Luke 14:15-24
Our Jesus the Foodie theme has been a walk down Memory Lane for me, stirring up snippets of songs and Sunday School lessons and favorite meals. This week’s story hits the jackpot—two distinct memories of learning this parable.
The first comes from my high school youth group. We chose this parable for our Youth Sunday theme. We decided to update the story and illustrate it with a slide show, long before digital cameras and Powerpoint. We had to buy slide film, take a whole roll of pictures with an Instamatic camera, and leave them for a week at Dart Drug, hoping they came out so we didn’t have to do it all over again.
Before our photo shoot, my friends Bonnie and Ian and I got together to write the script and plan the accompanying slides. We came up with modern excuses to replace buying oxen and getting married. Our first slide, we decided, would show a girl with a basketball. Her response to the invitation: “Sorry, but if I miss practice, coach won’t let me play in the game.” The next one would be a kid dressed in his Bob’s Big Boy busboy uniform: “I wish I could come,” he would say, “but I’m scheduled to work.” The final one would be a teen standing by a road with her thumb out. “I cannot come. I don’t have a ride.”
Pleased with ourselves, we showed our script to our youth group advisors, John and Caralee. “Great start,” they said. We could hear a ‘but’ coming, and it wasn’t about the hitchhiking picture. “But your excuses are real ones, good ones.” Caralee said. “I mean, if you really don’t have a ride, how can you get to the party? Maybe you should pick some lame excuses, something like ‘I don’t feel like it,’ or ‘I don’t know anyone else who’s going.’”
“But aren’t the excuses in the Bible pretty good ones?” I asked. I wasn’t impressed with the guy who had to go see his oxen, but the one who’d just gotten married stuck with me. That seemed like a good reason to miss a party.
Caralee’s reaction to our script made sense. It hardly seems fair that Jesus would expect people to come to the banquet when they really couldn’t get there. The Jesus we talked about in youth group wouldn’t put people in impossible situations.
My second memory of this story was earlier, maybe 6th grade, when the Junior Choir sang today’s Wedding Banquet song. We learned it really well, because any time I read this text, I find myself singing the chorus.
After I suggested we sing this song today, Rick found the lyrics for me. I was stunned. I remembered the chorus perfectly, but I had conveniently forgotten the last verse. The original version ends like this:
Now God has written a lesson for the rest of mankind;
If we are slow in responding, He may leave us behind.
He’s preparing a banquet for that great and glorious day,
When the Lord and Master calls us, be certain not to say:
I cannot come…
Really? I thought. Did we sing that in Junior Choir? The ominous warning in it doesn’t match my memory of singing a fun song about a party.
It also doesn’t match my understanding of Jesus’ message. This parable is one way Jesus tried to help his followers understand what he meant by “the Kingdom of God has come near.” Jesus was not primarily warning about some future judgment day, when we would either be in or out. He was proclaiming something new that was coming into being. In a world dominated by the Kingdom of Caesar, Jesus declared that God’s love was breaking in, a kin-dom ultimately more powerful even than Rome. Through his words and actions, he conveyed the nature of this new realm–community where those who have been excluded are at the center, the experience of healing, abundance that emerges when we share, joy breaking through sorrow.
The Great Banquet—the Realm of God’s love—is not a one-time event with doors that slam shut on those who come late. It is an on-going feast. The invitations don’t say “Tuesday at 2 pm.” They say “now and always.” It’s never too early, and it’s never too late. There’s always a place at the table–a place for you.
Fortunately, On the Fence is a flexible group. So we rewrote the last verse:
The banquet table’s set; the soup’s on the stove.
There’s food in abundance; figs and cheese and barley loaves.
Jesus sends an invitation to the greatest and the least.
Leave your worries and excuses; come on, let’s go to the feast!
The invitation is urgent, not because you might get left behind, but because we are in urgent need of this kin-dom of God, this new way of living together. We we are in urgent need of hope and joy, compassion and companionship. And the kin-dom of God urgently needs us–our dreams, our creativity, our compassion.
So what’s with all the excuses, in the scripture and the song and the 1978 slide show? I’ve thought a lot this week about my long-ago conversation with John and Caralee. The excuses in the Bible—at least the one about getting married—are real. The excuses in our Youth Sunday slide show are real. The excuses in our own lives are also real. There are all sorts of things that get in the way of our coming to this banquet. There are all sorts of things that get in the way of our receiving the gift of God’s love, of our trying to live lives grounded in that love.
Some of what gets in our way is fear. We may be afraid we are not worthy of the banquet—that we’ll show up and be thrown out when they discover who we really are. Then there are the worries about everyday life that make a banquet invitation seem absurd. We get so caught up trying to get by—making sure there’s enough for ourselves and our families—that we can’t envision anything beyond those needs.
Maybe we’ve been let down so many times we assume this banquet will be a disappointment. Or our lives have gotten out of control and we never even saw the invitation. We may decide we are too busy to go. Or we are distracted by so many shiny objects that we can’t imagine the banquet could be as exciting. We wonder if the other people at the banquet will be so different from us we won’t know what to say. We are suspicious it might be a trick: we’ll get there and be asked to help out.
Some of our excuses are just that–excuses. Others are very real barriers–daunting, overwhelming barriers–that get in the way of our choosing to be part of God’s kin-dom, of our choosing to give and receive God’s abundant love.
This is where my interpretation of the excuses in the parable differ from Caralee’s. Maybe it’s not that Jesus is putting us in a bind, expecting us to do the impossible. Maybe, instead, the excuses he chooses for this parable are his way of letting us know that he understands.
Jesus understands that there are very real barriers that get in our way. Still he calls us to come. This banquet—this new way of living centered in God’s love—is so wonderful, he says, that it is worth figuring out how to get there. It is worth facing our fears. It is worth reprioritizing our lives. It is worth risking disappointment. It is worth all the heart and soul and time and care we will be asked to give.
Blessedly, there is help along the way. Jesus doesn’t sit at the banquet table twiddling his thumbs waiting for us to show up. Jesus comes out into the highways and byways. He is with us in our struggle to face our fears. Jesus gives us a boost as we try to climb over those seemingly impassable barriers. When we think it’s too hard, he promises us strength and reminds us that this kin-dom is worth the effort. Jesus sends messengers—angels in human form—to extend the invitation again and again and to walk beside us, even if our route to the party is a circuitous one. We are not on our own as we journey to this banquet; we can help each other.
The Great Banquet offers a vivid image for the Realm of God’s love. It captures the promise of abundance and the joy of community. Like all metaphors, though, it falls short. The kin-dom of God is not a place; it is a movable feast. Sometimes the feast comes to us—a friend who reaches out, a song that gives us hope, a sense that someone is praying for us. Sometimes we are called to bring the feast to others. If we choose to accept the invitation, we will be asked—and equipped— to take hope on the road. We will be sent forth to welcome strangers, to share a meal with a lonely soul, to stand in solidarity with a neighbor, to work for a more just and compassionate world. The feast is always on the move—for the kin-dom of God breaks in whenever we dare to receive and share God’s love.
The banquet table’s set. The figs and cheese and barley loaves are ready—packaged to be taken to neighbors and strangers. There is food in abundance. Even better, there is love and hope and joy overflowing, ready to be shared. So leave your worries and excuses—come on, let’s go to the feast! Amen.