Twenty-Eighth Sunday 'A'

Saturday October 8, 2005

Armageddon or Feast?

Enjoying a feast on the top of a mountain is an interesting metaphor. My experiences of mountaintop meals have not always been pleasant. The combination of thin air and mountain fever make food less appetizing on Pike’s Peak in the Rockies and on Mount Pilatus in the Alps. Nevertheless, the biblical metaphor of a feast on the top of a mountain still has meaning despite the thin air and lack of oxygen.

In our Judeo-Christian biblical tradition, the metaphorical mountain is where God and humanity meet on special occasions. The encounters of Abraham, Moses, and Elias with God on Mount Mariah, Sinai and Carmel changed their lives forever. Even Jesus used the mounts of the Transfiguration, the Beatitudes and Calvary to facilitate significant exchanges between his Father and his followers.

Meals were also the setting for important events in both the Old and New Testaments. The sharing of food was more than a social gathering. It was a significant religious event, a sacred exchange. Those who ate together were bonded in friendship and commitment. So true was this that if a thief inadvertently ate something while robbing a home, he or she would cease burglary and become a meal-partner. More than likely this is a bit of exaggeration on the part of some ancient biblical commentator but it surely makes abundantly clear the sacred meaning of the meal.

The metaphorical combination of the mountain and the meal confirmed and strengthened the union of participants one with another and with God. The banquet was tangible evidence of God’s provident care and the assurance of God’s blessing.

In the mind of early Christians, Israel’s vision of a God-given banquet of salvation was epitomized in the meals that Jesus shared with his friends especially in that final meal with his disciples on the night before he died. This is why Matthew used the banquet as a metaphor for the kingdom of God.

Who were the invited guests?

I assume they were the relatives and friends of the king’s son and his bride. It was customary to send a preliminary announcement of the wedding to the guests. The time was not announced. I suppose it was similar to the announcement of an engagement. It served only to alert everyone for the coming wedding feast.

But when the invitation arrived, those who had been invited were too busy. This should not be too difficult to understand. Who among us has not made similar choices? We are all busy people with an outrageous daily agenda that often threatens our table time with God. It’s not that we are up to no good. Indeed, we may be up to much good but in the process fail to appreciate the importance of table talk with God and with the other members of our faith family.

Then again, perhaps they were put off by the prospect of loud music by the band. I have attended wedding receptions during which the band was so loud that the guests had to go to the lobby to talk. Whenever I am invited to invoke the blessing at a wedding reception, I add a prayer for ‘our wonderful musicians’ – that the music will be loud enough to have fun and soft enough for us to talk! Everyone applauds except the musicians, of course.

At any rate, Jesus redefined the protocol and established the guest list for the ultimate festal meal—symbol of the solidarity to be enjoyed by all the members of God’s kingdom.

The feast is open to all—to rich and poor, young and old, saint and sinner. It is a table at which everyone has a place and where all the other tables of humanity are all connected. We’re in good company!

When I was a pastor, I used to ask the children, “Where is the most important table in the parish?” They would point to the Eucharist table. Then I would ask them where is the second most important table in the parish? And they would respond, at home. And the third most important table? The table of humanity. Then I would tell them to “keep those tables connected.”

We need to bring our family stories to this table and we need to bring the God stories to our family table so that we can reach out in service to the tables of humanity wherever the need is the greatest.

My favorite meal at home was on Sunday mornings. Dad would cook breakfast while my sister and I read the funnies. Mom would do some household chores. (Even in those days, my mom had to work to make ends meet.) Then we would sit down to a big breakfast. That’s where we shared family stories and learned about how our ancestors lived through the good times and the hard times. We learned about how ‘Uncle Miah’ survived his drinking problem. My grandfather would put him out the front door and my grandmother would let him in the cellar door. He would sleep in the coal bin and my dad would make sure he had enough blankets for the night. The doctor told him one year that he would not survive another year unless he stopped drinking. On the first Sunday in Lent, he gave it up and never went back. We loved Uncle Miah because whenever the Yankees won, he would give us a dollar.

At God’s table, no one goes hungry; enemies find ways to converse; bridges are built between disparate nations; justice and mercy meet.

In a polarized world in which the forces of nature and the apocalyptic rhetoric of Armageddon seems to be moving us inevitably toward a world conflagration, God cries out from the mountain top, “Stop your bickering; take the higher road, come to the table and know that there is wisdom a-plenty for everyone.”

In a church wounded by sin and torn by dissent, God cries out, “Cast your care upon me and know that in me your souls will find rest.”

Now more than ever, we need to break the bread of God’s wisdom and share the bread of God’s life that together we may find the courage to confront those who would divide us further and the compassion to heal the hurts that have torn open the wounds of the Christ who died that all might be saved.

But what about the ‘friend’ that came in without a wedding garment? What was that all about?

Commentators differ on the details but all seem to agree that it was Matthew’s way of referencing the demands of the gospel – unless you take up your cross daily and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.

To make this practical, we need to do our homework. We must be willing to seek the truth that brings freedom. We must climb the mountain where God dwells so that we might be able to see the world as God sees the world. We must not hide behind the façade of hypocrisy nor hide behind pious words that sound sweet but are nothing more than cotton candy with no substance, devoid of meaning—empty rhetoric. We must be willing to challenge the arrogance of political and religious leadership on both sides of the aisle with patience and with charity. As one of my colleagues, Sister Marie, put it, “Take up your stress and follow me!”

Jesus remains the prototype for us as a church. He is the exemplar of all that we can become as individuals committed to the establishment of God’s dominion of peace.

The key of course is in our daily practice of the faith in the little things. To be faithful is to be truly free.

“May God fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory in Jesus’ name forever and ever. Amen.”

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