Eat and Live

Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

There is an old proverb that still cuts close to the bone: “Eat to live, not live to eat.” It used to be the signature response of the late Fr Anthony Chan whenever asked the reason for his choice of a bowl of plain porridge when a sumptuous array of delectable food choices was placed before him. In his signature Kwangtung accent, he will readily chirp: “Eat to live, not live to eat.”

Although most Malaysians would scoff at the wisdom of the saying, many would secretly nod in agreement when we hear it. We may not like it, but you don’t need to like something for it to be true. We know the difference between taking food so that the body can keep going and turning every meal into the purpose of existence. Yet how easily we reverse the order. We live for the next satisfaction, the next comfort, the next distraction, as though the banquet of this world were the final destination rather than a provisional provision for the journey.

Today’s readings refuse to let us settle for mere survival. Our vision should not be so myopic. Our goals should be set higher. The first reading in particular open before us a vision of a feast that is not about filling the stomach but about filling the soul with life that death cannot touch. Isaiah paints the scene with almost embarrassing abundance: on this mountain the Lord of hosts will prepare for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines—juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines. He will destroy the veil that covers all peoples, the web woven over all nations; he will destroy death forever. The Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face. This is not a meal to keep us alive for another day. This is the meal that ends death itself. Salvation here is not the clever management of scarcity or the clever avoidance of suffering. It is the definitive overthrow of everything that reduces us to survivors.

The psalmist sings the same truth in quieter tones: “You have prepared a banquet for me in the sight of my foes… In the Lord’s own house shall I dwell for ever and ever.” Just imagine that: even in the dark valley of death, the table is set. The point is not that we never go hungry or never walk through shadow. The psalmist has actually experienced the depths of walking in that valley of the shadow of death. The point he is making is that the Shepherd’s provision is greater than the threat. We do not merely survive the valley; we are led through it to the house where we are meant to dwell forever.

Saint Paul, writing from a place of real deprivation and real abundance, has learned the secret: “I know how to be poor and I know how to be rich too. I have been through my initiation and now I am ready for anything anywhere: full stomach or empty stomach, poverty or plenty. There is nothing I cannot master with the help of the One who gives me strength.” Notice what he does not say. He does not claim that God will always keep the larder full or the bank account healthy. He claims that the One who strengthens him is enough, whether the plate is full or empty. Survival is not the goal. Communion with Christ is. And that communion supplies whatever is truly needed because “my God will fulfil all your needs, in Christ Jesus, as lavishly as only God can.”

Then comes the parable which our Lord tells in the gospel. A king prepares a wedding feast for his son. The original guests treat the invitation as optional, almost trivial. One goes to his farm, another to his business. It is clear where their priorities lie. Survival is far more important than bearing the risk of offending the king. Call it being presumptuous. This is where they make the greatest mistakes of their lives. In wanting survival above all else, they write their own death warrant and script for destruction. The king’s response is severe, yet the feast is not cancelled. The invitation is thrown wide open: go out into the streets and invite everyone you find, bad and good alike. The hall fills. But one man is found without a wedding garment and is cast out into the darkness. How do we make sense of this strange ending?

The answer is found in understanding the very purpose of the telling of this parable. The parable is not primarily about etiquette. It is about the difference between showing up and belonging. Many are invited; few are chosen. The wedding garment is not a fashion statement. It is the disposition of a heart that has accepted the invitation on the King’s terms, not its own. It is the recognition that this feast is not one more social obligation or one more opportunity for self-indulgence. It is the banquet of the Son, the feast of salvation where we “eat to live,” the place where death is destroyed and tears are wiped away.

Here the proverb “eat to live and not live to eat” finds its Christian depth. We are invited to eat so that we may live—not the thin life of biological survival, nor to feed our hedonistic urge for binging, not even the slightly thicker life of moral respectability, but the life that is communion with the Bridegroom. The Eucharist is the weekly rehearsal of that final banquet. Here we put into practice what we profess with mere words: “we eat to live!” The food we receive is not calories for another week of striving. It is the Body of the One who has already conquered death. To approach the altar merely to “get something out of Mass,” or to treat the invitation as one more item on a crowded schedule, is to live to eat. To come hungry for the life that only Christ can give, willing to put on the garment of conversion, is to eat in order to live—and to live forever.

The tragedy of the first guests was not that they were busy. It was that they judged the feast less important than their farms and businesses. The tragedy of the man without the garment was not that he was imperfect, but that he presumed the invitation required nothing of him - it exacted no cost, made no demands, and so “easy come easy go.” Both attitudes reduce the banquet to something manageable, something that fits around our survival strategies. Both of these scenarios serve as warnings to those of us who give excuses when we choose to skip Mass or come spiritually and physically unprepared, just waiting for Mass to end. Some don’t even wait. They are out the door once communion has been received.

So, the question returns to us with quiet force: do we eat to live, or do we live to eat? Do we treat the Lord’s invitation as one more demand on our limited energy, or as the one necessary thing that makes every other effort possible? The table is already set. Not calves and fattened cattle, but the Son of God Himself who has been immolated for our sake on the altar of the cross. Everything is ready. The only question left is whether we will come—and whether we will come clothed in the readiness that the King himself provides. Come to the feast. Not to keep sane or healthy for another day, not doing so grudgingly, but willingly and happily, because you know you are about to receive the life that death cannot touch. Eat, and live.