Overview:

Thursday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

A Reflection for Thursday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

“Woe to you who build the memorials of the prophets
whom your fathers killed.
Consequently, you bear witness and give consent
to the deeds of your ancestors,
for they killed them and you do the building.
Woe to you, scholars of the law!
You have taken away the key of knowledge.
You yourselves did not enter and you stopped those trying to enter.”

Find today’s readings here.

Have you ever invited a guest for dinner and then regretted extending that invitation? Imagine the shock of the Pharisee in today’s Gospel when, after inviting Jesus of Nazareth to a likely sumptuous meal, he received a tongue-lashing from his guest.

Jesus was invited to dine at the home of a Pharisee. He gets criticized by his host for not complying with the ritual purity law regarding prescribed washing before a meal. Instead of apologizing and correcting his social error, Jesus uses the occasion to harshly criticize his host and what he stands for.

“Woe to you,” hears the Pharisee. “Woe to you who build memorials to the prophets whom your fathers killed.” Jesus accuses the Jewish leaders of honoring the prophets with hollow gestures while dishonoring the legacy of those very prophets. In Luke’s Gospel, this is but one of the charges Jesus levels during the same dinner party.

The Pharisees in Jesus’ time subscribed to a purity system that rewarded and honored the “pure” while pushing the poor and marginalized out of society. Jesus, throughout his life, while willing to eat with anyone, never compromised on his ethos of compassion. Whereas the Pharisees held strictly to the letter of the law, Jesus scolded them for ignoring the spirit of the law. The Pharisees fretted about seating arrangements and places of honor. Jesus wanted everyone to have enough to eat. Be compassionate as God is compassionate.

At the same time, Jesus holds nothing back in his attack on the “scholars of the law.” The focus of the scholars is the letter of the law. They are motivated by a desire to maintain an entrenched power structure. “You yourselves did not enter and you stopped those trying to enter,” Jesus says.

If we invite Jesus to dinner, we might do well to feel a bit uncomfortable every now and then.

How am I living my own life? Would I be confident enough to invite Jesus to dinner? Do I live a life filled with  performative piety? Am I more concerned with my own reputation than with the well-being of my neighbors, whoever that neighbor may be?

Or am I like Jesus, willing to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty working to make the kingdom of God real and present?

What if I could invite Jesus to dinner? What would we talk about? How much money I put in the collection basket last Sunday? How I sometimes serve as a lector at Mass? How would I respond when Jesus asked, “And what about that homeless man you ignored on your way out of the church parking lot?” 

We’d all like to be the perfect host, the perfect guest. But Jesus is not the perfect guest. He does not compromise, especially when it makes us uncomfortable. Nor does he stop challenging us to be the very best that we can possibly be.

Who knows? He may have even complained about the wine.

Eric Gregory is on the Religious Studies faculty at Brophy College Preparatory in Phoenix, Arizona. He is a graduate of the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University.