There was a great banquet given and many important people were invited.  The banquet hosted 500 specially invited persons.  A certain fellow showed up, filled with self-importance, and he presented himself at the reception table and was given seat number 435.  He looked around at the invited guests and saw many young people, many ordinary persons, even some poor people that had been given better seat assignments than he had received.  He went back to the reception table and appealed to the person who was handing out seat assignments:  “There has been some mistake, I was given seat number 435.”  The very patient and kind person working the reception desk looked over the list again and reported that there was no mistake, this person was assigned to seat 435.  The fellow responded with the all-too-familiar claim, “You obviously don’t know who I am.”  The receptionist patiently responded, “I know who you are, you are the person sitting in seat 435.”  In our society today there is a very obvious sense of entitlement that is prevalent in our interactions with others.  We have a tendency to over-rate our importance and make claims on special treatment and considerations.  We easily rate ourselves better than others and more worthy of special consideration.  It is bruising to our ego and to our pride to think that others might be considered more important than we consider ourselves.  We are convinced that we should be receiving better treatment than others are offering us.

     A number of years ago I remember reading an article in T.V. Guide entitled “You are where you sit.”  Part of it is as follows:  “In Hollywood you are where you sit.  This is called power seating.  A strategically placed table indicates to the community your prominent and important position in the industry.  It is so important that major studios assign a full time PR person to make sure the studio doesn’t play second fiddle to anyone.  One television producer had his secretary call before a meal and politely note that if the table isn’t in the right place, her boss wouldn’t go.  One producer put it this way, ‘Information is power.  I don’t want to be seen seated with two dentists and three veterinarians.  It ruins my image.  They have nothing to offer me.’”

     In the gospel, Jesus warns us about the dangers and foolishness of the “power seating” mentality.  How we see ourselves and how we are rated in society is illusory and may have nothing to do with how God sees us and rates our importance.  God judges us by other standards than we tend to judge ourselves.  Ultimately, it is not important how we see ourselves or even how others see us, it is only important how God sees us.  When we interact with others we tend to dismiss certain classes of people who are different than us.  We overlook the poor and the uneducated and we don’t consider them worthy of our time or our attention.  We have a tendency to avoid these people and to associate only with those we think are our equals and worthy of our time and attention.

     Even within the Church we can find ourselves falling into this error.  We feel that we should receive special treatment because we have belonged to the parish longer than others, because we have made special contributions, because we belong to a special group or movement within the Church community or because we are more faithful Catholics than others who obviously do not practice their faith as fervently as we do ourselves.  We think that the pastor should be more solicitous of our opinions and our ideas of how things should be done.  Obviously, the pastor doesn’t appreciate how important we are and how the Church would not continue on without our special contributions to the Church. 

      Certainly Pope Francis challenged us in our attitudes toward the poor and the marginalized in our society since  His appeals echo the instructions of Jesus today to take a second look at who we are inviting to participate in our celebrations:  “We must be able to reach out to each other.  We must build, create, construct a culture of encounter.  The culture of encounter.  Reaching out to encounter each other.  And the theme says, “Reaching out to those most in need”, in short, with those who need me. With those who are going through a bad time, far worse than what I’m going through.”  

     If we invite people who are different than ourselves, less privileged than ourselves, more needy than ourselves, then we can “encounter” these people who have special needs in our community, we can dialog with them and we can begin to see Jesus in them.  We will be enriched in this encounter and grow in our relationship with God and draw closer to his Kingdom.  Reach out to someone new today and offer them the grace of fellowship in Christ Jesus.