Who’s at Your Lunch Table

The school cafeteria. Over there is the jocks. There’s the drama club. There’s the band. There’s that one kid who always eats alone. Who will you eat with? Who wouldn’t you be caught dead eating with? Those are the questions Jesus asks in this week’s Gospel.
Parties and meals are social times. It’s pretty normal to spend that time with friends and people who share your interest. But sometimes friendships can become cliques that exclude and look down on others. Jesus calls us to expand our circles of friends. Why? Because many people need our company. Meals were huge in Jesus’ ministry. He brought outcasts to meals with people of honor. He ate in the homes of people considered sinners. His meals revealed God’s reign, where everyone has a place around the table.
He tells his followers to stop worrying about whether their seat location proves they’re honorable. He asks them to welcome outcast to their meals and into their lives.
What does that mean? Reach out. Each cafeteria has teens that sit alone. Invite them to your table. Each school has teens that are friendless. Welcome them into your circle of friends. Each city has nursing homes with lonely people. Find yourself another grandpa or grandma.
Honor the people others forget, and others will see that Jesus’ ministry continues.
IHN tommyk

Readings for Sunday 8/29/2010 Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reading 1 Sirach 3:17-18, 20, 28-29

My child, conduct your affairs with humility and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts. Humble yourself the more, the greater you are and you will find favor with God. What is too sublime for you, seek not, into things beyond your strength search not. The mind of a sage appreciates proverbs, and an attentive ear is the joy of the wise. Water quenches a flaming fire, and alms atone for sins.

Reading 2 Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-24a

Brothers and sisters: You have not approached that which could be touched and a blazing fire and gloomy darkness and storm and a trumpet blast and a voice speaking words such that those who heard
begged that no message be further addressed to them. No, you have approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal gathering, and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and God the judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel.

Gospel Luke 14:1, 7-14

On a Sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully. He told a parable to those who had been invited, noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honor. A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him, and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then you would proceed with embarrassment to take the lowest place. Rather, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place so that when the host comes to you he may say, ‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’ Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table. For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Then he said to the host who invited him, “When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers 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.”

Questions for Discussion:

1. Describe the people who were gathered at this party with Jesus. What were their values? What were their reasons for being at the gathering? How do you think they reacted to Jesus’ words?

2. Who are the ‘poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind’ in your life that Jesus calls you to invite to your ‘banquet’?

3. Given this Gospel reading, rate yourself on a scale from 1-10 in terms of your humility. How can you improve in being a person of humility?