Proper C17 - Trinity 13 - September 2nd 2007
Prayer for the day Almighty God, you searcgh us and know us; may we rely on ou in strength and rest on you in weakness, now and all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Readings: Ecclesiasticus 10:12-18 Psalm 112 This is the teching which comesfrom this reading: # Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entrtained angels without knowing it. # remember those in prison # and those who are ill-ttreated. # Marriage should be honoured by al, and the marriage bed kept pure. # keep your lives free from the love of money # Remember your leaders. Another sabbath story. Jesus is being watched but it is wha Jesus notices which is important. He notices how everyone rushes to the best places "te places of honour". This course of action lads to humiliation because there may be someone else who has been invited who is more important, and you will have to give your seat up. Jesus tells people to choose the "lowest place" because there is always the chance of being asked to move to a "better place" Jesus ays: Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, an he who humbles himself will be xalted. Jesus also advises about invitation lists telling us not to invite brothers, relatives or rich neighbours - because they will invite us back. Instead invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind. If we invite our friends et at we will be repaid. If we invite the poor we will be blessed. Which do we want? To be repaid, or to be blessed.
God, though Jesus and the Holy Spirit, shows us that he never does anything to be repaid. How can he be repaid because everything he gives is undeserved gifts?
| Both the readings from Hebrews and Luke refer to entertaining. How to entertain - and table etiquette. Who to entertain or invite. Hebrews talks about "entertaining strangers" and Jesus prefers us to invite the poor, rippled, the lame and the blind - in so doing there is a chance that we will be entertaining angels without knowing it. How GOSPEL to admit the possibility that it is the poor who are likely to be the angels? What an upside down world it is!
God pickles the proud and preserves the foolish. - Anon
| Simone Weil 1909 - 1943 When deciding where to sit, Jesus teaches us to choose the lowest place. He repudiates power instead of asserting power and his teaching about humility goes largely unrecognised. John Pridmore, writing in the Church Times, reports on a former Bishop of London, who, when shown to his seat in a congregation complained: "It comes to something when I'm given a back seat in my own diocese!" Following Jesus's teaching, Simone Weil (pictured) describes humility as "the freely accepted movement towards the bottom."
This being human is a guest house A joy, a depression, a meanness, Welcome and entertain them all! The dark thought, the shame, the malice, Be grateful for whoever comes,
There is more about Rumi here Henri Nouwen in Reaching Out has some good thigs to say about hospitality and hostility:
The first characteristic of the spiritual life is the continuing movement from loneliness to solitude. Its second equally important characteristic is the movement by which our hostilities can be converted into hospitality. (65)
In our world the assumption is that strangers are a potential danger and that it is up to them to disprove it. When we travel we keep a careful eye on our luggage; when we walk the streets we are aware of where we keep our money; and when we walk at night in a dark park our whole body is tense with fear of an attack. ? It really does not have to be so dramatic. Fear and hostility are not limited to our encounters with burglars, drug addicts or strangely behaving types. In a world so pervaded with competition, even those who are very close to each other, such as classmates, teammates, co-actors in a play, colleagues in work [Might we add "members of a congregation"?], can become infected by fear and hostility when they experience each other as a threat to their intellectual or professional safety. Many places that are created to bring people closer together and help them form a peaceful community have degenerated into mental battlefields. (69) When we have become sensitive to the painful contours of our hostility we can start identifying the lines of its opposite toward which we are called to move: hospitality. ?
Poverty makes a good host. This paradoxical statement needs some more explanation. In order to be able to reach out to the other in freedom, two forms of poverty are very important, the poverty of mind and the poverty of heart.
Someone who is filled with ideas, concepts, opinions and convictions cannot be a good host. There is no inner space to listen, no openness to discover the fit of the other. It is not difficult to see how those "who know it all" can kill a conversation and prevent an interchange of ideas. Poverty of mind as a spiritual attitude is a growing willingness to recognize the incomprehensibility of the mystery of life. The more mature we become the more we will be able to give up our inclination to grasp, catch and comprehend the fullness of life and the more we will be ready to let life enter into us. (103-104)
A good host not only has to be poor in mind but also poor in heart. When our heart is filled with prejudices, worries, jealousies, there is little room for a stranger. In a fearful environment it is not easy to keep our hearts open to the wide range of human experiences. Real hospitality, however, is not exclusive but inclusive and creates space for a large variety of human experiences. (106)
Poverty of heart creates community since it is not in self-sufficiency but in a creative interdependency that the mystery of life unfolds itself to us. (107) | ||||
