August 29, 2016
Editor’s note: Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily for the 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year C) on August 27 and 28 at St. Austin Church in Austin, Texas. It is based on Sirach 3: 17-29 (portions); Psalm 68; Hebrews 12: 18-19, 22-24a; and Luke 14: 1, 7-14.
On the Sundays since early June and continuing through mid-November, we are working our way through the Gospel of Luke. Luke is the gospel of the Holy Spirit, the gospel of women, and the gospel of prayer. But in today’s passage, we’ll see two other themes come to the fore, presented by Luke as things that we MUST do to be Jesus’ disciples.
Luke is the gospel of the poor. Jesus warns us to avoid the dangers of wealth, prestige, and pride. But Luke could also be called “the gospel of food.” One out of every five sentences in Luke is about Jesus eating a meal. The table fellowship of Jesus represents many things, but two in particular: the future banquet in heaven, and our present fellowship here at the altar.
When we put all these themes together, it’s abundantly clear: Luke is the gospel of social justice. Everyone has a place at the table of the Lord. All are welcome! We must have the humility to accept all people as fellow disciples.
At the table of the Lord, we are ALL children, in need of God’s love and mercy. Let’s celebrate that!
Five years ago, the United Church of Christ minister Lillian Daniel wrote an article entitled, “Spiritual But Not Religious? Please Stop Boring Me.” She points out that people who go to church can also find God in sunsets on the beach. It’s not just “spiritual but not religious” people who can commune with God that way. As she says: “There is nothing challenging about having deep thoughts all by oneself.”
This is the same woman who co-wrote one of my favorite books about ministry, called This Odd and Wondrous Calling. In one chapter, she tells about working in a university town which offered a nine million dollar tax abatement to entice a four-star hotel chain to renovate an old hotel. Shortly after the hotel received the abatement, it announced that it would not honor the old contracts with the local hotel staff, as it had originally promised to do.
The workers were desperate. They appealed to a coalition of ministers in the city. It was an odd group – including a Pentecostal minister in a lime-green suit, a Jamaican Catholic layman, and Lillian Daniel, sporting her most formal clerical collar. The university and the chamber of commerce threw their support behind the hotel’s plans to renege on their promise, by holding fancy cocktail hours and banquets at the renovated facility, even as the workers reported how terribly they were being treated. The clergy coalition spoke on behalf of the workers and met with the hotel executives – despite protests from some of their own parishioners. When the hotel executives refused to budge, the ministers gave 30 days’ notice that they would organize a boycott of the hotel. One day before the boycott was to take effect, the hotel chain caved, promising to honor the old contracts.
This Labor Day weekend is the 30th anniversary of one of the great pastoral letters issued by the United States’ Catholic bishops, called Economic Justice For All. The letter does not propose specific economic theories, but it issues a clarion call that Christian disciples must (quote) “avoid a tragic separation between faith and everyday life.” Hey! That sounds a little bit like Lillian Daniel’s critique of the people who separate their relationship with God from their relationship with other people. The bishops lay out six principles. I quote:
- Every economic decision and institution must be judged in light of whether it protects or undermines the dignity of the human person.
- Human dignity can be realized and protected only in community.
- All people have a right to participate in the economic life of society.
- All members of society have a special obligation to the poor and vulnerable.
- Human rights are the minimum conditions for life in community.
- Society as a whole, acting through public and private institutions, has the moral responsibility to enhance human dignity and protect human rights.
Daniel ends her story by contrasting two meals held at the hotel: the first – a banquet by that university and the chamber of commerce held during the hotel’s attempt to bust the union – and the second – a reception after the hotel announced that it would honor the old union contract. Even though executives from the university, the hotel, and the city attended both, the atmosphere at the second one felt very different, because the workers, clergy, and church people were also in attendance. She writes, “This looked less like a corporate banquet than a heavenly one, in which rich and poor would eat together.”
I think there’s a temptation to focus on only a few elements of today’s gospel passage. This isn’t just about prudently picking the right seat at a dinner party so we don’t look bad. And it’s not about treating everyone with dignity so that things go well for us when we get to heaven. We’re supposed to treat our brothers and sisters with dignity because, as the bishops point out, we have a moral responsibility to them in this life, not just for ourselves in the next life! That challenging responsibility is summed up when Jesus says: “When you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.” That’s a tall order!
Even if we can’t figure out a reasonable way to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind into our homes, there’s one banquet where we can welcome everyone each week: the Eucharist. But do we truly welcome the less fortunate people to attend Mass with us – the homeless? the addicted? the mentally ill?
I love to join hands with other people during the Lord’s Prayer, but it is not a “warm fuzzy” prayer. In it, we make a covenant with God: forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. It is only after making that pledge that we come forward to the table of the Lord, rich and poor, young and old, liberal and conservative, of every race, nation, and ethnicity. Hopefully, the Holy Spirit will give us the humility to recognize Christ in one another in the breaking of the bread.