Today, Jesus calls us to action, but not in the way we expect.
Jesus instructs us to invite the destitute, the crippled, the lame, and the blind to our tables.
What we hear is an invitation to go out and help those in need. This is a good thing. We need people running homeless shelters, giving out food at soup kitchens, and raising money to support these efforts.
But, what if, this isn’t what Jesus meant.
What if we understand this context as Eucharistic?
This changes things.
Instead of a call to go out and meet people, it’s a call to go out and bring people in. It’s a call to invite outsiders to join us as Orthodox Christians and partake at the Divine Liturgy.
But this makes us uncomfortable.
We can no longer think of church as something we do for ourselves.
We may have to set our preferences aside—including music and language—to think about hospitality.
But, when we reach out and open ourselves up, we may find that we gain more than we lose.
We may find that God is making a family out of strangers.
The Reading
Now it happened that, as he went into the house of one of the chiefs of the Pharisees, they were observing him carefully. . . . And to the one who had invited him he said, “When you prepare a luncheon or dinner, do not call to your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors, lest they invite you in return and it becomes a recompense for you. Rather, when you prepare a celebration invite the destitute, the crippled, the lame, the blind, And you shall be blissful, for they have nothing to repay you with; for it will be repaid you in the resurrection of the just.” And, hearing this, one of those reclining at table with him, said to him, “Blissful is he who eats bread in the Kingdom of God.” (Luke 14:1, 12-15)