What a strange story in today's Gospel reading! "A man once gave a great banquet and invited many", but no one accepted the invitation. What does this mean?
Certainly the lord of the banquet is our Lord Himself, Jesus Christ. In a broad sense, His invitation is to share the life eternal in heaven that He won for us by His death and resurrection. But the parable was an answer to one of the Pharisees who said: "Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!"
Jesus had bee speaking of the resurrection of the just, so the Pharisee was thinking of the Gospel as dealing only with the world that is to come, after the Last Judgment.
Jesus told him that eternal life begins now, and the invitation demands an immediate answer. We are born again of water and the Spirit in holy baptims. The Gospel of Jesus Christ changes our lives in the present, not just our future. That is, we cannot live in the same manner as the past, with the same priorities. We already are in a new relation with God, as grateful children of the King of kings. This is the most precious gift that anyone can imagine, there is nothing comparable.
We have no other option: If we know that God loved us in Christ Jesus, we must show others that God loves them, too.
How do we do this? Today's epistle (1 John 3:13-18) explains it this way: Let us love our brothers. "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?"
If we love God above all things, we will not live for ourselves, but attend to the material and spiritual needs of our neighbors. Furthermore, he who does not love his brother in word and deed is still spiritually dead and, in fact, is a murderer. That is, in one sense he is responsible for the physical and spiritual deaths of those around him.
However, to live in the Christian way is to risk the hatred of the world, because the those enslaved to sin do not want to change their lifestyles. Possibly they might like the idea of spiritual liberty, the freedom from the fears, worries and preocupations of this life. But they do not want to trust in God completely for their needs. They do not want to share their blessings with the less fortunate and scoff at those who obey the Lord in this way.
They place their trust in other things. According to the Lord's parable, earthly business and commerce is more important to some than the Lord's invitation. For others, it is marriage. There are many good things in this life: parents, friends, patriotism, the honor and respect of one's community are other examples. None of these are bad in principle. But if they replace God in our priorities, they become idols.
So we should not reject God's invitation. The time is short and the matter is most urgent. Also the banquet of the Lord is the banquet of divine wisdom. If we shun the counsel of unbelievers and feed on the Word of God, we will grow in wisdom and the knowledge of what is important and what is not important, according to our Old Testament lesson (Proverbs 9:1-10).
In a narrower sense, the invitation to the banquet is an invitation to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, because in it we receive the body and blood of Christ for the strengthening of our faith. In baptism and the Lord's Supper, the Word of God is active through the work of the Holy Spirit. In the sacraments we find pure Gospel, the message of pardon, not of condemnation, for all believers. Furthermore, in the Lord's Supper we remember the death of our Lord and look forward to the great feast with the saints in heaven.
The invitation is to repent and believe. Those first invited in the parable represent the Jews, the chosen people of God. They had the promise of a Savior first, but the Pharisees and others of the Jews rejected Jesus, the promised Messiah. Now our nationality or race does not matter, for the Gospel is to be proclaimed to all nations. If we confess our spiritual poverty, we will be saved.
Therefore, let us accept the invitation, for the table of the Lord has been prepared. Amen.
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