“Invitations to a Great Feast”

Second Sunday After Trinity – June 13, AD 2010

St. Luke XIV: 16-24

Invitations in general are usually quite enjoyable to receive, are they not? Whether it’s a wedding or a dance or a dinner party—the heart of many a true Anglican quickens with delight when asked to be at some event where there’s good food, good spirits (with a lower case “s”), and good fellowship. Of course, knowing the person who is doing the inviting makes a big difference, doesn’t it? Some invitations may get overlooked in our stacks of mail and miscellaneous paper, or even declined, if we don’t have some personal connection with the person or persons hosting the event. How many invitations to a grand store opening or weekend car sale have you tossed in the trash?

Invitations certainly play an important role in the Parable of the Great Feast that we just heard in today’s Gospel lesson. It is easy to miss but in this story there are two invitations mentioned. “A certain man made a great supper, and bade many.” That’s the first invitation. The host then “sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready.” That’s the second invitation. You see it was customary in Jewish society of Jesus’ time to send out two invitations to a party. The first invitation would announce the event and the second would let the guests know that they could now come because everything was prepared and ready for them. But something happens that makes the host and master of the house very upset—all of the invited guests start making excuses why they can’t attend this wonderful supper.  What’s worse, they appear to have accepted the first invitation but wait until the second invitation is given to decline, after the food has been cooked and prepared for eating. This would be a major insult to the host.

And what excuses do the invited guests give? One has bought some land that needs attending to. Another has bought five yoke of oxen and wants to work them and see how well they do. Yet another has just married and wants to spend time with his new wife. “So the servant came, and shewed his lord these things.” The master of the house is understandably angry that the people he invited to the feast put such little value in their relationship with him that they would behave in such a rude manner. He tells the servant to “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.” Once this is done, the master further instructs the servant to “go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.” There will be a party after all, and many from near and far will be there. But those who made excuses and declined the invitation will be missing, and from the sound of it, are not likely to get another invitation any time soon, if at all. “None of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper,” says the host.

The Parable of the Great Feast can be viewed as an allegory in which the servant, Jesus Christ, is sent by God the Father to proclaim salvation first to the Jews. But they reject Jesus in favor of following their worldly pursuits and pleasures. In rejecting Jesus, they also reject the foreshadowed Eucharistic Supper that Jesus knows He will institute prior to His death and resurrection. These proud and comparatively rich people have their reward, but the eternal delights of the Kingdom of God manage to elude them. So the Word goes out to those whom proper society of the day would shun. The poor, maimed, halt, and blind would be considered sinners by many, or at least their parents were sinners, for why else would they be so unfavored in God’s eyes as to be in the condition they are in? But by inviting these people to the feast, Jesus sends a message in this parable, as in many other places in the Gospel accounts of His ministry, that “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. ……Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” [Matthew 5:3, 5-6]

Remarkably, after all of these people accept the invitation to the feast, “yet there is room.” This calls to mind Jesus’ words in the Gospel of St. John 14:2 where He says “In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” We just need to have faith and believe in Him. The people who are invited next are found further afield, in the “highways and hedges”. In other words, not only Jews, but Gentiles are also invited to the feast. The importance of accepting and not rejecting this invitation is hammered home in the last sentence of the parable. Those who are bidden but don’t come will not partake of this heavenly feast.

With so much at stake, why in the world did the first group of invited guests make all those excuses for not coming? Maybe they were blinded by their pursuit of mammon and fleshly desires and failed to see the importance of putting God above all else. Maybe their relationship with the One who invited them was only surface deep. Maybe they didn’t really recognize who it was that was inviting them—a lowly servant after all. Clearly, they just didn’t feel like it. They weren’t coming to the feast because they didn’t value what was open to them to receive. It wasn’t important enough to them to make the effort. How sad, and how very unfortunate for them.

What about us?  Can we see the invitation that is before us? Is there anything getting in the way of our accepting that invitation with all our being? I pray we all see how vitally important it is to our eternal souls that we recognize and accept our Lord’s invitation to His heavenly banquet. Maybe we’ve misplaced the previous invitation somehow and are wondering if we will be given another one.  Not to worry.  Like those in the parable, we too receive more than one invitation. God loves us first, and he is continually pursuing us in love. A critical decision point is to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and be baptized. Even those baptized as babies eventually can affirm that decision made by their parents when as young adults they are confirmed into the faith.

Other “invitations” come when we are faced with moral and ethical choices. They come in the faces of the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the sick, and the prisoner. In such cases, “What would Jesus do” becomes far more than an overly familiar slogan. We only need to recall the scene of eternal judgment in Matthew 25 where Jesus says, ”Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” [Matthew 25: 45-46]  Therefore, as we heard St. John exhort us in his first epistle general, “let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.” [1 St. John 3:18]  Let us keep his commandments and “do those things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.” [1 St. John 3:22b-23]

Today we receive yet another invitation from our Lord. He invites us to participate in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood. We know the One doing the inviting and we can trust Him for He is the Truth and the Light of the world. In remembrance of His “Last Supper” before His painful death, let us humbly, penitently, and lovingly accept this precious gift, which by His Grace and the Holy Ghost allows us to abide in Him, and He in us—both now and in the heavenly banquet to come.

And now unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, be ascribed all might, majesty, and honor, as is most justly due this day, both now and forever, Amen.