grandeur of the worship was measured by its audio, visual and emotional effect. According to the preacher, this is not what we gather for when we assemble for Christian worship.

 When we gather in worship, the preacher then goes on to teach, we participate in a seven-fold spiritual reality.

 You have come (1) to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, (2) to innumerable angels in festal gathering, (3) to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven [that is, fellow believers who are alive and worshipping with us], (4) to God the judge of all, (5) to the spirits of the righteous made perfect [believers who are dead, whose souls are now with God], (6) to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, (7) and to the sprinkled blood [of Christ] that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel (12:22-24).

 We can see that what we have come to are spiritual things, as opposed to those things that we have not come to, which are things perceivable by the senses. To appreciate and participate meaningfully in Christian worship what we need above all is not eyes or ears or feelings but faith. Secondly, the things we have not come to have to do with things, whereas what we have come to has to do with persons: God, Christ, angels, spirits, and fellow believers. We come not to experience some-thing but to fellowship with some-one: God together with all who belong to Him. Communion is not something we receive into ourselves, communion is something we do with others: fellowship with God, God’s angels, and our fellow believers, living and dead.

 Do you perhaps know some brothers or sisters in Christ who complain that they get nothing out of the church service because the singing is dull and the preaching boring? Maybe you should tell them that next time they come, they should bring more faith than eyes or ears. The good music and the good preaching we hear, the altar decorations and the flowers we see, these can contribute to our appreciation of the worship, but the most important thing we need to have a great worship is faith.

 We began our three readings today from the Book of Sirach, sometimes called Ecclesiasticus or Wisdom.  This is one of those books that most Protestants don’t include in their group of books which constitute the Bible. The Catholic church has from earliest times  accepted this book as canonical, however. Sirach is a collection of advice, somewhat similar to the Book of Proverbs, but unlike that book which is a collection of sayings made over many years span, Sirach was written or at least collected by one person.

 Over all, the Book of Sirach places great emphasis on the virtue of humility and shows great sympathy to poor people and the oppressed.

 In the short section we heard read today, we can see the emphasis is strongly on the virtue of being humble, that is, not putting a lot of emphasis on one’s own importance. When compared to God, no-one is very important, so Sirach says that if you are a great person, you have to work harder to make yourself lower or more humble, because God rewards and reveals his secrets to the lowly, unspoiled person.  This makes sense, I suppose because important people have both power and responsibility, and this takes up much of their time. The lowly person is more open to communication with God, perhaps has more time for it, or has been forced to put his or her trust in God more.

 In the Gospel of Luke today we also hear Jesus talking about humility.  Our Gospel acclamation today says “I am meek and gentle of heart.”  Indeed this quality of humility is one for which Jesus is very much a role model. We often talk about how Jesus lowered himself to become like us – a God becoming a man!  How much more humble could he be? So when Jesus talks about humility we know that he is “walking the talk”!

 However, before we reflect on what Jesus has to say about humility, it might be good to look at meals in the Mediterranean culture of Jesus’ time. Meals, as we have seen many times before, were very important.  They were even ways that people could establish lasting bonds with each other. Usually, a Mediterranean person would eat with people of the same social status, and all through the meal there were many rules that had to be followed, some based on Biblical exhortations, some based on custom and tradition, and some based on social status. Our regular meals today are not much like that, but if you look to a wedding, or a government banquet, you can see some of those same things played out today.

 The fact that Jesus was invited to eat at the home of a Pharisee was some indication that he was being taken seriously, even if they only invited him to find out more about him or to trick him.  We actually get a sense from this reading that they did it to trap Jesus in some way. Some of the behaviors that the Pharisees might want to monitor at the meal is seeing where Jesus sits, who comes into the room and when, to whom he aligns himself, whether he adheres to the purification rites, and certainly what he says or asks. In any case, the Pharisees seem to recognize Jesus as an social equal, and a person who shared some common Jewish background and ideals. But… wasn’t he being subversive in some of his ideas? They perhaps wanted to hear for themselves.

 Before they can observe him, however, Jesus tells them a story.  He was probably noticing how the Pharisees were moving around to get favored spots at the table. We are told later on by Luke that the Pharisees liked to have the place of honor at banquets. After all, they were strict observant Jews!

 One of the elements of the Gospel of St. Luke is that Luke often places Jesus in opposition to the Pharisees. This is especially true in their understanding of what the kingdom of God is, and what Jesus’ understands it to be. The Pharisees distrust Jesus more and more the closer we get to the Jerusalem and Passion section.

 So, Jesus’ parable is about status and maintaining one’s honor. And it is basically just good advice really. He says that rather than be embarrassed at having to give up your seat to one higher in position, and then take whatever chair remained, wouldn’t it be better to take the lowest chair, knowing that you would be brought up higher by the host.  Even if it were just a little higher, you would feel honored by the move, not degraded as if it had gone the other way.  Good advice.

 But Jesus’s parables are always about more than they seem to be. The kingdom of heaven does not follow the rules and logic of any culture.  God’s ways cannot be understood in human terms. Social position means nothing to God. In fact, Jesus tells us that Jesus is compassionate and drawn to the lonely, the poor, the downhearted, the disabled. They are the ones who will be exalted in the kingdom of heaven.  Having nothing but their ability to trust in God, they will be rewarded in heaven far above those who had position and honor and wealth in the earthly kingdom. This idea is actually a theme in Luke, and it is the same theme that we read in the first reading: The greater you are, the more you must humble yourself; so you will find favor in the sight of the Lord. Luke started this theme in the the first chapter with the beautiful Magnificat of Mary we heard two weeks ago: He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty. He will end it with Jesus at the Last supper taking on the role of servant.

 After that first parable, then, Jesus directs his second parable to the host himself. It seems, again looking at the Mediterranean cultural tradition, that there was a strong – you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours – type of tradition. I am reminded of the series of Godfather movies where everyone was doing favors in return for other favors. This was also very true in Jesus’ time.  You would draw up your guest list knowing from whom you would want a favor later. If the person was of no use to you, he was not invited. This was not true of family, however, just non-family members.

 Again Jesus’ advice is so counter-cultural.  No host in his right mind would think of inviting the people that Jesus suggests to his supper! In fact, the Pharisees would have thought that the crippled, lame and blind were impure – they would have nothing to do with them or they themselves would become impure. But, as we know, these are exactly the people that Jesus told us in his mission statement that he was out to help, and those for whom he came.

 What Jesus was suggesting was a very difficult thing in this period of time.  No-one wanted to lose their social status by eating with those lower, or with those with a disability.  No one wanted to risk become impure and not be able to partake in religious ritual because of it.

 Even for Christians who later tried to put into practice what Jesus had said, this was going to become a problem.  If you remember, St. Paul wrote an angry letter to the Corinthians because they were excluding the poor and lowly until after the rich had had their fill at their Eucharists. Jesus’ counter cultural messages are not easy to put into practice.

 So this week, we need to examine in our own lives, the ways that we seek status in our culture. Simple things, that used to be a sign of good manners, don’t seem to be any more. I watched from a distance a pregnant lady stand on the Metro while no-one offered her a seat – all healthy adult young men.  How can we allow someone to go to the head of the line this week in place of ourselves. How do we treat people we come into contact with that we deem low or dirty? It can be as simple as a smile or a “Have a good day” or we can forgo something to let someone else have a chance at it.  It would be good for us to reflect on our own humility this week, and see if we can do a better job at making the kingdom of heaven a little closer on earth.

 By Bishop Kasomo Daniel

The Bishop of The Society of St.Peter and Paul (SSPP)