In your leaflet today there is a document that on one side is titled "Faces of Labor" and on the other "5 Things You Can Do to Help Workers". The three people featured are individuals who could be classified as "working class", a/k/a working class poor: people who struggle to make ends-meat. Take this insert home with you and look on those faces this coming week, think about these "5 Things" on the reverse side of the sheet. Here we find listed 5 relatively easy things to do that can and will make a difference to assist individuals who are struggling. Is this a magic pill to cure our country's and the world's labor problems? Well, no. But these are concrete steps to making a dent, to making a change, to altering our culture into a more positive direction: staying informed, educating others, praying, volunteering, voting. All do-able. All leading to a "corrective course alteration". All in some way marking an end, leading to a new beginning.

Jesus talks about humility of guests at a banquet and the motivation of hosts. We all know feigned humility when we see it. When Jesus instructs the guests at the dinner to "sit down in the lowest place"  Jesus is not instructing us to feign humility as a strategy for recognition. On the contrary, Jesus is saying that humility is a manner of life, a true "life-style choice" so to speak. Taking the low seat because one is humble is one thing, taking it as a way to move up is another. Humility is a quality of life open to persons who know their worth is not measured by recognition from their peers but by the certainty that God has accepted and loves them. Getting involved by doing one, a few or all of the items listed in the insert is a way of humbly assisting others, doing God's work in the world.

Jesus' guidance to the host of the party about who should be invited, the poor, crippled, lame and blind (as opposed to friends, brothers/sisters, relatives or rich neighbors) focuses on the theme of self-examination in regard to our motives for doing things. Jesus instructs us not to invite people because we may incur a return favor or because we might be owed something in return. Jesus is telling us to do the work, expecting and wanting nothing in return. If that isn't opposed to our cultural milieu, very little else is. But it was as opposite the culture two thousand years ago when Jesus first said it as it is today. We are still trying to "get" what Jesus is telling us, and that is okay. But we have to continue trying to "get it". Affirmatively working at one or all of these "to do" items on the insert are a way for us to continue to "try to get it".

One of the truths Jesus is trying for us to get, to get us to hear, when he tells us not to sit at the place of honor is that true honor is not gained by seizing prominence. It must be given to us. The Greek word translated here as "honor" (doxa) is usually translated in a different way. It is usually translated when we hear it in other places in the Gospel as "glory", and it is a particular kind of glory. Any time this Greek word is used it is God giving the glory. This glory is truly a glory only God can give. The particular usage of this word by Luke signals a significant hint that Jesus is talking about something other then who gets to sit at the head table and invited to the feast, as Jesus then says, in the future tense: "you will be honored", "you will be blessed".