If you looked in last
week’s bulletin or online at what the readings would be for this week, (and I
definitely do recommend reading the readings before Mass if you can) you might
have noticed that what we just heard from Luke’s gospel was chapter 14, verse
one and verses seven through fourteen. If you’re anything like me, that
immediately gets you fascinated to find out what goes in verses two through six.
What are we skipping? What we’re skipping is Jesus healing a man with dropsy. The
Greek term Luke wrote that we translate “dropsy” means basically “water-logged.”
The understanding of this disease was that it was an insatiable thirst. Someone
suffering from this disease would keep feeling thirsty even though they were
perfectly well hydrated and would take on more and more fluid until they swelled
up. And I know, we have lots of medical personnel here who could talk all about
modern understandings of this, and how it relates to edema… what matters is how
Luke understood the disease.
And that’s because
putting the story about the healing of a man with dropsy next this story about
people choosing seats of honor is a very deliberate choice, and reveals a
profound understanding of the people who were so concerned about where they
sat. They had dropsy of the soul. They were so immeasurably, so incalculably,
beloved of God, and they didn’t know it. They still felt thirsty. Thirsty for
affirmation, for honor, for status, and they thought they could quench that thirst
through good seats at banquets. We know, as I’m sure they knew in their heads,
that this doesn’t work. In fact, the illusory sources of affirmation can cause
something far more dangerous than swelling. They can feed a vicious cycle of
restlessness, of constantly seeking after human honor, of constantly fearing we’ll
lose what we have, of disdaining our “competitors,” of not realizing that our
hearts will always be restless until they rest in God.
I don’t know
if you’d heard the joke about two dogs and a cat who die, and who go up before
the throne of God. God asks the first dog what she did in her life. She explains,
“I was a sheep dog. I helped the farmer organize the sheep and kept them safe
from predators.” “Well done, my good and faithful servant,” God replies, “sit
at my right.” He asks the other dog what he did in his life, and he replies, “I
was a seeing eye dog. I helped a person who was visually impaired navigate the
world.” “Well done, my good and faithful servant,” God replies, “sit at my
left.” Then, as God turns to the cat, before He can say anything, the cat
begins to speak: “I think you’re sitting in my seat.” Disclaimer, I love cats;
I’m happy to currently live with two dogs, but I grew up with cats, and I think
most of our cats would have been pretty sure that God was sitting in their
seat. Which is funny in a way, but is tragic in a human, because when we don’t
let God be God, we’re less human.
But, Jesus
cures dropsy, physical and spiritual.
In our
reading from the Letter to the Hebrews, we hear of a kind of mirror image problem
to the one Jesus spoke of in our Gospel. The writer talks about what happened
at Sinai. At Sinai, the Israelites, while they were wandering if the desert,
after the Exodus, before entering the Promised Land. And God spoke with, as Hebrews
puts it, blazing fire, darkness, storm and trumpet blast. And the people were scared,
they were scared of God. So, they said to Moses, “You go. You go talk to God.
We’ll wait here. Come back, tell us what He says.” The Letter to the Hebrews
says: that is not what you have come to. No, Jesus has led us to God’s Holy
Mountain, and it’s not for us to nervously wait at the bottom and just be glad
that he’s gone up for us. God says, come. If the people Jesus was with had the
problem of spending too much time and energy seeking after human affirmation,
the Israelites in the desert had the problem of being scared of intimacy with
God, keeping their distance. The two lessons go together beautifully: it’s God
saying, come to me, don’t keep your distance, and, at the same time, quit
worshiping the rich and powerful on earth, quit thinking their affirmation
matters more than mine, quit thinking you need more honor to be whole.
I know we’re
not in heaven yet. I know we still have more walking to do. We’re still God’s
pilgrim people, not God’s already-arrived people. But, in a real, even if incomplete,
way Jesus has led us to the holy mountain. Here at this Eucharistic banquet,
the Spirit and the Bridegroom say come, don’t keep your distance, know how
incalculably beloved you are. Here, there are seats of honor. It’s not my seat,
or Francine’s seat, or the front pew, or the rear chairs. It’s the cross.
Christ has made the tree of shame the seat of honor at this banquet. In our new
church, there’ll be a large crucifix, much easier to see, but there’s something
beautiful in that our crucifix is most visible when it’s being carried through
the assembly to begin and end Mass. Every seat is next to the seat of honor
twice during Mass. The seat of honor is also the tabernacle, in our Blessed
Sacrament chapel, and I’m always encouraged to see so many people throughout a
day, especially before Mass, stop and make a visit there, to spend some time in
the Eucharistic presence of our Lord. Soon, the seat of honor will become the
chalices and ciboria that will hold the body, blood, soul and divinity of our
Lord. And then the seats of honor will be our mouths, our stomachs and thereby
our hearts, where we will enthrone him. We don’t want to have seats of honor;
we want to be seats of honor. And Christ loves to dwell within us.
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