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Sacred Scriptures/Liturgy- Commentary on Sunday's Readings |
Be modest in what you do!
22th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, OFMCap, Pontifical Household Preacher
www.zenit.org
Sirach 3:19-21, 30-31; Hebrews
12:18-19, 22-24a; Luke 14:1, 7-14
The beginning of this Sunday's Gospel helps us to correct a widely
diffused prejudice: "One Sabbath when he went to dine at the house
of a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees, they were watching him."
Reading the Gospel from a certain angle we have ended up making the
Pharisees the prototype for all vices: hypocrisy, duplicity,
falsity; Jesus' enemies par excellence. The terms "Pharisee" and
"Pharisaical" have entered into the vocabulary of many languages
with negative connotations.
Such an idea of the Pharisees is not correct. There were certainly
many among them who corresponded to this negative image and it is
with these that Jesus has serious problems. But not all of them were
like this. Nicodemus, who comes to see Jesus one night and who later
defended him before the Sanhedrin, was a Pharisee (cf. John 3:1;
7:50ff.). Saul was a Pharisee before his conversion and was
certainly a sincere and zealous person then, if misguided. Gamaliel,
who defended the apostles before the Sanhedrin, was a Pharisee (cf.
Acts 5:34ff.).
Jesus' relationships with the Pharisees were not only conflictual.
They often shared the same convictions, such as faith in the
resurrection of the dead and the love of God and neighbor as the
first and most important commandment of the law. Some, as we see in
Sunday's Gospel, even invited Jesus to dinner at their house. Today
there is agreement that the Pharisees did not want Jesus to be
condemned as much as their rival sect, the Sadducees, who belonged
to Jerusalem's priestly caste.
For all these reasons, it would be a very good thing to stop using
the terms "Pharisee" and "Pharisaical" in a disparaging way. This
would also help dialogue with the Jews who recall with great respect
the role played by the Pharisees in their history, especially after
the destruction of Jerusalem.
During the dinner that Sabbath, Jesus taught two important things:
one directed to those who were invited and the other to their host.
To the host Jesus says (perhaps privately or only in the presence of
his disciples): "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite
your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors
..." This is what Jesus himself did when he invited the poor, the
afflicted, the meek, the hungry, the persecuted -- the persons named
in the beatitudes -- to the great banquet of the kingdom.
But this time I would like to focus on what Jesus says to the
invitees. "When you are invited to a wedding feast, do not take a
place of honor ..." Jesus does not intend to give a lesson in good
manners here. Neither does he wish to encourage the subtle
calculation of those who take a lower place with the secret hope of
gaining a more honorable place from the host. The parable could
deceive us if we do not think about the banquet and the host that
Jesus has in mind. The banquet is the most universal one of the
kingdom and God is the host.
In life, Jesus wants to say, Choose the last place, try to work more
for the benefit of others than for your own benefit. Be modest in
evaluating your merits, allow others to do this instead ("No one is
a good judge of his own case"), and already in this life God will
lift you up. He will lift you up in his grace; he will make you rise
in the ranks of Jesus' friends and true disciples, which is the only
thing that really matters.
He will also exalt you in the esteem of others. It is a surprising
fact but a true one: It is not only God who "comes to the humble but
holds the proud at a distance" (cf. Psalm 107:6); men do the same,
whether or not they are believers. Modesty, when it is sincere and
not affected, conquers, makes those who practice it loved, makes
their company desirable, their opinion appreciated. True glory flees
from those who seek it and seeks those who flee from it.
We live in a society that has an extreme need to hear this Gospel
message of humility again. Running to take the first seats, perhaps
without scruple using others as steppingstones, being opportunistic
and viciously competitive -- these are things that are universally
condemned but, unfortunately, they are also universally practiced.
The Gospel has an impact on society, even when it speaks of humility
and modesty.
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