A Banquet for all peoples

Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

The significance of a meal can never be overstated. It is clear that food is more than just essential for our species’ survival. For survival needs, people everywhere could eat the same food, to be measured only in calories, fats, carbohydrates, proteins, and vitamins. But a meal is also an important social event. We celebrate weddings, anniversaries and birthdays with a meal. We honour and remember our dead at wakes and funerals with a meal. We conclude business discussions and seal contracts over a meal. We deepen bonds of friendship over a meal. There is something magical, even mystical about meals. It is no wonder that a priest who was an avid promoter of basic ecclesial communities (BEC) often joked that the acronym BEC should stand for Best Eating Club, alluding to the food potlucks being the most popular reason why Catholics decide to gather in small groups, if for no other reason.

The first reading provides us with a description of a sumptuous feast of “rich food” on an unnamed mountain which marks the end of a period of mourning. Most scholars agree that the prophet Isaiah was painting a picture of restoration for those of the House of Judah who had been taken into exile after the fall of Jerusalem to the invading Babylonians. The exiles were returning home and God was going to enter into a new relationship with them. The scene recalls another banquet that took place on another mountain. In Exodus (24:1-11), Moses and the seventy elders whom he has chosen, go up to Sinai, the mountain of the Lord, where they feasted. It was not just a social celebration but a covenant meal, sealing their relationship with God who had brought them out of Egypt and had blessed them with the Law, food and water.

But the time of the restoration of Israel in Isaiah’s prophetic vision would not only be a time of a New Exodus but also a time of Conquest. The banquet celebrates God’s ultimate victory over suffering and death, where He “will destroy Death for ever” and “wipe away the tears from every cheek” and “take away His people’s shame everywhere on earth.” It will be a banquet which is not only confined to the leaders of Israel as during the Exodus, nor even confined to the Jews. It would be a banquet which the Lord prepares “for all peoples.” And this meal would be held in plain sight and not hidden behind the walls of the Temple where the Jewish performed their rites in secrecy, nor behind the veil which concealed the Holy of Holies.

What the Old Testament promises, the gospel fulfils and we see this in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord Jesus often finds Himself in the middle of a feast. He also seemed to enjoy a hearty meal and did not refuse any opportunity to dine with His hosts and guests. Table fellowship among the Jews was a big deal. Pharisees did not dine with people whom they regarded were below their stature because they saw each meal as “eating with God.” This is where our Lord was subject to their ire because He frequently feasted with disreputable folks like tax collectors and sinners. He concluded His public ministry and inaugurated His passion with a meal. The communal meal did not only provide our Lord with an opportunity to provide teaching to those who were in attendance but was also the subject of His teaching parables. Today’s parable of the wedding feast is one such example.

Notice that Isaiah’s covenant meal has now morphed into a wedding banquet in our Lord’s parable. We already see the typology of a wedding and marriage in the Old Testament writing of Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah and the Psalms. The covenant between God and Israel is often described as a marriage and Israel’s apostasy is seen as infidelity of the bride towards her spouse. Our Lord now strings together these related themes of an eschatological or end times banquet, a covenant meal and a wedding feast in this compelling parable of judgment.

Our Lord describes the Kingdom of Heaven as a wedding banquet thrown by the king for his son to which the king’s subjects are invited. Two groups emerge - those who actually attend the feast and those who do not. Perhaps the most important feature of this parable is the invitation. Though this is a wedding banquet, the bride is significantly missing from the narrative and the bridegroom, the son of the king, is not an important character in the storyline even though the banquet is held in his honour. This would suggest that the focus is not on the wedding between the bride and the bridegroom but on the king’s invitation.

The focus of the parable seems to be on the response made to this invitation, rather than on the feast itself. A rejection of a king’s invitation to such an important event was unimaginable because it would be political suicide and yet we find the invited guests turning down the invitation not just once but twice and on the second instance, even abusing and killing the king’s emissaries that had been sent to them to persuade them to reconsider the invitation. The first time could be seen as a grievous insult, but the second rejection was an outright act of rebellion. One can then understand the king’s violent response in putting down this rebellion.

When the first group of invited guests were “found to be unworthy”, that is they failed to respond to the invitation, the king sends a second set of servants to gather “everyone.” The Greek word translated into “everyone” suggests “outsiders”, those at the fringes of society. But even though the king seems to have lowered the bar in terms of who gets to attend his son’s wedding banquet, it does not mean that all and sundry would get to enjoy the “sumptuous banquet” of “rich food” and “rich wine.” One man was expelled because he was not wearing the proper attire. Could we be excluded from salvation for one such petty reason as improper dressing? Perhaps, we can find a clue to this symbolism when we heed the words of St Paul that we too must, “clothe ourselves with heartfelt mercy, with kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Bear with one another and forgive whatever grievances you have against one another.” (Colossians 3:12-13)

We finally come to the final saying of our Lord in this passage: “For many are called, but few are chosen.” To describe it as cryptic would be an understatement. It is definitely not suggesting that salvation is for an elite few. Personally, I am comforted by such passages as 1 Timothy 2:4, where Paul says that God “wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of truth.” So, what does this sentence mean? Saint Jerome says that, “The chosen are those who accept the call and do not reject the invitation, like the first guests, or who do not accept it fully, like the man who comes to the dinner but does not dress in the proper manner.”

Our God came to earth and became one of us in the person of Jesus Christ to prove His love for us and to extend a personal invitation to each and every one of His sons and daughters, to come and join Him at the banquet table that He has prepared for us in His heavenly Kingdom. It is an open invitation. Salvation is not something we earn. It is an invitation that we are free to either accept or reject. Merely claiming that we have received the invitation is no guarantee that one is able to partake in the wedding feast of the kingdom. That invitation must be accepted, not just on our own terms but on God’s terms. So, it is crucial to remember that salvation won by Jesus for the sake of all is not applied automatically; it requires that to attain Eternal Life each individual must, to the extent of his or her understanding, accept and live in the grace won by Christ. We must take care to “clothe ourselves with heartfelt mercy, with kindness, humility, meekness and patience.”