Homily for the Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

The corrosive effect of pride!  We’ve all met people who think a bit too highly of themselves.  Their conversation is all:  me, me, me, me, me, me, me & me.  Aren’t you glad you’ve had the chance to meet me!  You were having such a drab little party, but now I’ve arrived!  No, don’t but in.  I am speaking.  It’s a bit like the song that begins with the words, “Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble / when you’re perfect in every way”.

It can make people a right bore sometimes.  It can also make them look fools occasionally as well.  In the Gospel, Our Lord gives the example of a Pharisee who is invited to a wedding feast, and just automatically assumes the place of honour must be for him!  But then someone else arrives, perhaps the High Priest, maybe turning up deliberately late to make a big entrance.  My friend, the High Priest is here – you will have to give up your place.  And the only seat left now is in the lowliest position at the table.  Does it not make more sense to be at least a little more modest in choosing where to sit?

The whole problem is this desire to be exalted, esteemed, loved and praised.   As human beings, we are weak and fragile.  In the first reading it says, “The greater you are, the more you must humble yourself”.  It’s because we can become truly rotten by pride – it is after all one of the seven deadly sins.  It was the sin of pride that led the archangel Lucifer to rebel against God and say, “I will not serve”, leading to his damnation.  So the greater we are, the more careful we need to be.  Pride comes before a fall.

Being humble doesn’t mean deliberately doing ourselves down, though, especially if it’s done in a calculating way, so that you get more praise.  Humility is in recognising that everything we have comes as a gift from God, including life and salvation.  We didn’t create ourselves and we don’t earn our way into heaven either.  Both are gifts of God’s grace, and for that we have to be truly grateful.

We all have areas of natural weakness, and if pride is one of those, what do we do about it?  Our Lord has a very clever and radical idea:  rather than inviting back your friends, the influential people and all those who praise you and glory in your company, do something different.  Invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.  Do good and don’t seek reward or repayment in this life.  He’s suggesting to mix, not with the rich, the elegant, the fashionable, but to go for those at the bottom of life’s pile.  Those with no riches.  Those who smell.  Those whom no-one esteems.  Maybe even, those who are ungrateful and only complain.  Let it be God who thanks and rewards you, in the next life.  And it’s also about keeping your good works hidden, rather than showing off about them.  You don’t want people saying:  oh look!  Here comes so-and-so, the great philanthropist!  The Gospel reading we hear on Ash Wednesday warns us not to parade our good deeds before others to win their admiration.  If they find out anyway, unintentionally, that’s another matter, but not to make a song and dance of it.  Otherwise, we lose our reward from God.

All this isn’t to say that we can’t also go to the big parties and invite family and friends round for supper.  But the spirit in which it is done might need to change.  You will only have one seat.  There won’t be enough space to invite me, myself and I.

Curious about exploring things further?  If you would like to ask further questions about the topics raised in these homilies (or maybe think it wasn’t explained too well!), please feel free to e-mail Fr Michael at stjoseph.thame@rcaob.org.uk