A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Jesus said, to the chief of the pharisees who had invited him to dinner. Notice that on many occasions, our blessed lord broke bread with these pharisees. Our blessed lord then said to him, whenever you give a lunch or dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors. They might invite you in return and thus repay you.
No. When you have a reception, invite beggars and the crippled, the lame, and the blind. You should be pleased that they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid in the resurrection of the just. And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise to you, lord Jesus Christ.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Well, let's face it. This is just another one of the enigmatic parables of our blessed lord. Does he mean us to take this literally? Well, just imagine, what a turnabout that would be if if society in general followed this principle.
Did our lord expect us to take this verbatim? Well, we're coming back to a very basic problem that's in the whole of the New Testament, and that down the centuries has caused very serious problems for people. That's just matter. You can phrase it in many ways. You can say it's a problem of poverty.
It's the problem of leaving your wife, your leaving your husband, leaving your children, leaving everything for my sake. Christ said this. Did he how did he mean that? Are you telling me that the son of god's telling people down here not to be faithful to their very basic responsibilities? That's crazy.
And yet this has been you see, we're not theorizing. There have been men and women down the centuries who have taken these words absolutely literally and have gone ahead and done just that, just exactly what I've said. Where it it's the it's the same situation that we find when you're dealing with a book, when you're dealing with a written word. The speaker spoke these words. He didn't write them down.
Our blessed lord, as far as we know, didn't write one single sentence. Not a single that's far as we know. For all I know, may have left a library book, but we haven't discovered it yet. As far as we know, he wrote nothing. And when on that very formal, very official occasion, when he said to his disciples, going ye therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, and teaching them everything that I've taught you.
He didn't give them a scroll. He could have done that. Even humanly speaking, that would have been the normal thing to do. He didn't give them a single memorandum. He didn't give them a flyer.
He didn't give them any handouts. He didn't he didn't even give them a cassette with a cassette player. He gave them nothing. He said, you just go out and you teach everything I've taught you. Just depending on their memory.
Now, when you take something like this and take it out of context we don't know all the context. But, you see, you it just is absurd. It's a contrary I'm not putting it in that word absurd, you know, you can't use it. But all we mean by absurd, it's a contradiction in terms. To say that God almighty is going to tell me not to be faithful to my most basic and essential commitments in this life.
That's yeah. You can't reconcile these two things. And yet people have lifted these texts out and have put them literally into effect in their daily living. And it and it happens down the centuries. I'll bet it's happening right now.
I don't happen to know any instance, but I would give money that this is happening right now. I'll give you one instance of it. It's it, happens to be not a Catholic, but it's a Christian. I guess, I don't know, but it was this young man who was on the news the other night who left his wife with two children in Virginia and went out to Oregon with that with that with that Oregon Indian Foundation, and now he tells us that he's found God and he feels fulfilled. But he's abandoned his wife and his two kids.
How do they feel? What do they have for breakfast? Who's putting a roof over their heads? But he feels fulfilled. Are you trying to tell me that that's doing God's will?
I knew of another instance, and it's public knowledge so if you happen to know the reference, it's all right because it is public knowledge, where a woman walked out. A young mother with three children, with three young children, just walked out, said, I don't want to be married anymore. My life is frustrated. My marriage was a mistake, and I have to be fulfilled. They are literally her words to me.
Now you're trying to tell me that that's doing God's will? You can, but these are very delicate subjects. Let's face it. I'm not up here being dogmatic about it. I'm only saying that when you deal with the written words, you're dealing with something very fragile.
You're dealing with something very sensitive, and now translations. Maybe some of you read the very well, just this past week, where an another edition has come out to this new bible where they're they're going to take out all sexist pronouns and nouns out of the New Testament. Of course, they are rewriting the New Testament. I can't exaggerate. I really cannot.
These basic these extremely basic attitudes that we should have when we're dealing with a written word. That it's that we're What are you dealing with? Is it a translation? What is the context? What is the overall view of the author?
These are not easy things to come by. And in many instances, the people do using these texts don't wanna come by it. They just want what they want. So they lift out just exactly what they want, and they forget everything else. As I say, you can quote the bible and say there is no god.
Does the bible say that? The bible does say it. There is no god. Of course, that very next word is says the fool in his heart, but that can be conveniently forgotten. So what is our lord saying here?
Well, I'm I'm not your guess is as good as mine. I have no I have no hotline to the holy spirit. I think what he's telling us is simply this. Remember, he went time and again in his life, he went to dine with his friends, and there weren't a bunch of lepers, and there weren't a bunch of blah blind people there. They invited him.
Think of Martha and Mary, all the trouble Martha's going through. You could just see her dashing around in with an open fire in the heat of the of a of a torrid eastern sun, trying to cook up a meal, the sweat coming off her part, and here's Mary sitting down, you know, at the feet of Jesus in in calm, cool comfort, you know. It was great. You know how Martha then complains about it? Well, these are these are very homely scenes, and Christ indulged in this.
He broke bread with his own disciples. He didn't go out and invite a bunch of lepers and a bunch of blind and lame. There's not an instance of it. So what does our Lord mean by this now? What is telling us is this don't go out and and just as you're there was an already a cartoon in the New Yorker.
And of course you can't talk about a cartoon, you have to see it. But it shows, a husband and wife in the middle age, leaving a very nice looking house. The doorway is flooded with yellow light. And as they're leaving, she is saying to her husband, we gave them roast beef. They gave us chopped beef.
That's that's what our Lord's talking about here. He's saying don't have this quid pro quo attitude. Don't don't give a fine dinner to people just in order to have them invite you back and have a good dinner. There should be something more to it. That's what he's talking about.
There should be love. There should be charity. There should be, there should be a giving. And and that can be demanded. That can be a tremendous need.
And you don't have to be a blind man or a a leper or a cripple to need it. That's not what it seems to be our lord's talking about. At least that would conform to his to to his words. It would conform to what he himself did in this life, and that's the best argument I can give for anything. What did the man say?
What did he do? Christ was a loving person. He was human. He had all the human sentiments. Let's not forget that.
Let's not be as scared of that. He had friends, and he had good friends, and he loved his friends. And he he wept bitter tears at their sadness even though he knew he was going to turn it into joy. But he wept twice, at least twice. Once at the grave of his friend Lazarus, and the other time over Jerusalem.
And so let us take to heart here what our lord possibly is saying to us in this parable. Let us put out a hand to our neighbor, and let when by neighbor, I mean somebody who may be eating breakfast with you every day. Keep that in mind. Let's begin being Christians in our own homes. That's a good place to begin, you know.
I've said this many times, and there is in many some and I'm basing this absolutely on observation you can see more decency, respect in an elevator going between two floor floors in a split minute than sometimes you see between husbands and wives. Why? Here you have men and women crowded into this little old thing going from a floor to another floor, and people will hold the door I mean, sometimes, and not always, of course there are boorish people every place, even in elevators. But they they're polite to each other, generally speaking. They're so polite that sometimes all the conversation stops when you get on an elevator.
And these very same people step out and they get into their office and they raise cane, with a secretary or somebody with whom they have very definite relationships. I've said many times, many times, that a lot of marriages would be immensely improved if they would just buy Emily Post and live according to those basic rules. So when I say about having the love of Christ, the charity of Christ, I'd rather say, let's begin with those in our immediate present. Those who are definitely rubbing us the wrong way. The lame, the blind, the people who can't give us anything back for what we do good for them.
They're the ones that need it, and they're the ones we should go out to. And the point I'm making is this, this proves that you're loving your neighbor because of Jesus Christ. And that's the only mark that puts the name of Jesus on your life. Not philanthropy, not altruism, none of those things. All of these things are good, but they're not Christian.
It's only when we do it because we love the son of God that turns the ordinary, the natural, into something magnificent and supernatural, even if it is just saying a friendly good morning to somebody in our office that we don't particularly like. In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.