Three Sundays ago, the first Sunday in Ordinary Time after Easter and the Solemnities of Holy Trinity and Corpus Christi, our Gospel reading began with Luke 9:51: “When the days for his being taken up were fulfilled, [Jesus] he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem” (see "Journeying with Jesus"). During this long period of Ordinary Time, these months of summer and into the fall, we read through the “third” Gospel semi-continuously.
Starting with that Gospel from Luke 9, we are invited to journey with Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem. Keep in mind that in the Synoptic Gospels (i.e., Matthew, Mark, and Luke), Jesus only goes to Jerusalem once. His journey to Jerusalem ends with his passion and death. During this time, we are invited collectively and individually into Jesus’ story, to walk with him.
Really, the only way to be a Christian is to enter Jesus' story. Entering Jesus’ story, however, requires you to pick up a cross, not a sword. Looking back at our Gospel from Luke 9, setting out for Jerusalem, Jesus led his disciples through Samaria. Once in Samaria, the Lord sent the sons of Zebedee ahead of him into a village to arrange for his welcome.
When the village of Samaritans refused to host a band of Jews (hardly surprising), James and John wanted to “call down fire from heaven to consume them.”1 How did Jesus respond to their desire for revenge? He “turned and rebuked them, and… journeyed to another village.”2
In a similar vein, our Gospel for today, as well as our reading from Genesis, are about hospitality, not just receiving but welcoming God. This is fitting because the high point of every Mass is the Communion Rite. In receiving communion, we receive the Lord, who comes to us under the appearance of (we might say “disguised as”) bread and wine. So, the question for each of us, as it was for Abraham, Sarah, Mary, and even poor Martha- is, are we ready to receive him?
Like Jesus’ visit to the house of his friends Martha and Mary, sisters of his good friend Lazarus, before we eat, we have the chance to sit and listen as he speaks to us through the scriptures. The liturgy is the prime time and place for scriptures. During the Liturgy of the Word, we are invited to sit and listen.
Proclaiming and listening are different from reading. Reading is something most of us can do on our own. Proclaiming and hearing require us to be together. Let’s not forget that the purpose of receiving the body of Christ is for us together to become the body of Christ. One of the four ways Christ is really present in the Eucharist is in the proclamation of the scriptures.
Lectoring is an important liturgical ministry. The readings should be proclaimed so that they can be clearly heard. It's a ministry that requires the minister to spend time reading, re-reading, and practicing prior to proclaiming God’s word in front of the assembly. The lector’s best metric of success is how many people are listening instead of reading.
I suppose the takeaway from all this is that as we journey with Jesus, it’s important to stop along the way. To spend time resting and listening to him, not busying ourselves with tasks and burdens, to break bread, not just with him (he is the Bread), but with others. The others with whom you break bread (i.e., those you are now sitting among) are truly your companions.
In English “companion” is basically a compound Latin word: com + panis= “with bread.” Companions are those with whom you share bread. But the Bread of Life we receive here we are to share "out there," as it were. This is why we are dismissed with words like, “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.”3
Worshiping and loving God in Church is supposed to lead to a sacrificial love of neighbor outside Church. Who is my neighbor? This is the question the scholar of the law asked Jesus last week. Your neighbor is the person you meet who needs your help. It is the essence of being Christian to make yourself a neighbor. In terms of hospitality, of making yourself a neighbor, the scriptures enjoin us: “Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unknowingly entertained angels.”4
Recently, Christian pastor and author Scott Sauls asked: “What if Christians became widely known as those who welcome sinners and eat with them? What would it take for this to happen? How would our lives be different if it did?”5 He followed up by asking: “What if Christians became widely known as the world’s first and most thorough responders whenever a friend, neighbor, colleague, or stranger experiences tragedy such as divorce, unemployment, a crippling diagnosis, a loved one’s death, or a rebellious child?”6 This is what is meant in our reading from Colossians by the phrase "it is Christ in you, the hope for glory" (italics mine).7
What if sitting and listening to Jesus changed the course of your journey, rerouting you from Babylon to Jerusalem?
1 Luke 9:51.↩
2 Luke 9:54.↩
3 Roman Missal, The Order of Mass, sec. 144.↩
4 Hebrews 13:2.↩
5 Scott Sauls, Twitter, 15 July 2022, 2:01 PM.↩
6 Scott Sauls, Twitter, 15 July 2022, 7:05 PM.↩
7 Colossians 1:27..↩
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