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Several of my teenage years were spent as a member of what was then known as “the Young Vinnies”.

We were youth volunteers of the Society of St Vincent de Paul.

Young teenage kids doing what the “grown up” members of the Society would be doing.

Collecting firewood, delivering groceries, cutting lawns, trimming hedges.

My secondary schooling took place at St Patrick’s College, Wellington.

The college sat on the corner of Cambridge Terrace and Buckle St.

Just across from the cricket ground known as the Basin Reserve.

At the end of the college, there sat what was known as the “Buckle St Soup Kitchen”.

Managed by the Sisters of Compassion, this soup kitchen provided food for the less fortunate people of Wellington city.

And, as a Young Vinnie, one of my tasks was to assist the Sisters and staff at meal time.

It was awful; dishevelled, unkempt, smelly men would turn up. Many reeking of cheap alcohol, some with a bottle of meths hanging from their coat pocket.

They would gobble down their food and leave hurriedly to find the best spot across the road at the Basin Reserve to doss down for the night.

I said, a paragraph ago, ‘it was awful’. It was awful because I had not experienced a Church like this.

Church was always neat and tidy. Outside, the lawns were neatly mown, the edges trimmed.
Inside, the pews always were aligned correctly, books stacked neatly, flowers rested in bright brass flower stands. There was a lingering smell of incense and candlewax.

As a family we dressed in our ‘Sunday best!’ Persons were well behaved and spoke with consideration for one another.

The words of Jesus from today’s Gospel (Lk. 17:13 – 14) hit somewhere around the solar plexus

“When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

The key word here, for myself anyway, is the word “invite”. My dictionary tells me that the word ‘invite’ means to ask somebody formally to go somewhere or do something.

The initiative lies with the host.

Consider for a moment how many of our Church buildings ‘invite’ the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind?

Our Church architecture presumes you are fit and able. Many of our Churches have steps into the building and steps to and around the sanctuary.

How many of our Churches provide sign language as a regular option?

To receive Holy Communion, most churches require the recipient to walk to the front!

When designing or remodelling a church building ask the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind, and the deaf!

Consider how many of our faith communities ‘invite’ the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind?

“When you give a banquet . . . . “

Most people nowadays have been on an airplane.

Before the flight starts an attendant says something like this: ‘we’d like your attention for a few minutes while we show you the safety features on this aircraft.’

We are shown how to fasten our seatbelt. We are told the number and location of the emergency exits. We are told that in the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, an oxygen mask will be lowered in front of us. We are told that under our seat, there is a life jacket for use in the event of having to ditch in the ocean.

The idea behind all this is to help passengers to be prepared for the unexpected.

The Gospel of today (Lk. 12: 32 – 48) has a similar sense to it, namely, faithful readiness.

The invitation to us is to look again at what is important to us and where our values lie.

The airline attendant makes one last instruction to us, and that is that if, for some reason, we are required to evacuate the aircraft, take nothing with you! Leave everything behind!

Surely, they cannot really mean nothing!

I had a personal example of learning how attached I was to many of my possessions when instructed to vacate the parish house I was living in immediately. The occasion was the Christchurch earthquake of September 4th, 2010. The parish house was constructed of brick and was yellow stickered. This yellow sticker meant we were not allowed to occupy the house. And that meant leaving now!

But what about? . . . Now! Was the instruction.

The author Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910) wrote a short story titled “How Much Land Does A Man Need”

The story is about a peasant called Pakhom who desperately wanted to own some land.

By saving every penny he had, he bought forty acres.

He was overjoyed. However, he soon felt cramped, so he sold the 40 acres, and bought 80 acres in another region.

But this didn’t satisfy him for long, so he began to look again.

One evening a stranger arrived. Pakhom talked about his desire for more land.

The stranger told him that beyond the mountains, there lived a tribe of people who had lots of land for sale. Off he went next day.

The chief welcomed him and said, ‘For only a thousand roubles you can have as much land as you can walk round in a day. But you must return to the spot where you started on the same day, otherwise you forfeit the money.

Pakhom was thrilled. He couldn’t sleep that night, thinking of all the land that would soon be his.

As soon as the sun peeped over the horizon a marker was put down on the top of the knoll, and he was off. Men followed him on horseback and drove stakes into the ground to mark the path Pakhom traced out.

He walked fast and made excellent progress. The farther he went, the better the land became.

In his eagerness to encompass as much as he could, he lost track of time. Then to his horror he saw the sun beginning to go down.

He headed for the knoll as fast as he could.

He just made it to the top as the sun vanished. Once there, however, he collapsed face downward on the ground.

“I congratulate you,” said the chief. “You have earned more land than anyone before you.”

But Pakhom made no reply. They turned him over. He was dead.

The story concludes with Pakhom’s servant picking up the spade with which Pakhom had been marking his land and digs a grave in which to bury him: “Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed.” The servant says!