August 27, 2004

Sensitivity

Pentecost 13/17C (Lk 14.1,7-14; Heb 13.8)

Our leaders — both sitting and aspiring-to-sit — talk as if wars are inevitable. And they may be right.

“Sitting” speaks of our being prepared for the “wars of the 21st century,” almost as if they’re all on some grand calendar or plan to which he alone is privy. “Aspiring-to-sit” says that wars must be fought with “sensitivity.” “Vice-sitting” says that’s about the silliest thing he ever heard of all the while his audience cheers and hoots.

But if wars must be fought at all, and they seem as certain as sin, the notion that they be fought with sensitivity appears to be, by far, the most appealing. The same is true of any conflict, even for the most innocent domestic spat, especially if there’d ever be any resolution. Sensitivity in battle? Such irony.

Jesus says, love your enemies. We make a covenant in our baptism to “seek and serve Christ in all persons,” and there’s no exception made for enemies. Nothing can be more loving than to seek Christ in another, to be sensitively aware of his presence in that person. And the sleeper in all this is that nothing can ruin a good scrap better than Christ suddenly making the scene. What a refreshing — and frightening — reality. For this means at least that our commission is not to “take Jesus” to others, not to jam Jesus down their throats as some would believe, but that he is already there and usually in the place where our pride least suspects him to be.

Today’s gospel is not about war, but it is about the kind of pride that leads to war and about the kind of sensitivity that can help us find another way. In Jesus’ challenge, he makes with the commonplace to speak of the un-commonplace, with the obvious to call our attention to the not so obvious.

Jesus tells stories first of a guest at a marriage feast, then of a host at a dinner party. He reminds us that we are here at life’s table by invitation, which is to say by grace, a clear message that we not only are welcome, but that we are also to use that gift as welcomers.

Once being invited to such a place — and realizing what this new relation with God is — comes again the irony that to enjoy it fully, to enter into the celebration, to come to the party, is to give it away, and to become the host at the next one. Further, to become the host not to the swells who can return the favor, but to the not-so-swells who cannot.

The letter to the Hebrews adds a twist, that to show hospitality to strangers may lead to entertaining angels unawares, a not unenviable way to seek and serve. Hebrews then adds a word about hosts. “Remember your leaders,” Hebrews adds, “those who spoke to you the word of God; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.”

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