AMICE, ASCENDE SUPERIUS! 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) | August 28, 2016 (English)

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time -Year C
August 28, 2016

Readings: Sir 3:17-18,20,28-29 / Heb 12:18-19,22-24a / Lk 14:1,7-14

GETTING BEYOND, NOT ABOVE, ONESELF

Today is a Sunday of highs and lows. Sirach counsels us to find meaning in being "low," a trait which he says, should be inversely proportional to our being "high" up there. "Humble yourself the more, the greater you are" (1st Reading). The letter to the Hebrews takes as a given our having "approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God." In and through Jesus, "the mediator of a new covenant," we have received the singular grace of being in the presence of the "ecclesia" - the gathering of "countless angels in heaven" (2nd reading).

At first blush, there seems to be something incongruous, if not contradictory, in the first two readings. The first extols lowliness and humility. The second proclaims the singular grace of Christians being able to go up the mountain of the Lord - Mount Zion. The first glorifies lowliness, and counsels us to seek not, and search not, for what is above our strength. The second simply declares the egregious fact of our having been made close to God. The two readings seem to be saying in effect: we are lowly, but we are exalted by no less than God in Jesus Christ, and thus, made worthy to approach the city of God.

This is definitely a day of lows and highs.

But more seeming contradictions are in the offing. The Alleluia verse, which comes right after the 2nd reading upgrades us, so to say, and lifts our morales up by speaking of our closeness to the living God who dwells in the highest heavens, puts us back down once again: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart" (Mt 11:29, Acclamation before the Gospel).

Indeed, today is a day of highs and lows.

But the Gospel passage seems to be the real clincher. Where society's usual tendency is to seek for places of honor, and for people to exalt themselves, the Lord does the exact opposite. By means of the parable, Jesus counsels us to seek for the lowest places. This is counterintuitive. In  a world where "everybody loves Raymund" seems to be the centerpiece of our "self-promoting and narcissistic culture," Jesus tells us not to get above ourselves. He apparently tells us to avoid the "highs" and prefer the "lows." But the parable has a surprise, almost "fairy tale-like," ending, as if to tell us: "Don't get above yourself, so that God could set you beyond yourself."

So, is this Sunday's liturgy really one of highs and lows?

Yes ... God wants and wills to exalt us. This, the letter to the Hebrews declares matter-of-factly. We have drawn near to Mount Zion and the city of the living God. He has come to draw us up higher in and through Christ.

No ... God does not want nor will that we should get above ourselves. Today's liturgical readings are a reality check. We are wisely counseled to take care that we do not exalt ourselves unilaterally: "Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted" (Gospel). The reality is that, being poor and lowly, powerless and small, we can only proclaim in profuse thanks the equally egregious reality that all we have is God's generous gift: "God, in your goodness, you have made a home for the poor" (Responsorial Psalm). And what is that place, according to the Bible? "Remember man that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return" (Gen 3:19).

Yes ... God does want us to go up higher. This much, the parable makes clear and sure. After putting oneself in the right place - the lowest, the least, and the last - the Lord tells us: "Amice, ascende superius" (Come on up, my friend, to a higher place, Lk 14:10). God tells us to follow not the ways of the world, which tends to always seek selfishly for endless self-promotion, but to follow his ways, for he "humbles the mighty, and exalts the lowly to high places." It is God who exalts. It is God who gives, and it is He who alone does for us according to what we all deserve.

Yes ... today is a day of highs and lows. We are all high in the estimation of God. "We all share in the glorious liberty of the children of God" (Rom 8:21). We have God-given dignity and freedom both of which are "inalienable," that is, things that cannot be forcibly and unjustly taken away from each one of us. This is a day that speaks rightly of "highs" as far as our dignity as human beings is concerned.

But today, too, is dedicated to our rightful "lows." Dignity does not give us a blanket permission to treat ourselves more than we really deserve. Pride is not to be taken as part of the package of God's gifts to us, for God's favorite virtue is humility.

Pride is to close oneself in on oneself. Pride is self-love pushed to the "highs." When one is proud, the thermostat of one's personhood "overheats" and the flames of self-promotion pushes the temperature through the roof. When something overheats, the whole system suffers a meltdown. The higher one goes, the lower one goes crashing down the lowest place of humiliation and embarrassment.

Yes ... today is a day of salvific and redemptive "lows." Jesus tells us to "take his yoke and learn from him," for he is "meek and humble of heart."

Yes ... there is something salutary and beneficial in being in the "lows" of self-estimation and self-aggrandizement. For when one is down there, there is no way but up. But when one has put oneself up there, there is no way but down. At this point, Jose Garcia Villa, the famous Filipino poet who wrote his poems in English, comes to mind. One of his more memorable lines says: "How high is low, if it resembles high yet not grows? ... It expires, as it aspires." Taking Christ's yoke is clearly a precondition to "learning." One can grow, only when one learns to be low. For what good is it even if it "resembles high, yet not grows?"

Humility is being in love with the reality of the lows of our human lives. Humility is truth and the truth is that it is not up to us as human beings to raise ourselves by our own bootstraps, but only up to God, who would tell us at the proper time: "Amice, ascende superius."

Josh Groban is right. We do not raise ourselves up. No ... only God deserves the accolade that he sings about: "You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains; you raise me up, to walk on stormy seas; I am strong, when I am on your shoulders; you raise me up to more than I can be."

This Sunday of highs and lows thus reminds us of one important thing. We ought not to get above ourselves but go beyond ourselves, beyond power, beyond position, beyond promotion that is shallow. In a word, God calls us to transcendence ... "Amice, ascende superius!"