11 Oct 2020
Sermon by Anne East, ReaderReadings: Isaiah 25: 1-9, Psalm 23, Phil 4: 1-9, Matthew 22: 1-14
“Go into the streets and invite everyone you find . . both good and bad”
St Margaret’s likes to party. Food is quite a feature of life here. Even in Covid times there has been cake and soup. Jesus liked sharing food too: there was the picnic on the grass with five thousand people, the dinner in Bethany where there was criticism about the cost of the perfume, the breakfast of grilled fish on the beach after the resurrection.
One of the hard things about the current restrictions because of the virus is that we cannot open our homes and invite friends to our table, we cannot have large celebratory events.
Food is significant. We cannot exist without nourishment. The first thing a mother does after giving birth is to put the baby to the breast. Meals are more than food. Breakfast initiates the day. Midday lunch replenishes the body, evening supper - or dinner – draws the day to a conclusion. Celebratory meals: events marking milestones in our lives: Christmas, Easter, Birthdays. A Wedding feast celebrates the love of a couple, their marriage covenant, the support of friends and family. A Funeral wake celebrates the life of the deceased, their continuing legacy among the people whose lives they touched.
So it’s no surprise that when writers are seeking to express the relationship between God and humankind, they use this metaphorical language – picture language – of a feast.
“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.” Psalm 23, probably the best known psalm in the bible.
Throughout Scripture ‘the table / the banquet’ repeatedly serves as a metaphor for God’s activity.
Today’s we have a feast described on the mountain top in Isaiah 25, and the wedding banquet in Matthew 22.
How did you draw up a list of guests for a wedding you might have had to organise? (Pre-Covid of course – in some ways it’s easier these days, although still challenging.) It can be a fraught business. There are the people you want to be included. And those you feel should be included. There are those your fiancé wants to include. And those your fiancé thinks ought to be included – although they don’t particularly want them. (And that’s without even starting on the in-laws’ list!).
In the case of my daughter Mala, the only wedding I have had to organise, it was easy. Anyone over here who was prepared to fly to Sri Lanka to join us was very welcome. And over there – well you just invited the whole village, because that’s what they do. You didn’t leave anyone out!
Let’s look at our banquet on the mountain top: the context of this reading from Isaiah 25 is grim – it was likely written close to the end of Israel’s tragic exile to Babylon, and the previous chapter ends with a prediction of terror and trembling for the entire earth, affecting even the hosts of heaven. It forsees a cosmic calamity that afflicts all of the world’s inhabitants. This is what is called ‘apocalyptic writing’ – writing about the ‘end-times’. Such texts often include a catalogue of hardships – wars, famines, plagues, earthquakes. The prophet can still affirm, even in the midst of pain and confusion, that God is worthy of praise.
“O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you, I will praise your name; for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure.” verse 1
The prophet recalls God’s faithfulness: “You have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat.” The table, spread before us, is a reminder of the past, God’s graciousness and provision, and a symbol of promise for the future. ‘Great is your faithfulness’ like the hymn we sang last week.
And who are the invitees? Well, everyone: “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines, of rich food filed with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear.” No detail spared!
The king in Jesus’ parable in Matthew chapter 22 had also done his pre-planning. He’d obviously sent a ‘save the date’ message beforehand. You know how these days you send a ‘pre-invitation invitation’? Well that must have happened in first century Palestine too.
However, the original invitees don’t show up, don’t take it seriously. When the time comes they’ve got other things in their diary. But the king has all these wonderful foods and wines to offer, so he sends out for other people to be brought in: “invite everyone you find . . .the good and the bad.”
This allegory of the banquet and the first guests who refuse to come is usually taken to refer to the people of ancient Israel, invited into a special relationship with God. The prophets were sent to bring them in but were rejected. And then this remarkable new invitation – to everyone. Note that, you don’t have to be on a special invitation list. You don’t have to earn the right to be there. The door is open. That’s the graciousness of God’s hospitality.
My father was brought up in a village in Cornwall called Connor Downs and when I was a little girl we’d pass through there on the way to Hayle Towans or the beaches of St Ives. We’d often stop at a small terraced house where two elderly sisters lived – Beatie and Janie. (They had worked for my grandparents and had known my father since he was a boy.) We could never let them know when we were coming, they had no telephone and this was long before the days of mobiles. We simply turned up, pushed open the front door and walked in. We’d find a warm welcome, a pot of tea, and a slice of saffron cake. Gracious hospitality, freely given.
By God’s grace, we are drawn into God’s company. “Go into the streets and invite everyone you find . . both good and bad”
The invitation is only the beginning: being called to God’s table leads to a transformed life. What about the man who got thrown out because he wasn’t wearing the right clothes?
St Augustine suggests that the reason the man is ejected from the banquet is that the garment he is not wearing is the one essential for the kingdom of heaven: Love. He is not wearing a garment of Love. It is an image we find in other places. Paul exhorts the church at Colossae “ Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Above all clothe yourself with love which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
One of the wonderful things about meals that we have shared together here at St Margaret’s is that there is always plenty – and more. We bring and share and contribute. When Jesus talks of the welcome feast we are invited not simply to take our places but actively to prepare it with him – to begin the work of building up his kingdom in our own lives and in the world in which we live.
To be continued…. Amen.
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