A Homily for the Second Sunday after Trinity
Go out into the highways and hedges, and
compel them
to come in,
that my
house may be full.
—Saint
What if God gave a party and nobody came?
There
can be no doubt that the parable of the great supper is about God’s
party. Jesus tells the parable at a dinner
party, in
response to an off-hand bit of pious small talk uttered by one of his
fellow
guests. Jesus has been rebuking the
party-goers about their manners, and, perhaps to change the subject,
one of
them says: “Happy is the one who shall
eat bread in the
He
probably knew that he would get no disagreement from Jesus. After all, Jesus had been running around all
over the country telling people that the
And (don’t you know?) it worked!
In
response to the simple statement, “Happy is the one who shall eat bread
in the
The trouble is, that when the day of the party arrives and everything is ready, when the fatted calves have been killed, and the best wine set out, and the band is ready to play, the excuses start coming in from the invited guests. “I’ve just bought some land, and I have to go look at it”; “I’ve just bought some oxen, and I have to go try them out”; and, best of all, “I’ve just gotten married, and the wife and I are off on our honeymoon.”
Now, there is nothing wrong with any of these things in itself. If you buy some land, it is probably a good idea to go have a look at it; and if you buy some oxen (or, shall we say, a tractor or a new computer), you really ought to try them out and make sure you got what you paid for. And if you get married, there is a lot to be said in favor of a honeymoon. There really is no question that all of these are good things. The question has to do with priorities.
The enemy of the best is never really the wicked, the base, or the useless. The enemy of the best is the good. Who has ever been tempted by something that did not look pretty good at the time? Even our worst vices come to us dressed up and smelling good. And in Jesus’s story, the temptations don’t just look good and smell good, they really are good. They are the things that everyone knows are the most important things in this world: property, business, and family.
What the invited guests are saying to the host, when they all with one consent begin to make excuse is: “I have something better to do than to come to your party. My business deals are more important. My family affairs are more pressing. Very kind of you to invite me, old boy, terribly honored to be asked, and all that, but I have more important things that I have to be doing. You know how it is.”
Well, after all, the host in the story is just “a certain man.” If the story had begun, “God threw a party and invited a lot of people,” then all of the invited guests would have turned up. If the invitation had said, “Come eat bread in my kingdom,” then they would have put aside their worldly cares, their business deals and their family affairs, and they would have showed up at the door ready to party.
Or would they?
The
party is on. The invitations have been
mailed, and we are on the guest list. What
is our excuse? What is more important to
us than to eat bread in the
Well, you know, if you put it that way, there’s nothing more important. If you put it that way, we will all be there with bells on. Yes, sir, Lord, you can count on us! Save us a place!
But is that the real us? Is that how we really respond to the invitation—because the invitation really has been sent. Or do we put off our RSVP? Do we postpone our response until we have dealt with all of the other good and important things in our lives: our careers, our business, our property, our health, our social standing, our friends, our family, our country, our causes? Don’t write me off, Lord; just hold the invitation open for a bit. Better yet, let me have a rain check. There are just a couple of things I have to attend to, and I’ll be along smartly right after that.
That’s more like us. That’s how we human beings are. Aren’t we a sorry lot?
In Scripture, we see the invitation given clearly and directly to folk just like us. Jesus said, “Follow me.” And one said, “Suffer me first to go and bury my father.” And another said, “Let me first go and bid farewell to those which are at home at my house.” And to a rich young man Jesus said, “Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.” And when the rich young man heard it, he went away sorrowful.
It turns out that one cannot accept the invitation to God’s dinner party, the invitation to eat bread in his kingdom, so long as there is anything that seems to be more important, or even more urgent, than to come to the party.
(And can’t you just hear the fellow who got Jesus started on this parable saying to himself, “I’m sorry I brought it up.”)
But the parable is not done, the story is not over. That “certain man” in the parable is determined to throw a party. And if the original invitees are all too busy or too preoccupied, if they all have something that seems more important to do, well that’s fine, too. But there is going to be a party nevertheless.
He sends out the hired help to scour the streets and lanes of the city, the highways and hedges of the countryside, to round up whoever may be found there. Bring in the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. Bring in the unemployed, the homeless, the street people, the panhandlers, the dropouts, the bums, the layabouts, the illegal aliens, the AIDS patients, all of the losers. Bring them all; indeed, compel them to come in: that my house may be full.
There’s the main thing to know, right there. The host of the party is determined that his house shall be full. He doesn’t want to turn anybody away. He doesn’t want to turn away any of the invited guests, either. It was they who turned away from him. He says, “None of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper,” but it is by their own choice that it is so, not by his. It is his desire, above all, that his house should be full.
And maybe, come to think of it, we really belong with the second group after all. Maybe we are among the poor and the sick and all the other losers in the eyes of the world. What they have in common, of course, is that they have nothing more important to do than to come to the party. Have we anything that important to do?
If we are faithful to our baptismal covenant, in which we renounced the devil, the flesh, and the world, then nothing carnal and nothing worldly can have such a hold on us that it keeps us from responding to the invitation. If our treasure is laid up in heaven, and not on earth, then truly we are the poor in spirit.
“Happy
are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Happy are those who make no excuses, who let
nothing, however good, get in the way of
responding to
the invitation to God’s dinner party.
Happy are they, for they shall eat bread in the
And for us here this morning, God has provided a foretaste of that heavenly supper. Here, this morning, as we join in offering to God the Father the eternal sacrifice of his only-begotten Son, the one oblation once offered, we shall be fed with the bread of heaven, the very body and blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God.
“Happy are they which are called to the supper of the Lamb.”
01
June 2008