Word to the Wise
Monday, November 4, 2019 - ST. CHARLES BORROMEO
[Romans 11:29-36 and Luke 14:12-14]"When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters 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." [Luke]
Jesus could be a demanding dinner guest. The lectionary chops off the first half of this scene in which Jesus scolds the dinner guests at the home of a leading Pharisee for jockeying to get places of "honor" at the table! Then he turns on the host by telling him to do something radical like giving a dinner party and inviting all kinds of "unclean" people. The scene directly confronts two important cultural traits that the Kingdom of God means to overcome.
The first trait is that of "honor" or status or prestige, which is still an important part of Middle Eastern and Asian cultural makeup. We see a little of that at "head tables" at banquets in our own culture. Imagine the guest of honor refusing to sit at the head table! That is really what Jesus is recommending. He recommends sitting "below the salt" if one wants real prestige. The host may notice your humility and invite you up higher! The second trait involves social reciprocity. One way to fill one's social calendar was to throw a banquet and invite the folks who could reciprocate and invite one back. Jesus challenges the host to invite people who cannot reciprocate at all! The real "honor" will occur at the resurrection of the righteous.
How much prestige and "honor" do we need? How much recognition do we want? Do we do things with the idea of putting others in our debt? If these are traits that we exhibit from time to time, we had better be ready for some comments from the most important dinner guest of all time! AMEN