Twenty - second Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 14:1, 7 - 14
One of the perks of being a physician is that you get honor.  When people call you doctor, that's honor.  When people suggest you go ahead of them in the cafeteria line (because they think you are really busy) that's honor.  And even in the gratitude of patients you receive honor.  I liked being honored.  I liked it when I would be invited to speak about my research, or give a grand rounds.  And one of the real shocks of retirement is that gradually the honor slips away and people see you more and more as someone who is old and out of touch and doesn't matter any more.  This part of life, for me anyway, is God's way of teaching me humility. 
Way back when we are babies we begin to value honor.  When we have learned to walk, or talk, or develop bowel and bladder control, we are complimented by our parents; that makes us feel good.  And so we go through our early years seeking approval, and it's such a strong instinct that when we don't get it, some of us lash out and are happy just to be recognized.  If I can't be the smartest, or the best athlete, or the have the most friends, I can always be the meanest or the most destructive.  And it's pervasive in society.  In our present society we are turned off by people who “blow their own horn”.  President Trump does that a lot, although I sometimes wonder if he is just trying to get a rise out of people – and succeeding.  In our society we value the show of humility; we like actors who receive an academy award or athletes who win trophies to attribute their success to others, even to God.  Paradoxically, a hero who seems humble is honored even more than one who doesn't. 
In Jesus' time, the society was even more sensitive to honor than we are.  Although there are passages all through the Old Testament advising people to be humble, those were mostly forgotten; It was important who you knew and how well you knew them.  It was almost like currency; the more honor you had, the more advantages came your way.  You could get a better dowry for your daughter; you could charge more for your goods; and conversely, those without honor soon found themselves at the edge of society.  So the people at the banquet are behaving normally.  And oddly enough, I don't think Jesus was telling them or us that honor is a bad thing.  In fact, he seems to say, if you really want to be honored, than at least show the appearance of being humble.  After all if the host invites you higher – your honor meter goes way up.
But then Jesus talks about something unthinkable.  Because one of the main reasons for inviting people to a banquet is the hope of being invited back.  You would invite someone a little higher than you, and expect reciprocity.  If someone accepted your invitation and didn't invite you back, you would be humiliated and they would be shamed.  That's just the way things worked
So Jesus invites his host to really break from the norms of the society – invite the poor, the widows, the orphans the crippled, the lame – they can't pay you back.  But you can expect your payment when the righteous are resurrected. 
2000 years later, that kind of hospitality is rare, and when it exists, it's kind of artificial and institutionalized.  I don't know about our bishop, but I bet he doesn't eat with a bag lady or one of those homeless guys holding a cardboard sign.  You can go down to the soup kitchen and get a meal, no questions asked.  In several parishes there are “sandwich ministries” where some members make sandwiches and distribute them to homeless people.  These are good things.  But is Jesus inviting us to something much more radical – to literally eat and drink with people we would rather not associate with.  After all, If I'm passing out food in a soup kitchen, I can go home to my own supper feeling good about myself.  If I invite them into my house to share my meal, I will end up nervous, doing a lot of extra work – and if I try to sit down after the meal and share a little wine and conversation, that's really unusual. 
Jean Vanier founded the L'Arche communities in which normal people and people with developmental disabilities or were mentally challenged lived together in a family environment.  I suspect that's kind of what Jesus was getting at. 
Am I going to go out and grab some people off the street to share my supper tonight?  No.  Are you?  No.  Does Jesus know this?  Yes.  So why does he give us this totally counter cultural advice?  I think it's to make us think.  You and I know that if we would begin to do what Jesus suggests, we would quickly become saints.  Because we would be doing this because Jesus asked it of us – obeying God like Mary did.  We would be doing this as a practical way to love our neighbor, exercising the virtue of charity in a remarkable way.  We would be doing this as a way of making up for our sins – Saint Peter says that “Love covers a multitude of sins”.  I don't give banquets, but if I did, I wouldn't know where to begin in inviting the people Jesus suggests I invite, and lets not kid ourselves, I probably wouldn't even think about carrying out Jesus' advice. 
And when I meditate on the second part of this gospel, or in fact many other suggestions Jesus makes in the scriptures, I fall back on the fact that I am not a very good Christian, if being Christian means doing what Jesus says to do.  And maybe that's Jesus' point.  We all have to learn deep in our souls that we are in need of a savior, someone who can make up for all the times I've failed to follow Jesus. 
There's a story about life after death.  It turns out that everyone is seated at a banquet with every kind of wonderful food and drink.  Our resurrected bodies are a lot like the ones we have now, except no one can bend their arms at the elbow.  Some people are spending eternity trying to get the food into their mouths.  Others or putting the food into the mouth of the person on the other side of the table, and being fed by him or her as well.  Everyone is just doing what they did on earth, and some are in heaven, and  some are in hell.