9/1/2103 – 22nd Sunday in Ordinary time – Luke 14:1, 7-14

         What's striking about Jesus' mission & ministry is that he never passes up an opportunity to teach us, especially in the ordinary, everyday moments of our lives. In today's Gospel, as Jesus is invited to dinner at the home of an influential Pharisee, he uses this gathering to teach us about how we should be in relationship with God and with each other. Like many of Jesus' teachings, we can apply so much from this simple parable to our own daily lives.

         Jesus tells us, not only should we be the kind of host who invites the poor and outcasts to share a meal, but when we are guests ourselves, we should display humility and grace in not automatically taking the seat of honor.  Jesus tells us: we will be repaid in God's eternal kingdom if we possess humility, if we seek to humble ourselves rather than to be exalted. 

         How we define humility is the key in understanding today’s Gospel.  I’ve recently been reading a book entitled the Six Questions of Socrates by philosopher Christopher Phillips.  The book addresses how we in the modern world define different values such as moderation, justice, the good, courage, piety, and excellence in our lives and how we live out these values.  We can approach humility in the same way that Socrates questioned the very definition of these values.  We can start by thinking how our secular world often defines success in terms of achievement, power, control, and wealth.  Humility is often seen not as a virtue in our world, but rather as a weakness that hinders us from achieving worldly success.  While many view someone who is humble as a doormat or a pushover, Jesus and the early Church saw humility as an important virtue for us to emulate in our journey of faith.

       Roberta Bondi, a Church historian from Emory University in Atlanta, sees humility as the foundational virtue upon which we should build our entire spiritual quest.  We might mistakenly believe that our spirituality is defined by the heroic acts that may happen to us on a rare occasion, but, more than likely, what truly shapes and nurtures our spirituality and our love for others are our day-to-day small acts of service, hospitality, and kindness.   We start to live the Gospel value of humility by seeing others as valuable as we ourselves are in the eyes of God. Gospel humility is a relational virtue that pertains to the way we learn to value others, no matter who they are. In our humility, we empathize with others, rather than judge them out of our own self-righteousness. 

         The word “humility” has its roots in the Latin word “humus,” which means “earth,” “ground,” or “soil.”   As God made the earth, he made us: we draw our life and our breath from that same source of all creation, from the God who made heaven and earth, from the God who loves us and who calls us his beloved. We're all a part of God's good creation. In our earthiness and our humility, we're to interact with our brothers and sisters in mutual dignity and respect, not in a way that is subservient or demeaning.

         Even though we're still in the midst of hot & humid weather here in Mississippi, we're not far away from the season of autumn, when the weather will get cooler and the leaves on the trees will start to die and fall to the ground.  The decaying leaves will bring nutrients to the soil and will nourish the beautiful azaleas and dogwoods that bloom in the spring. 

         Just as the new life of springtime won't be created if the leaves don’t fall and decay in the fall, our pride and desire to always be in control must fall away in order for us to live out a sense of Gospel holiness and humility with Jesus as our model.  As we practice humility in our lives, we will make room for the surprising ways God's graces will enfold: beyond what we can imagine and what we can expect, beyond what we can desire, as God touches our lives and helps us to reach out to others. 

         As we go about our week bombarded by so many messages and so much information, may we make time to reflect upon the Gospel message we receive in mass each Sunday. This week, let us reflect upon how we are challenged to incorporate this simple, earthy Gospel virtue of humility in our lives, especially in the ways we offer and receive hospitality in relationship to God and to our brothers and sisters in Christ.