Sunday Gospel Comment

Sunday Gospel Comment

 

Alberic Jacovone OSB

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YEAR C

TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY - 29.8.04

Sir 3,17-20.28-9; Hb 12,18-19.22-24; Lk 14,1.7-14

When you invite - When you are invited 

When you are invited. This week, we monks have enjoyed a retreat with Fr. Eugene Hensell from St Meinrad’s Monastery, Indiana USA. He has challenged us to see our monks’ life against the stark context of Jesus’ parables. He started by warning us that parables are not simple ‘example’/cute stories with a hidden lesson in them. They are meant to destabilize us. At first we get drawn-in, quite unobtrusively, until we get confronted at what hurts most: our own lack of  integrity, vanity & pride. They skilfully deconstruct & disorient us in order to unpack & break open the poor state of our life. Parables confront our hypocritical attitudes and urge us to accept the need to change.

In-built in parables, lies a journey: from orientation, into disorientation & back to reorientation. Of course, it is humbling to face the contradictions of our lives & the need to be authentic before God, but, because the invitation comes from Jesus’ parables, we don’t mind. This Sunday, the liturgy presents us with the parable of the ‘Invited Guest & Inviting Host’ (Lk 14,1,7-14). And so, let’s apply some of the above insights and brings the parable of Jesus into our own life-situation . We know of course, that Luke has his reason for situating this parable: he too wishes to curb any false attitudes in his own community. Today however, we disregard situations of the past and take Jesus’ parable for what it’s saying to us, in our life situation, with our own code of respectability and rules of honour. Jesus says: ‘When you are invited (& when you invite) to a celebration, it may be a feast, a wedding, a dinner, or a Eucharist...? We immediately respond with our rule of honour vs shame, knowing fully, that it makes us blind to pride and vanity.

 But you, invite the dispossessed. Like everybody else, when we receive the invitation, a whole string of feelings & expectations fill our mind: ‘Yes, I have been invited. - I feel excited, - It’s important that I attend. - For this occasion, I will wear a most expensive dress. - I’ll charm everybody with my best looks, - Of course my ‘Gift’ will be the best. - Isn’t it marvellous that I have been invited? - what will they ask me to do? - what will the other guests do? what will they say about me? - Just imagine: I will be seated in a place of honour. Who else is invited? will Alberic be invited? why would he be? he looks so drab & poor... why would they want him? he has nothing to offer’... and so on.

Of course, such attitudes may be harmless enough, as they stem from our code: ‘Never shame, always honour’, but in the end, they are part of a superior, domineering mind-set. Sadly, similar petty attitudes,  prevail also in Church gatherings, even at our Eucharist.

We take one another for granted, and even at Mass, we express doubt, criticism &  suspicious feelings about each other, remaining blind to pride or vanity... Today, Jesus presents our God as one who is unbelievably welcoming: absolutely everyone, including poor, lame & dispossessed is accepted. Jesus says: invite the poor. I’ve never forgotten the huge Liturgy we held in Sydney 1995, for the beatification of Mary McKillop at Randwick Racecourse. What made it special for me, was the fact that representatives of Aboriginal people, from their ancient Arnhem culture, were invited with their smoking ceremony, to invoke the Spirit on our ‘Land of the Holy Spirit”, and welcome Mother Mary as one more angel among the Ancestors of Australia. I remember that then, these words of Jesus, resonated in my mind, as we read them today: “When you invite, do not choose those who will invite you in return; invite rather, those who cannot pay you back”

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