A number of years ago there was 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 today’s gospel, Jesus is warning 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, the immigrants, 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. We even at times think about writing the Bishop and telling him how he should be assigning his priests and conducting Church business in our local parish. Certainly we are entitled to special treatment because we are a big parish or because we are in a wealthy community or any of a myriad of other parameters that we feel are being neglected and not properly considered.

Pope Francis has been challenging us in our attitudes toward the poor and the marginalized in our society since his election as the Holy Father. His appeals echo the instructions of Jesus today to take a second look at who we are inviting to participate in our celebrations. On the Feast of St. Cajetan in Argentina, the Holy Father wrote to his countrymen, “We must be able to reach out to each other. We must build, create, construct a culture of encounter. How many differences, family troubles, always! Trouble in the neighborhood, trouble at work, trouble everywhere. And these differences do not help. 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. In taking care of their needs we can encounter Jesus and minister to his needs. 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.