Patrick Comerford
We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints and Advent. In the Church Calendar, we have celebrated All Saints’ Day (1 November) and commemorated All Souls’ Day (2 November). Yesterday was the Fourth Sunday before Advent (3 November 2024), although many churches and parishes marked it as All Saints’ Day.
Before today begins, before having breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 14: 12-14 (NRSVA):
12 He said also to the one who had invited him, ‘When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’
Today’s Reflection:
November is a month traditionally associated with remembering the dead. So, it is interesting that this morning’s Gospel reading links ‘the resurrection of the righteous’ with how I treat those who cannot repay any kindness I show them.
There are three different meals being discussed here. There are two meals in verse 12, which is complete in itself. There are two meals here that I might invite people to: ἄριστον (ariston) originally referred to the first meal of the day, breakfast, but by the time of Christ it had come to mean the mid-day meal, lunch; δεῖπνον (deipnon) was the most important meal of the day, which was dinner in the evening.
It is good to meet family members and friends for lunch and to invite neighbours around for dinner. We do it constantly and without any expectations of return invitations. Good company makes any meal enjoyable at any time of the day.
In recent weeks in Kuching, we have been invited to morning coffee and lunch with friends in local hotels and the Sarawak Club, and we have had dinner in the evenings with friends and family members. Many of them cannot expect reciprocal hospitality on our behalf. Hospitality is a virtue to be valued without any expectation of return invitations.
What we are warned against in verse 12 in today’s reading is inviting friends, family members or rich neighbours to lunch or dinner in the hope that ‘they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid.’ If hospitality is offered with an expectation of even more generous hospitality in return, then in it is not true hospitality at all. We ought to invite friends, family members or neighbours to lunch or dinner, but only because we appreciate them as they are.
The third meal mentioned in this reading is the banquet in verse 13, the δοχὴν (dokhin), a reception with guests. Saint Luke also uses this word for the banquet that Levi arranges after being invited to follow Jesus (Luke 5: 27-32); and for the heavenly banquet or feast (see Luke 14: 15-24).
It was a common in Jewish thinking and imagery at the time to speak of banquets as a foretaste of God’s heavenly promises. The Mishnah says: ‘This world is like a lobby before the World-to-Come. Prepare yourself in the lobby so that you may enter the banquet hall.’
Th guests who are invited to Levi’s banquet are seen as thieves, unbelievers, open sinners and social pariahs. Now we are told that the guests at the banquet should include the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Why? ‘And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous’ (verse 14).
When I was about to be ordained, I rabbi told me that I would enjoy baptisms and weddings. I would enjoy the occasions themselves, the preparations before, the celebrations after, and I would enjoy the parties or banquets I was invited to afterwards. And how right he was.
But he also advised me to put as much time into preparing and emotional and spiritual energy into funerals as I did for baptisms and weddings.
Jewish tradition holds that the mitzvot (commandments) that are performed out of pure altruism are the ones that are most significant. The mitzvah of leviyat hamet, burying the dead, is considered one of the greatest in Judaism in that it is a last act of kindness that cannot be repaid by the dead person.
Judaism teaches that honour, respect and caring for a person who has died is one of the greatest mitzvot. The only way we can know if one is being truly unselfish in doing a mitzvah is if it is an act of loving kindness performed for the dead, who have no way of reciprocating. Without the potential for trading or returning favours, we can be assured of one’s true intentions in performing the mitzvah.
For 1,000 years and more, Jewish communities have followed biblical and Talmudic injunctions to bury their dead expeditiously and without extravagance, whether poor or rich, in simple white clothing and buried in a plain, unadorned wooden coffin.
The Hebrew word for coffin, aron (אָרוֹן), is the same used for the ark in a synagogue. In fact, a body from which a soul has departed is considered akin to and treated with the same reverence as a Torah scroll that can no longer be used as part of communal worship and learning, emptied of the divine spark yet deserving of the utmost honour.
A dead body has been a vessel crafted in God’s image and likeness, and any effort to alter its essence, whether with cosmetics, physical intrusion – for example, breaking bones or sewing shut mouths for a particular effect or presentation), embalming, done to slow down the natural ‘return to dust’ that Jews and Muslims welcome with open arms, has been interpreted as an affront to the Creator and the person who has died.
The body is washed with a continual stream of water, from head to toe, and clothed in a simple, white burial cloth, tying knots that symbolise the Hebrew name of God, as if he or she were the High Priest about to enter the Holy of Holies. If the dead person wore their own white kittel on Yom Kippur, is used as the final piece of burial clothing, they are wrapped in their own tallit or prayer shawl, and placed in a verysimple, plain, unadorned coffin.
In the past, Jewish communities had a chevra kadisha or ‘holy fellowship,’ entrusted with these end-of-life responsibilities for all, including those who were too poor to afford a funeral.
The sages say that there is no greater mitzvah than to help bury someone, because it is a favour that cannot be returned. It is even greater than hospitality, and applies to all, for all are invited to the banquet.
Today’s Prayers (Monday 4 November 2024):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Conflict, Confluence and Creativity’. This theme was introduced yesterday with reflections by Rebecca Boardman, former Operations Manager, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 4 November 2024) invites us to pray:
Almighty God, you are the source of all wisdom and truth. Nourish us by your Living Word and fill us with your Holy Spirit, so that we may love and serve you faithfully this day, and always.
The Collect:
Almighty and eternal God,
you have kindled the flame of love
in the hearts of the saints:
grant to us the same faith and power of love,
that, as we rejoice in their triumphs,
we may be sustained by their example and fellowship;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
Lord of heaven,
in this eucharist you have brought us near
to an innumerable company of angels
and to the spirits of the saints made perfect:
as in this food of our earthly pilgrimage
we have shared their fellowship,
so may we come to share their joy in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
God of glory,
touch our lips with the fire of your Spirit,
that we with all creation
may rejoice to sing your praise;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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