A few weeks ago, I went up to St. Louis and saw the fifth Harry Potter film – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. If you have ever seen a Harry Potter film then you know that each new film brings in a new teacher that will often be a nemesis to Harry Potter. This movie the new teacher is a woman named Dolores Umbridge. This character has a sweet little British voice and wears pink everywhere. While she may seem sweet, she is actually a very mean person. Her job is to be a grand inquisitor of the school that Harry attends and dole out punishment when appropriate. Throughout the entire movie, you see that she is often seen wandering down the halls looking for people to punish. After a while her life seems consumed with punishing others.

I was reminded of this character this week when I reflected upon the Gospel reading. In this reading we see that Jesus is invited to a party hosted by the Pharisees whose only purpose was to watch him very carefully. We see in this text that there is a lot that we could read. In fact Jesus has three different teachings.

If you can imagine having someone watch you very carefully making sure that you do not do anything wrong. This is much worse, for the Pharisees were just hoping for Jesus to do something wrong so they could criticize him and hurt his reputation. The Pharisees test Jesus by bringing in a sick man on the Sabbath and watching to see what Jesus will do. Immediately Jesus sees through the trap and asks the Pharisees, "is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" To the Pharisees the answer is probably, "no." However, unlike the Pharisees, Jesus sees in this man someone who cares for and not as pawn in some game. Jesus decides to make the story more personal for the Pharisees. Imagine, Jesus says, that your own son or oxen have fallen into a well on the Sabbath. Would you not help them? Jesus tries to convince the Pharisees to see the man as an individual and not as a pawn in a game. When Jesus sees people he sees them as people who he cares for and loves. That is true for all of us as well. Whenever we sin or do something wrong – Jesus still loves us and cares for us.

Jesus then shows to the Pharisees that what they truly cared for was only themselves and not others. Jesus does this by pointing out where they are sitting at dinner. In ancient societies the closer one sat to the host of a party, the more honorable the person was. The Pharisees were fighting among themselves to get the most honorable position. Jesus observed, what do you do when someone more honorable than you comes? You will then have to give up the most honorable seat for the one beneath you. Jesus then asks wouldn’t it be more honorable to sit at the lowest seat, and then be asked to move up, rather than move down? What Jesus noticed in the Pharisees is that they were placing themselves over and above everyone else. Have there been times that we have thought more highly of ourselves than others?

Finally, Jesus turns to the host and says that instead of inviting your friends, why don’t you invite the poor and crippled to a party? I imagine that the host of the party was in on the set up on the whole meal. It says that the host was an honorable member of the Pharisees. He was probably the one who allowed this sick man to be at the party in the first place. The host probably wanted to embarrass Jesus so he could look good among his Pharisee friends. What Jesus tells him is to invite those who you hope will not return the favor. Rather one should be friends with someone because you care for them, and not because you hope to have a payback or favor returned.

When Jesus is invited for dinner, he comes as himself and not expecting any kind of return or payback. The most important lesson we can learn from Jesus is that he will continue to love all of us no matter who we are. But sometimes we need to examine our own motives. Do we show the same love for others that Jesus showed us? Do we tear down people in order to make ourselves feel better? Do we ignore others because we feel like we are better than they are? Have we ever been nice to someone because we expect something from them? There will always be a time that we may act like one of the Pharisees at that dinner party. But Jesus will continue to love us no matter how we might act. This assurance helps us to remember to love others in our lives, just as Jesus has loved us.