October 12, 2008, 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Isaiah 25:6-8 Philippians 2:6-11 John 3:13-17
To the churched and unchurched[1]
gathered in a temple not built by human hands[2]
First reading from Isaiah 25:6-8
Isaiah 25:6-8 Philippians 2:6-11 John 3:13-17
To the churched and unchurched[1]
gathered in a temple not built by human hands[2]
First reading from Isaiah 25:6-8
Here on Mount Zion the Lord Almighty will prepare a banquet for all the nations of world—a banquet of the richest food and the finest wine. Here He will suddenly remove the cloud of sorrow that has been hanging over all the nations. The Sovereign Lord will destroy death forever! He will wipe away the tears from everyone’s eyes and take away the disgrace His people have suffered throughout the world. The Lord Himself has spoken.
The word of the Lord
Thanks be to God
Alleluia, alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew 22:1-10
Glory to you, Lord.
Jesus again spoke to the chief priests and elders of the people in parables. "The kingdom of heaven,” He said, “is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He dispatched his servants to tell the invited guests to come, but they declined the invitation. A second time he sent other servants, saying, `Tell those invited that my banquet is ready. My calves and fattened cattle have been killed and everything is prepared. Come to the marriage feast.’ Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. Others laid hold of the servants and killed them. The king was enraged and sent his troops to destroy those murderers and burn their city. Then he said to his servants, 'The banquet is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come. Go, therefore, to the street corners and invite to the feast whomever you find.’ The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the wedding banquet was filled with guests.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Introduction
The abounding image of the banquet
Back in the days when the Old and New Testament were written, there weren’t any supermarkets and fast-food joints to afflict the population with a serious obesity problem. Most people were skinny in those days. Many were hungry, and some were even starving. No wonder, then, that the image of the banquet should abound in Sacred Scripture.
In the first reading from the Old Testament, Isaiah promises that on Mount Zion the Lord Almighty would provide a banquet of the richest food and the finest wine for all the skinny and hungry people before him. (Is 25:6) The good shepherd Psalm 23, which follows the first reading, sings about that banquet:
In the first reading from the Old Testament, Isaiah promises that on Mount Zion the Lord Almighty would provide a banquet of the richest food and the finest wine for all the skinny and hungry people before him. (Is 25:6) The good shepherd Psalm 23, which follows the first reading, sings about that banquet:
You, oh Lord, prepare a banquet for me,
where all my enemies can see me.
You welcome me as an honored guest
and fill my cup to the brim.
I know that goodness and love
will follow me all the days of my life,
and that I will dwell forever
in the house of the Lord.
Psalm 23: vs 5-6
The Sunday gospels also abound with the banquet image. When Jesus notices how guests are grabbing the places of honor at a banquet, He tells a parable which humbles those who exalt themselves, and exalts those who humble themselves. (Lk 14:7-14) When a prodigal son returns home after a fling with life in a far-off land, the father seizes the opportunity to hold a banquet to celebrate the return of a son who was lost but now has been found. (Lk 15: 23) When the wine runs out at a wedding banquet in Cana of Galilee, Jesus works a miracle to change water into the nectar of human celebration. (Jn 2:1-12) The image of a wedding banquet is painted on the very last pages of the New Testament, when in the Book of Revelation the angel says to John, “Write this: Happy are those who have been invited to the wedding banquet of the Lamb.” (Revelation 19: 9)
The invitees’ fault
Banquets fail because there’s something wrong either with the invitees or the banquet itself or both. In today’s gospel Jesus tells a parable about a banquet which failed not because of the banquet itself, for the king had set a very splendid table of the richest food and the finest wine. The banquet failed because of the invitees. They were simply too busy to come! Luke spells out their busyness in more detail. One invitee excused himself because he had bought a field and had to go and look it over. Another excused himself because he had just bought five pairs of oxen and was on his way to try them out. A third said he had just gotten married and could not come. (Lk 14:15-24)
Too busy or too stuffed to come
Sunday Mass is the weekly invitation to come to the wedding feast of the Lamb. That banquet sometimes (and maybe often) fails. As soon as our kids come of age and move out of the house, many of them these days (for one reason or other) move also out of the Sunday Mass.
Some don’t come to the Eucharistic Banquet because, like those invited in today’s parable, they’re too busy to come. With time, a sense of priority often fixes that. Others don’t come because they’re simply too stuffed to come to a banquet. All week long they’ve filled themselves at the TV trough where mobs are violently jerking their torsos, and performers are strenuously banging away at drums and guitars. That, indeed, is overwhelming competition for Sunday Mass with its measured liturgical movements and its staid songs singing about what the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard, what God has prepared for those who love Him. (I Cor 2:9)
Some don’t come to the Eucharistic Banquet because, like those invited in today’s parable, they’re too busy to come. With time, a sense of priority often fixes that. Others don’t come because they’re simply too stuffed to come to a banquet. All week long they’ve filled themselves at the TV trough where mobs are violently jerking their torsos, and performers are strenuously banging away at drums and guitars. That, indeed, is overwhelming competition for Sunday Mass with its measured liturgical movements and its staid songs singing about what the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard, what God has prepared for those who love Him. (I Cor 2:9)
Not in touch with our hunger
Still other invitees don’t come to the weekly banquet because they’re simply not in touch enough with their hunger. The simple process of living and maturing often fixes that. In one of Billy Graham’s TV promotional pitches, a businessman is featured as saying, "All the things I have been working for are beginning to come together for me. I've got my education, landed a good job and am making good money. Even bought a new car. Like I say, it's starting to happen." Then just as we are expecting one of those pitches typical of some evangelists (that God gives goodies to godly people), the man asks himself, "Why do I feel so empty inside? There’s something missing which is more important than all this."
When, like Graham’s businessman, we finally lay hold of whatever goal we've been striving for or whatever toy we've been dreaming of, and yet feel let down or sold short, then we are in touch with our hunger. When the passing of time forces us to move on into unfamiliar terrain, and makes us feel in our bones that life is an exile and pilgrimage, then we are in touch with our hunger. When we are filled with melancholy as summer slips away from us and autumn leaves fall from trees, then we are in touch with our hunger and go in search of a banquet.
When, like Graham’s businessman, we finally lay hold of whatever goal we've been striving for or whatever toy we've been dreaming of, and yet feel let down or sold short, then we are in touch with our hunger. When the passing of time forces us to move on into unfamiliar terrain, and makes us feel in our bones that life is an exile and pilgrimage, then we are in touch with our hunger. When we are filled with melancholy as summer slips away from us and autumn leaves fall from trees, then we are in touch with our hunger and go in search of a banquet.
The banquet’s fault
A banquet fails because we are too busy to come, or too stuffed to come, or are simply not in touch enough with our hunger to come. In such cases the fault is ours.
But sometimes (and maybe often) the banquet’s failure is not primarily ours but that of the banquet itself. The menu offered is not very tasty! It is not the richest food and the finest wine promised by Isaiah. Sometimes the menu offered from the pulpit on a Sunday morning is a platter full of out-of-touch reality which speaks nothing meaningful to us. Sometimes the menu offered is a platter full of narrow-minded religion which claims that only those who believe in Jesus are saved, and that puts the majority of the human race in hell.
Sometimes the menu offered is a platter full of puritanical morality which makes sexual purity the height of all morality and sexual impurity the depths of all immorality. That runs counter to the mind of Jesus who lays it to the chief priests and Jewish elders in the temple, saying, “I tell you guys that tax collectors and prostitutes are preceding you into the Kingdom of God. They listened to the preaching of John the Baptist and repented, but you fellows did not!” (Mt 21: 31)
But sometimes (and maybe often) the banquet’s failure is not primarily ours but that of the banquet itself. The menu offered is not very tasty! It is not the richest food and the finest wine promised by Isaiah. Sometimes the menu offered from the pulpit on a Sunday morning is a platter full of out-of-touch reality which speaks nothing meaningful to us. Sometimes the menu offered is a platter full of narrow-minded religion which claims that only those who believe in Jesus are saved, and that puts the majority of the human race in hell.
Sometimes the menu offered is a platter full of puritanical morality which makes sexual purity the height of all morality and sexual impurity the depths of all immorality. That runs counter to the mind of Jesus who lays it to the chief priests and Jewish elders in the temple, saying, “I tell you guys that tax collectors and prostitutes are preceding you into the Kingdom of God. They listened to the preaching of John the Baptist and repented, but you fellows did not!” (Mt 21: 31)
A fatal banquet
Sometimes the banquet fails because the menu offered is simply a platter full of pious platitudes or yawning boredom or just plain nothing to satisfy our hunger.
Karl Jung, the father of modern psychology, gives a piercing description of the banquet that miserably failed him because the menu offered nothing to satisfy his hunger. He, the son of a minister, describes the fatal day of his First Holy Communion which was supposed to be the banquet of banquets. It was so fatal that it proved to be his very last Holy Communion!
I awaited the day with eager anticipation, and the day finally dawned. There behind the altar stood my father in his familiar robes. He read prayers from the liturgy. On the white cloth covering the altar lay large trays filled with small pieces of bread which came from the local baker whose goods were nothing to brag about. I watched my father eat a piece of the bread and then sip the wine which came from the local tavern. He then passed the cup to one of the old men. All were stiff, solemn, and it seemed to me, uninterested. I looked on in suspense, but could not see nor guess whether anything unusual was going on inside the old men. I saw no sadness and no joy in them. Then came my turn to eat the bread which tasted flat, and to sip the wine which tasted sour. After the final prayer the people all pealed out of church, neither depressed nor illumined with joy. Rather their faces seemed to say. "Well, that's that." In a minute or two the whole church was emptied. Only gradually in the course of the following days did it dawn on me that nothing had happened. And I found myself saying, "Why, that is not religion at all. It is, in fact, an absence of God. I must never go back there again! It is not life which is there but death.” (Memories, Dreams, Reflections)
Conclusion
Retreat to a temple not built by human hands
Blessed are we who find a church which offers us not stale bread and sour wine but a banquet of the richest food and the finest wine. Blessed is that church which offer us such a tasty menu that we find ourselves saying,”Here, indeed, is the presence of God. I must come back here again and again.”
If, however, our church’s banquet should fail us (as Jung’s church failed him) not all is lost. Unlike Jung, whose First Communion proved to be his last, we continue to shop for a banquet in another church. (After all, the Banquet of Eternal Life deserves to be as assiduously shopped for as we shop for a new car or a new house!)
If, however, our search for a banquet in another church should also fail us, again not all is lost. At the end of the day, we are all ultimately challenged to retreat to a center down deep within ourselves -- to a temple not built by human hands -- and there pray to the Father in spirit and truth. (Jn 4:24)
[1] By the “the unchurched” is especially meant not those who have left the church but those whom the church has left!
If, however, our church’s banquet should fail us (as Jung’s church failed him) not all is lost. Unlike Jung, whose First Communion proved to be his last, we continue to shop for a banquet in another church. (After all, the Banquet of Eternal Life deserves to be as assiduously shopped for as we shop for a new car or a new house!)
If, however, our search for a banquet in another church should also fail us, again not all is lost. At the end of the day, we are all ultimately challenged to retreat to a center down deep within ourselves -- to a temple not built by human hands -- and there pray to the Father in spirit and truth. (Jn 4:24)
[1] By the “the unchurched” is especially meant not those who have left the church but those whom the church has left!
[2] Acts of the Apostles 17:24
