Homily Year C Week 20

 Homily Year C Week 22

When I was a little boy, my mother kept a very proper dinner table. It was a place of learning/teaching a place of proper manners, this even more so when there were guests at the house. I can remember hating it. I had to sit up straight, I had to ask to be excused, even if the conversation was boring. I had to eat my dessert with both a spoon and fork. Worse yet at the end of the meal instead of returning to the living room, all were expected to sit at the table and converse. My father would establish a premise, ask me what I thought about it and then take an opposite position. I can remember how this drove me crazy. The truths I spoke, seemed self evident to me, and his arguments while difficult to answer, seemed like utter nonsense to me.

As I was reading and reflecting on the Gospel this week, I enjoyed our regular Wednesday family dinner night. Each Wednesday my daughter and her husband, with their six children and one of my two sons join us at table (to be clear my other son is welcome but lives in PEI so is seldom with us.) As we enjoyed our meal the children as all children do,  were asking Poppi (that's me) if they could please be excused. I invited them to stay until everyone had eaten so we could enjoy each other's company. As we were eating our dessert Rebecca, the youngest girl (it was her 5th birthday party turned to me and said "Poppi why are you eating your dessert with both a knife and fork?"

                                      

Talk about a moment of truth, I realized that, that which I hated, when I was my grandchildren’s  age I am now asking them to do. 

I have I realized, once again, become my parents. After the grand kids left ,I spent some time thinking about whether what I was doing was some dim reflection of my upbringing and considering whether in this day and age of families eating in front of the TV, or computer, whether these formal skills were still necessary. As I thought about it I  realized that while my mother was teaching me manners, and my father was teaching about current affairs,  that both in fact we're really preparing me for the world. My mom was teaching me about how to interact with the world, how to be more than well manner but also considerate of others. And my father was teaching me how to carry on conversation , but more importantly how to reflect on the world and be able to articulate my opinions to others. He was more importantly teaching me to think about my decisions, reflect on them and  spend the time needed to make sure that they fit into the world,  that I would be able to stand in front of others without embarrassing myself with awkwardly thought about and indefensible positions. Not that I might not be wrong but that at least I was not going off as he used to say half cocked.

In this weeks Gospel Jesus is doing the same thing for us . You know the advice he goes at this banquet is not new. In fact you can find similar advice in both Proverbs and Sirach. So now we need to step outside of today's                     

 reading for a minute and consider the context. So is Jesus showing us his knowledge of the Hebrew testament, or is this about who he is talking to , the philistines who seem to use Sabbath meals as a time to catch Jesus out to attempt to confuse his teachings, or how those around him though about him. 

Can you imagine yourself sitting at this meal and feeling the tension between them. But meals then and  even today have  been a time for teaching , for philosophy, for dialogue and this is what Jesus uses this meal for. Close your eyes and look around the table and see who else is sitting there . We can see disciples, the Pharisees the high born and perhaps even, taxpayers, gluttons and the poor.

Jesus reminds us that the place of honour is not for the worthy in life but for the worthy of His kingdom, the lame, the poor and the weak. 

This is I believe is one of the two important messages of this Gospel . Remember he is replying to the Pharisees,  who spend their lives in holy prayerful service to God but do so by separating themselves from the unclean and the unworthy. To be a Pharisee is to be separate from the 

world in all its muckiness . I think sometimes we are the same in this modern world. we remove ourself from  those who most need our help , because they have messy lives, or uncomfortable behaviours or they make us uncomfortable. 

The other side of that is we sometimes expect the clergy to be somewhat  like the Pharisees . They are to live unblemished holy lives, to be without fault and ready at any moment to pray for and on behalf of our parishioners and those in need. Both sides of this are not I think of when I hear Christ’s teaching today. While I support the intention and attempt like all the consecrated and the ordained to a holy life .  I am so thankful that Christ is prepared to hang with sinners so to brings them/us to him. It gives me hope for salvation for each of us. The one thing I know with some certainty is that we are called by baptism to be Priest Prophet and King. His Gospels calls all of us to live , for those at the margin. So you are on the hook too.

As an aside I must say that my first month here has been a great gift. You have welcomed me and have me feel like I am both wanted and needed. This experience has also defined to me the challenges and burdens we are placing on our priests. I am amazed at the simple humility of our pastor and after working beside him for the month am amazed at the effort that is required to meet the needs of his two Parish communities. Bravo Father, now he has to 

 teach me how to run this marathon to better serve you and him. I am after all the servant of the servant of God's people.

This is the second message of the Gospel we are all called to reach out to the the margin. Their are many people in our neighbourhoods that are looking for us to be different than they, to be Christian. Christ asks us to reach 

out to them, to invite them to participate  in our community.  

To do this will require courage, persistence, a uniquely and evident to others , Christian attitude. We must seen to be different, to respect life, to respect all, even those who hold different opinions than our own. To love the unlovable. We must be hospitable when they join us. 

We need to look at everything we as individuals and as a  Parish do to make sure that we welcome and care for the broken, those who are lame, those who are blind ,those who are lost to His kingdom. 

During his life Christ healed cripples, not so they could work but so they would leap joyously in His name, he healed the blind not so they would see just the world but that they would see him. He healed the deaf not just so that they would hear the great noise of the world, but so that they could hear his teaching. 

All these miracles are also for us when they open our ears, eyes and praise in word and dance joyfully when we hear Christ's invitation to be in a personal relationship with him.

But while God loves each of us , as if we were his only child, it is not all he expects of us. In this story of the banquet Christ reminds us that we are called in humility to invite others to join us in his house where together we can build the kingdom of God.

 

So now for your homework. I ask that each of you before the end of next month invite someone to mass, I invite each of you to welcome people to our parish, I invite each of you to consider what you can do, what your goals will 

In your life will be  be to bring someone back to Christ this year. 

I know this will be hard, even for me, and there will sadly , be rejection along the way. But there are people ready to return and Christ asks us to be missionary disciples and bring his people to him. If we ask the right person in the right way at the right time, they will come. We are after all not a private club caring only for members, we are called to go out to the world.

Again we speak more of this in the weeks and months ahead. Please join Father and I in our/your work in building God's Kingdom. We are here to support you , but we are all workers His vineyard. We are all called. As St Augustine would say, this is his feast day today, we become what we do. If we want to be a good student we need to study and if we want to be a good Christian we need to follow his Gospel. It is Christ recipe of how to be a Christian. If we respond to his call to me be missionary disciples we need to go and make disciples! Amen