Table Fellowship at the Time of Jesus

Homily for Tuesday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time

In the days when Jesus was among us, whom you chose to eat with often determined your status in society. So it was commonplace for people to check out the list of those who were invited to a meal before sending a response to the host. If there was someone on the list who was below you on the social ladder, excuses would be made and the host might end up being humiliated by the people who chose not to show up.

That is the context of the parable that Jesus tells us in the Gospel today. St. Luke’s parable is decidedly different than the similar story that appears in St. Matthew’s Gospel where the host is a king who gives a wedding banquet for his son. Perhaps most importantly, no one is thrown out of this dinner for failing to have the correct garment. In St. Luke’s Gospel, the parable is offered when Jesus dines with a Pharisee. Last Saturday, we heard a parable about someone who had to give up his seat to a more important guest.

Table fellowship is a familiar theme in St. Luke’s Gospel. Jesus often uses the occasions when he is at a meal to teach. Today he teaches a lesson about making a choice to follow one’s own pursuits rather than accept the invitation which God offers to all of us. In other words, following Jesus is something we are called to do when it is both convenient and inconvenient. Sometimes following Jesus means setting aside what I want to do in order to do what God is asking of us.

St. Paul asks us to have the same attitude as Jesus who emptied himself for the sake of humanity. This passage from the Letter to the Philippians is known as the Carmen Christi, the song of Christ. Like the songs of the suffering servant in the writings of the prophet Isaiah, these verses remind us of what Jesus did for us. We are similarly called to respond by emptying ourselves so that we can obey God’s will in our own lives.

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator