Today’s readings present the core values of serving God by
serving others and putting others before ourselves. They talk of focusing not
on ourselves but on the needs of others, taking the lowest place at a wedding
banquet so that we may be called up higher but certainly fall no further. They talk of giving without expecting
anything back – reaching out to those who seemingly have nothing to offer in
this life….and even offering hospitality to strangers for we may be entertaining
Angels!
They are in fact, both the epistle and the Gospel
reminiscent of the themes that we find in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount where all
the values of this world are reversed and we hear such extraordinary things
such as ‘Blessed are the Poor’…’Blessed are the meek’ …. ‘Blessed are the
persecuted’
Ask anyone today who falls into those categories whether
they feel blessed and it could well be that we would feel the wrath of their
anger and who could blame them!
Looked at through the eyes of our value systems poverty,
humility, victimhood are not seen as anything to celebrate and in fact are an
embarrassment in a society that still accords so much value to those who manage
to accumulate great wealth, power and things.
Mind you it may be that things are changing when the death
of a poet in our land completely takes over the news and conversation on this
Island. Poets and prophets are not that unalike and they often help us to see
the ordinary and everyday with fresh eyes – to re-examine all the prejudices and
assumptions we have inherited.
That essentially is what the epistle and Gospel are asking
of us – to look at our world, our lives, ourselves and even God with new eyes
or even perhaps to open eyes that were previously closed, the eyes of faith.
And the difference is dramatic when we do that – anyone who
has ever seen newborn kittens will know that they are born blind and only open
their eyes at 8 days – Overnight their behaviour changes as they are no longer
fumbling aimlessly and nervously but now purposefully seeking out new and
exciting adventures.
God
wants to open our eyes too – and if already open to clean the sleep out of them
so that we may see more clearly. Jesus himself is the instrument of that and
his whole earthly life bears witness to the values proclaimed in today’s
readings: poverty, humility, reaching out to the stranger, and even subjecting
himself to the death of a criminal on a rubbish heap outside the city walls.
And we wonder how he was resurrected – well
when you go that low the only way is up – when you humble yourself to the worst
that humanity can throw at you there is no longer anything to fear. It is only
when we refuse to let go of ourselves completely that we are vulnerable to the
hurts of others but when we let go of everything and fall into God then we are
beyond the reach of their torment.
There is a basic wisdom in Jesus words –
‘when you are invited go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your
host comes he may say to you, “Friend, move up higher”….and ‘be honoured in the
presence of all who sit at the table with you” – So often out of our own sense
of self importance we want to sit at the higher seats but in those seats is not
just privilege but also responsibility which we are not ready for….. Our God
knows our limits and our abilities and he will use them to the full if we let
him but we need to leave that initiative with God.
It is almost as if we are called to forget ourselves so that
we may remember God.
Perhaps a poem from the late Seamus Heaney is an appropriate
way to finish – It’s called St. Kevin and the Blackbird and speaks powerfully of
this self-forgetfulness:
St. Kevin and the Blackbird
And then there was St Kevin and the blackbird.The saint is kneeling, arms stretched out, inside
His cell, but the cell is narrow, so
One turned-up palm is out the window, stiff
As a crossbeam, when a blackbird lands
and Lays in it and settles down to nest.
Kevin feels the warm eggs, the small breast, the tucked
Neat head and claws and, finding himself linked
Into the network of eternal life,
Is moved to pity: now he must hold his hand
Like a branch out in the sun and rain for weeks
Until the young are hatched and fledged and flown.
*
And since the whole thing’s imagined anyhow,
Imagine being Kevin. Which is he?
Self-forgetful or in agony all the time
From the neck on out down through his hurting forearms?
Are his fingers sleeping? Does he still feel his knees?
Or has the shut-eyed blank of underearth
Crept up through him? Is there distance in his head?
Alone and mirrored clear in love’s deep river,
‘To labour and not to seek reward,’ he prays,
A prayer his body makes entirely
For he has forgotten self, forgotten bird
And on the riverbank forgotten the river’s name.
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