Homily for September 2, 2007 22nd Sunday of the Year

Gospel
Lk 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.”
I want to have a little fun with the Gospel today, and I'm indebted to the theologian, John Shea, for many of these examples.
He imagines that, as Jesus is saying, "When you're invited to a banquet, sit at the lowest place so you will be invited up higher," he imagines Jesus looking at his hearers and watching their minds dream up a strategy. And Jesus says, "Gotcha," because he caught them plotting how to get honor and recognition.
Then he says, "One of my worst nightmares about this Gospel would be that I go to a banquet, and I sit at the lowest place hoping that I will be noticed and invited to come higher, and somebody comes and looks at me and says, 'I'm glad you know your right place.'”
Or another possibility would be that you go to the banquet, and you sit in the lowest place, and you like it there, because the people are a lot less stuffy than the people at the head table. So the next time you go to the banquet and you sit there and you are invited up higher, you say, "No thanks. I'd rather stay here."
Or one of the things I thought of: I used to like to be at the head table at banquets. Now I like sitting by the door. That's in case I have to get up and go to the restroom, and it's also in case I want to leave early. I can slip out without being noticed. If you're at the head table, it's kind of hard not to be noticed.
I think the readings might be an invitation to look at all the games we play with our ego to try to get recognition, or to try to get honor, or to try to be in those recognized places.
Has anybody here ever been there? Have you ever gone to a banquet and noticed where you were sitting relative to where other people were sitting? Or have you ever gone someplace and noticed who got greeted first and who seemed to be made a fuss over and been a little envious? Or have you ever been brought up short in your desire to be recognized?
I want to take a little risk. I am not going to ask you to share this, but I would like to give you about two or three minutes. Turn to somebody you're sitting with, and recall your most embarrassing moment connected with jockeying for recognition. Can you do it?
How many of you thought of a moment? You know what I mean? We've all been there. We've all encountered our ego and our need for recognition and honor, or being made a fuss over, and what do we do with it? I think in the Gospel today, Jesus would invite us to notice it and to smile, and to laugh at ourselves and enter a place of humility.
And, by the way, I don't know how this fits, but I want to say humility is something that you can practice only when you have a basic sense of your own goodness and your own worth. Because if you try to be humble without a sense of your own basic dignity, it can get pretty unhealthy and lead you to unhealthy places.
So I'm assuming that, first of all, we need to have a healthy sense of ourselves as loved and valued and having dignity, and then look at ourselves and the ways that our ego comes into play. And, as I said at the beginning, I notice that many times, in myself, when those things crop up, I say, "Big surprise. Here you are again."
The other thing I do sometimes: Remember in the 60's - well, some of you will remember - there was a song by Simon and Garfunkel? It went, "Hello darkness, my old friend..." Remember that song?
When I encounter my darker moods, I sometimes sing that song to myself, "Hello anger, my old friend, you've come to be with me again." Or, "Hello envy, my old friend, you've come to be with me again." Do you see what I mean? You welcome those feelings and laugh at them.
Dag Hammarskjold once wrote something that I remember reading in the 60's and have remembered ever since. He said, "A grace to pray for - that our self-interest, which is inescapable, may never cripple our sense of humor, that fully conscious self-scrutiny which alone can save us." You don't need to try to remember that. It's in my letter in the bulletin this week.
But anyway, just an invitation as we worship today: Let's try to enter into a spirit of lightheartedness, realizing that we are loved very much by God, and we can afford to laugh at our foibles and at all of the tricks that our ego plays on us.