Our Relationship with God
We must keep in mind that the original setting (Luke 14:1, 7-14) depicts an itinerant rabbi by the name of Jesus, who is invited to a formal dinner into the house of a prominent and influential Pharisee to honor him as equal and as equal to the other invited guests. What ensues, instead, is something so appalling that it goes a long way in explaining why Jesus had to be eliminated from the religious and political scene of that time. Jesus acts in an extremely rude and uncalled-for way, even by the standards of our much more tolerant western society that loves casual and informal ways. Deliberately, aloud, he embarrasses everyone, the guests and the host alike!
From time immemorial, in the Orient, the social game played has been of giving honor and then receiving honor in return. So, the question we westerners cannot wait to ask is this: why did Jesus commit double social suicide? First, he exposes his fellow guests’ baldfaced quest for recognition and honor, and he lectures them about a subtler, sure way of receiving honor while, at the same time, avoiding inevitable embarrassment. Secondly, he tells the host to commit social suicide; to stop the game of giving and receiving honor by inviting the scum at the bottom of the social ladder instead of his rich friends and equals.
I dare to submit to you that, through this outlandish and offensive conduct, Jesus wants to teach us the proper disposition for the formal “dinner” of Holy Communion and, eventually, for the wedding feast of heaven of which Holy Communion is a prefiguration.
This is in all like what is going on in the Gospel passage we are considering on this 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time. The guests honored at the banquet are all basically in the same social bracket and are supposed to reciprocate by inviting their equals to a banquet in their homes. Instead, Jesus is saying: “This might work ok in societies, especially in the Orient, but it cannot be applied to our relationship with God whenever he invites us to his formal “dinners,” i.e., Eucharistic Celebrations. Nor can it be so in dealing with him one on one. Even when God becomes man, one like us, our relationship with him is not among equals: we are always the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, those unable to repay, even in a very modest fashion. The proper protocol with our God calls for sincere, heartfelt humility and profound gratitude. And for this to really work, we must stop any form of self-affirmation, attention search, or quest for recognition. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled (BY GOD), but the one who humbles himself will be exalted (BY GOD). (Luke 14:11)
Now, if this is the case, and if Jesus, here present, rehashes this old incident with which we are so familiar, it means simply that he notices in us something quite amiss or even potentially very harmful. There was no love in the host or in the other guests. They did not intend to honor Jesus as much as, rather, they wanted to criticize, judge and condemn him. Well, well! How often do we place ourselves on the same pedestal with our God, as his equals. We do it routinely and unintentionally, every time we play God by manipulating people.
Far from surrendering the control of our lives into God’s loving and powerful hands, we might do all sorts of crazy things to control, modify, alter the lives of others, and we wind up spending restless days and nights if unsuccessful. Or we play God by doing things in such a way that other people get the impression that without us the world around us cannot function. Or we play God by seeking recognition or expressions of gratitude from the recipients of our favors and toils. This type of self-affirmation is the root of many ugly and painful situations all over the world!
Basically, what Jesus desires so ardently of us is twofold: To let God be God, in us and all around us. To enjoy thoroughly our status as beggars, as crippled, as lame. To come eagerly to this Banquet where our total poverty is showered with all sorts of divine blessings in view of the final repayment in the resurrection of the righteous. Secondly, in true humility, to replace with sincere acceptance and affirmation of others, as our equals in the Father’s universal family, our tendency to criticize, to judge and to condemn. This is the only way we can be certain that we received the real invitation to the wedding feast of the Lamb.
