“Father, I guess you will be too busy to come to our wedding party, but if you could, that would be lovely.” That was the most blatantly obvious “uninvitation” I received from a couple at whose marriage I was about to officiate. I have done many marriages over the years, especially early in my career. Most of the time, no invitation to the wedding celebration was offered; occasionally, I received a verbal invitation just before the ceremony that seemed like an afterthought or a simple politeness. I’m not complaining; being rather socially awkward, I increasingly find attending events where I hardly know anyone to be taxing and exhausting. Not just for me. A few times, when I was silly enough to take the invitation at face value and turned up for the wedding party, I noticed how people, condemned to sitting with me at the table, were not at ease. The atmosphere was rather awkward, and some quietly drifted away to different parts of the venue as soon as it was possible, without being too impolite. So, I find the opening line of today’s gospel reading ringing a bell: “One Sabbath, when Jesus went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully.”
St Luke had a good reason for setting the scene in this way. Our gospel reading skipped over a challenge presented by Jesus when he spotted a man with oedema and asked his host and other guests: “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” No answer was given. Then Jesus healed the man and “sent him away,” which suggests he wasn’t an invited guest but rather a servant or a bait to catch Jesus out. The opening line, “they were watching him carefully,” hints at the latter. Somehow, the trap failed, and everyone moved to take their places. Jesus “noticed how they chose the places of honour.” There must have been some kind of squabble among the guests, noticeable enough to trigger Jesus’ reaction and to inspire him to offer them a parable: “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honour…” The essence of his story was familiar to his audience; as avid readers of the Jewish Holy Scripture, they understood the concept of humility as a desirable human and spiritual trait that was woven throughout Scripture. Likewise, the idea of charitable attitudes towards the most disadvantaged in society was well established in the Scriptures. Yet Jesus felt he needed to remind his host of this: “When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.”
In the Gospels, the Pharisees are portrayed as aloof, self-serving, and self-centred, often drawing Jesus’ reproach and even fierce denunciation, as we heard in the Gospel readings at weekday Masses in the last few days. His main criticism was the gap between their self-proclaimed superiority and their inefficient practical application – or rather, the lack of – of those moral and ethical norms they promoted, preached and took pride in. Translated into a modern language, their attitude was: “Do as I say, not as I do.” The fact that we can find a modern phrase without any trouble indicates that such an attitude has outlived the Pharisees and remains quite common. We can easily compile a long list of public figures who, in popular perception, exemplify it, and in the process, feel better about ourselves. Effectively, we would be doing precisely what we condemn: feeling morally superior, better than those we judge to be big-mouthed, proud and boastful. When Jesus addressed the guests at dinner or the host, he turned the mirror and told them to look into it. It’s the same with us. He has asked us to survey our own souls, hearts and minds to see and reflect whether you and I need to improve, correct or change our respective attitudes. Jesus in today’s gospel didn’t offer practical advice on how to throw a party but rather used the one he attended as a handy springboard to address a much deeper challenge: a lack of humility and a transactional attitude towards relationships.
Humility doesn’t seem to be an attractive or winning attitude in our cut-throat world, where the brash, the loud, and the insolent appear to have the upper hand and ride high. Humility is regarded as an open invitation to bullying, abuse, and exploitation. “Meekness is weakness” is the common perception of humility. And that’s completely wrong. Today’s gospel acclamation was Jesus’ invitation: “learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.” One of the best examples of his humility was shown at the Last Supper, when he washed his disciples’ feet, a task normally performed by a low-ranking servant. After doing so, he explained: “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” (John 13:12-14) Jesus was fully aware of his high position (Teacher and Lord) in their community. Humility, in his case, was about lowering himself to lift others up. Humility wasn’t a lack of confidence or low self-esteem – he lacked neither. Quite the opposite: confident in who he was, Jesus used that confidence to serve others. In his many confrontations with opponents, he never used the infamous phrase: “Do you know who I am?” Paradoxically, because his entire ministry was not about him but others, he has become the central figure and model to follow in his footsteps.
A politician visited a care home in his constituency during the election campaign. He approached an elderly woman who didn’t pay much attention to him and asked, “Do you know who I am?” She replied, “No, but if you ask any carer, they’ll tell you.”
