The reading from the wise Sirach introduces the theme of meekness and humility so dear to Jesus. "Son, do your deeds with meekness, and you will be more beloved than a generous man. The greater you are, the more humble you will be, and you will find favor with the Lord. Many are the proud and haughty, but to the meek God reveals his secrets." The Responsorial Psalm, on the other hand, introduces the theme of God's care for the poor and destitute: "Father of the fatherless and defender of widows is God in his holy dwelling place. To the lonely, God makes a home; he brings out the captives with joy."
Jesus goes to eat at the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees, and we want to think about how he does not avoid the environments that are hostile to him and does not miss the opportunity to try to change their behavior and mentality, trusting that they can understand and with the intention that we too, who are far from the time and culture of that environment, receive a teaching. Jesus prefers to pick up aspects of daily life to propose his teaching, to change our daily life and to make us understand the logic of the Kingdom of God, which is revealed and realized in daily life.
The passage begins with his entrance into the house and everyone's eyes fixed on him. Then Luke narrates the healing of a man sick with dropsy, about which the guests cannot say anything even if it happens on the Sabbath, because Jesus makes them keep silent with the consideration that if one of their children or an ox fell into the well on the Sabbath they would pull him out. Love wins over the letter of the law. Meanwhile, Jesus looks back at them and notices the guests' eagerness to put themselves first. He then tells them the parable of the wedding guests, to teach and correct without hurting, but he does not refer only to good social manners, nor does he recommend a trick to get to the top: rather he reveals a profound feature of God's logic, which we find in the whole history of salvation: the one who is
humble will be exalted. The image of the wedding feast is an eschatological image of the Kingdom.
In that meal, after the healing of the man who was cured and the parable about the humility of choosing the last place at the wedding banquet, the third teaching is a piece of advice addressed directly to the host, to whom he suggests to live in his concreteness the logic that God has in his salvation history: to make his daily life reflect God's style, which privileges the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. And he promises him that he is the recipient of another of the beatitudes found in the Gospels: "You will be blessed because they cannot repay you; they will repay you at the resurrection of the just".
The homily on the readings of Sunday 22nd Sunday
The priest Luis Herrera Campo offers its nanomiliaa small one-minute reflection for these readings.
