TwentySecond Sunday in Ordinary Time--Liturgical Cycle C

Lectionary Readings

Reading I Sirach 3:17-18, 20, 28-29
Responsorial Psalm Psalm 68:4-5, 6-7, 10-11
Reading II Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-24a
Gospel Luke 14:1, 7-14

Homily
After Pentecost this year our church liturgy began presenting a Sunday series of readings from the Lukan Gospel. The author organizes his material about “all that Jesus said and did,” placing Jesus “resolutely” on a journey “toward Jerusalem.” Each Sunday, thereafter, we have been listening to Jesus teach about what it means to be his disciple. We are invited to become one of his followers in that little company walking with Jesus on the road. It becomes not a physical passage but, in symbol, our own spiritual journey toward our heavenly home.

Last Sunday, from Luke’s Chapter 13, we heard that “Jesus went through the cities and towns teaching – all the while making his way toward Jerusalem.”

Someone asked, “Lord, are there few in number who are to be saved?”

Jesus answered, “People will come from the East and the West, from the North and the South, to take their place at the feast in the Kingdom of God.” “Some who were last will be first and some who were first will be last.”

Today’s reading from Luke, Chapter 14, places this teaching in the concrete context of a grand banquet, evoking the image of the “feast in the Kingdom of God.” Two instructions for our reflection are given: one for the guests and one for the host. Both stress humility as a requirement for discipleship. While not directly answering the question, “Are there few in number who are to be saved,” Jesus speaks about how each of us can be numbered among those who are saved.

The guests are told to rightly evaluate their importance: “Those who exalt themselves shall be humbled and those who humble themselves shall be exalted.”

The one who gives the banquet is told, “Don’t consider yourself a host if you arrange things in such a way (by inviting, for example, only the wealthy) so that the invitation will come back to you."

“Humility” is to correctly ascertain one’s God-given talents and then to share those blessings with others—with the community (one’s family, friends, coworkers, those who care for us). And to do so in such a way that we do not manipulate them so that the good we do comes back to us!

“Are they few in number who are to be saved?” The question could just as easy have been, “Are there few in number who are invited to the banquet?”

Jesus reinterprets the question and answers the question which should have been asked, “How can I (we) be numbered among those invited to the grand banquet?” Jesus does not tell us the number but rather tells us how to be numbered among the “guests” who are invited to take their place at the feast in the Kingdom of God.

The teaching comes out of our ancient Judeo-Christian tradition, as we hear today in the Wisdom book of Sirach:

Humble yourselves the more, the greater you are,
and you will find favor with God.
What is too sublime or beyond your strength search not.
Conduct your affairs with humility.
You will be loved more than a giver of gifts.

To be a follower of Jesus (on the road to the heavenly Jerusalem) we must be a people who choose to live by Gospel values. Among which values is that of humility (which Jesus teaches in today’s gospel), of correctly assessing our talents and gifts and to let those gifts direct our commitment to the community, the church, the family and the social life we live. Thus even when we assess ourselves as least, we shall be numbered among the first at the table in the grand banquet of the Kingdom of God. For the first shall often be last while the last will be first!

--Fr. Pat

Excerpt from "A Catholic's Companion: Liturgical Cycle C" (c)2000 C. Patrick Creed
Published by Watchmaker Press. Maggie Hettinger, editor