Homily for Sunday Ordinary 22 C

A few years later I visited the St. Egidio community in Rome. On Christmas morning, after the last mass, all the chairs in the church are rearranged, tables are set up, and a banquet is served to the poor in the neighborhood.

I have Mass on Sunday, August 31 at St. Isidore @ 9:30/11:30 am

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Transcript

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke. 

On a Sabbath, Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully. He told a parable to those who had been invited, noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table. When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honor. A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him, and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say, "Give your place to this man," and then you would proceed with embarrassment to take the lowest place. Rather, when you are invited, go and take the lowest 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. For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted." 

Then he said to the host who invited him, "When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind. Blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." 

The Gospel of the Lord. 

On the Sabbath, Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees. Because we are on the road with Jesus, we are companions at the banquet. The English word "companion" is derived from the Latin "com," with and "panis," bread. A companion is someone with whom you share your bread. 

In 2007, I studied for a couple of weeks at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. During our time together, we visited several lay Christian communities. I first met the lay Christian community of Saint-Egidio, that's Saint Giles in English, in Antwerp, Belgium. The mission of the Saint-Egidio community is to become friends with the poor. What we would call a soup kitchen, they call a restaurant. They don't just feed the poor. They eat with the poor. They break bread with them. 

A few years later, I visited the Saint-Egidio community in Rome. On Christmas morning, after the last Mass, all the chairs in the church are rearranged, tables are set up, and a banquet is served to the poor in the neighborhood. Luke might have had such a meal in mind when he announced in the Gospel on Christmas Eve, "Mary gave birth to her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger." A manger is a feeding trough. The child of Bethlehem will be bred for the world. 

As a little child, Jesus must often have heard his mother Mary giving voice to that dream. "God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly. God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away, empty." In his first homily in his hometown at Nazareth, Jesus announced, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor." And today, at a meal in the house of a leading Pharisee, Jesus challenges us. When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. 

Jesus is inviting us to become citizens of a kingdom that is breaking in upon us. Instead of trying to build a reputation by hanging out with the right kinds of people, doing the right kinds of noble things, Jesus invites us to receive our true reputation from our Father in heaven. Here is how Matthew describes it. "When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." 

From this vantage point, we discover the capacity to act as God acts, forsaking payback. We can give without counting the cost, without keeping score, becoming a participant in the gift quality of God's life. I like Rick Warren's definition. "Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less." Rather than seeking the best place, Jesus asks us to turn the table and begin with those who don't even have a place at the table. When we start from the bottom, everyone is included all the way up. 

The Greek word for hospitality is phyloxenia, literally translated as "friend of the stranger." Notice what Luke is doing in the context of this story. It's a lavish banquet provided to a complete stranger, Jesus. This simple action of welcoming the stranger tells us something very important about God's reign, what we might call the economy of the gift. As we read in Hebrews chapter 13, "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by doing so some have unwittingly entertained angels." 

In following Jesus' command, we act ourselves into a new way of being. We learn to measure our generosity with the measure of the kingdom. Being a beneficiary to those in need is the way you discover or perhaps rediscover your own status as a beneficiary. When we realize that all that we have is gift, we're not afraid to share what we've been given. 

Pope Francis used to say that when he heard confessions, he liked to ask the penitent if they gave to the poor. When the person answers that he or she gives to charity, he said he liked to follow up with the question, "When you give alms, do you touch the hand of the person asking? Do you look them in the eyes?" Every time we approach a person with charity, with love, we restore their dignity. 

Jesus said, "When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind, and you will be blessed." The path to the blessed life is the path of compassion, the path of love. When we come home to love, when we find ourselves accepted and invited to the banquet table, we are blessed. And when we join in God's quest for the world to keep spreading that love in ever-widening circles, we become a blessing. Face to face at the Eucharistic Table, we share bread broken for us, and we are sent out as companions to be the body of Christ. The Mass continues in us.