Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

When I was four or five years old my brother Bob was introduced to the dinner table, and my sister Mary Lou took his place in the high chair. As the first-born I took it upon myself to initiate Bob in the ways of our table:

“If you want more milk, Bob, you bang it on the table like this (bang, bang) and Mom will give you milk.”

Suddenly my mother spoke up. Perhaps she had never noticed what was developing as she and Dad enjoyed their adult conversations across the dinner table:

“That’s not how we do it! From now on, if you want more milk you say, ‘Please, may I have more milk?” and when you get your milk you say, “Thank you.”

It seemed like a lot of bother to me.

But I was to learn an important lesson from that, the rituals of please and thank you. They are fundamental to everything we know about being Christian and being human. Our training as human beings begins at the dinner table. Civility, courtesy, generosity, gratitude, sharing, equality, respect, reverence, patience, honesty, listening: the list goes on and on.

So when Jesus comments about the Pharisees’ rush for placement at the table, he is not simply teaching what his mother taught him. He is linking the ways of God with our human ways.

For every one who exalts himself will be humbled,
but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” 

Perhaps I will be forgiven for a momentary harangue when I worry that the disappearance of the family meal – along with the locking of our churches against private prayer – signals the End of the World as We Know it. A family without a family meal hardly deserves the title. They are only boarders in a transients' motel.

A Family gathers and sits at the table to eat together. Everyone knows his place and takes his place. The table has already been "set” with plates, glasses, cups or mugs, flatware and napkins. The food and drink is on the table. Television, radio, telephones (both stationary and cellular) and computers are turned off. Grace is offered. The food is passed around the table in serving bowls, platters and pitchers until everyone is fed. No one has too much; no one has too little. Conversation begins as the family eats together, but no one talks with his mouth full of food. That’s when he or she listens to others.

Words such as please, thank you and May I are liberally used. Infractions of courtesy are pointed out and corrected. If the meal is taken in a restaurant the rules do not change, though the menu may be more varied. 

Conversation remains polite even when the participants disagree about politics, religion or sports. There is no excuse for insult or argumentation; differences are welcome. Everyone’s intelligence is respected even when opinions seem immature or ill-considered. Expressions of endearment are doled out generously and in large dollops, lest the spiritual needs of anyone be neglected. 

The family meals celebrates the family which cannot exist without ceremony. During the family meal Jesus presides at the table and heaven comes to earth.