Tuesday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s readings are about two things: gifts and excuses. Paul’s letter to the Romans encourages them to recognize the variety of gifts in the Body of Christ. We all have “gifts that differ according to the grace given to us.” This ancient wisdom is just as relevant to us today as it was to the early Christians. Despite so much in our culture telling us to place ourselves above others, we still have a curious aversion to recognizing our own gifts. We struggle to affirm out loud what gifts we can bring to a community. We’ve also been struggling as a Church to appreciate the diversity of gifts in the Body. Paul’s words should ring in our ears as we engage each other in parishes and in all places where the Body of Christ gathers.
But today’s Gospel calls us to even more than just recognizing the gifts we’ve been given by God. Jesus tells a parable of a great feast…from which all of the invitees excuse themselves. This made me think about all the excuses I make when I feel called to do more for others. By the end of the story, the man who hosted the dinner tells his servants to bring people in off the streets. By the end, those feasting (in the Kingdom) are the blind, the lame, the begging poor, and wandering travellers.
The story makes us examine our own excuses, and jars us into the realization that perhaps the Kingdom is filled with those whom we so often neglect and reject. Only when we recognize our gifts and employ them for the building of the Kingdom will we actually taste heaven.
- Katherine G. Schmidt