A Homily for the Second Sunday after Trinity
A certain man made a great supper, and bade many:
and sent his servant at supper time to say to them
that were bidden,
Come; for all things are now ready.
—Saint
What if God threw a dinner party and nobody came?
We heard a parable this morning in the Gospel lesson. The parable was about a dinner party and it was spoken at a dinner party. Jesus was dining at the home of a Pharisee, and he had just told his host:
When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your
friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case
they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the
poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of
their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the
righteous.
Hearing that, one of the other
guests burst out: “Blessed is he who
will dine in the
In the parable, the host has evidently been planning his dinner party for quite some time. He sent out the invitations well in advance of the party, and it the invited guests did not all respond that they would be there, at least they did not send their regrets. So the host expected a full house.
His
guests would not have been disappointed.
He planned a very great dinner party indeed. He hired the best caterers, ordered the best
food, engaged the very best entertainers.
And, of course, he laid in a supply of the best quality wine. It would be a party not to be missed. And, this being the
And then, when the day of the dinner party arrived, nobody showed up at his door. The house was decorated, the fatted calves were killed, the food was prepared, the band was tuned up, the wine was ready to be poured, and the guests stayed away in droves.
Well, maybe they forgot to mark their calendars. Maybe their sundials were out of order. So the host sends messengers to remind the guests about the dinner party, and the messengers get to hear the excuses. I have to inspect some new land I just purchased; I have to try out my new oxen; I just got married, and the wife and I . . . well, you get the picture.
And its not as if the reasons for staying away are all good reasons. Maybe they are true, maybe not; but at least they are plausible reasons. Nobody sent to say he had to wash his hair or rearrange his sock drawer. No, these were busy people, and their excuses centered on business and family matters. Their business and their family lives just did not leave them time to attend the dinner party.
Now God has prepared for us a great dinner party in his kingdom. He has sent out his invitations, and we are among those invited. And we have accepted the invitation: that is what we did when we were baptized and confirmed.
The time has come to get ready to go to God’s dinner party. We all know what it means to get ready to go to a party. We have to set aside what we are doing and wash up and put on clean clothes. But sometimes, when the day comes for which we have been invited, we are really caught up in what we are doing, and the business of getting ready seems like just too much trouble. Our old clothes are just too comfortable, and getting ready means taking them off and getting all dressed up.
Sometimes, it is easiest just to blow the invitation off. After all, it’s a big party, there will be lots of other guests there, and we will not really be missed. And if anybody should ask, we can tell them that we were just too busy to attend: there were fields to inspect, oxen to try out, family duties to attend to.
That’s all well and good, you may say, if the party is some stuffy corporate affair, or some kind of fundraiser, or . . . We would never behave that way if the host was a close friend or a relative. And, all things considered, we would be inclined to count God among those hosts that we would be reluctant to stand up.
And yet, do we not every day, in one way or another, make excuses for being less than what God expects us to be and for doing less than what God commands us to do? Jesus does not mean for us to feel superior to those invited guests in the parable who begged off from the dinner party. He means for us to recognize ourselves, and to learn.
Our Sunday liturgy, this Eucharist, was ordained by Jesus himself as a foretaste of the heavenly banquet. And yet, how often do we make excuses to stay away from this? A business necessity, a family occasion, even a sporting event, or fatigue from a long work week, or a hangover from Saturday’s entertainment.
Before Jesus told this parable, in his conversation with the host of the party he was attending, he said that rich folk hold dinner parties and invite their rich friends and relatives, knowing that those who attend such an event become socially obligated, and must reciprocate with invitations to their own dinner parties. Jesus said to his host that he would do better to invite the poor and the handicapped, knowing that those do not have the wherewithal to issue invitations in return.
Now we must identify with those people in the parable who were rounded up and compelled to come to the dinner party to take the place of those who were invited but who stayed away. All things considered, what are we but the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind? Who are we but the scourings of the highways and hedges of this world. We are those who must be compelled to come in, that the house may be full.
The rich and powerful in this world give dinner parties for their rich and powerful friends, expecting to be invited in return. But the host in the parable fills his house with those who could never imagine giving such a dinner party.
So it is with God’s great dinner party. How could we, how could any human being, any creature, reciprocate God’s invitation. What delicacies could we lay before him except what he himself has created. Indeed, in the Psalms, God says to his people:
I will take no bullock out of thine house, nor
he-goats out of thy folds.
For all the beasts of the forest are mine, and so are
the cattle upon a thousand hills.
I know all the fowls upon the mountains, and the wild
beasts of the field are in my sight.
I be hungry, I will not tell thee; for the whole world
is mine, and all that is therein.
Thinkest thou that I will eat bulls' flesh, and drink
the blood of goats?
Offer unto God thanksgiving, and pay thy vows unto the
Most Highest.
And call upon me in the time of trouble; so will I
hear thee, and thou shalt praise me.
But
that does not mean that we are not obligated to God on account of his
invitation. Only we must fulfill the
obligation in a different way. We are told
how God expects to be repaid in today’s epistle lesson, from one of
Children, let us love not in word or speech but in
deed and truth. . . . We have confidence
in God and receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments
and do what pleases him. And his
commandment is this: that we believe in
the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded
us. Those who keep his commandments
remain in him, and he in them, and the way we know that he remains in us is
from the Spirit that he gave us.
And is it too much to ask of us, who are summoned to the heavenly dinner party, that we love one another and have compassion on those less fortunate than ourselves? As Saint John asks, “If someone who has this worlds goods sees a brother in need and refuses him compassion, how can the love of God remain in him?” But when do good to our fellow human beings, God accepts our good deeds as if they were done to him. Remember what Jesus said:
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the
angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will
be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a
shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right,
'Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world. For I
was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a
stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for
me, in prison and you visited me.' Then
the righteous will answer him and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and
feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?
When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe
you? When did we see you ill or in
prison, and visit you?' And the King
shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done
it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
25 June 2006