Come to the feast!

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, o Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

A woman and her young daughter were attending the wedding of one their relatives. And this was the first time the little girl had ever seen a wedding ceremony. She was in awe by the pomp and beauty of everything. The music, the formal atmosphere, the decorations, the bride and groom and their attendants in fine gowns and tuxes.

Sometime during the ceremony, the little girl leaned over to her mother and whispered: “Mommy, mommy.”“What dear,” her mother replied."Why is the bride dressed in white?"The mother thought about that for moment and struggled to come up with a simple explanation her daughter would understand. Finally, she smiled and said to her daughter: "The bride wear white, because white is the color of happiness, and today is the happiest day of her life”The little girl thought about this for a moment, and then she said, "So why’s the groom wearing black?

When was the last time you attended a banquet? It’s an experience I’ve yet to have – unless the eye-watering extravagance of some wedding receptions counts. As far as I’m aware, there are only about two banquets a year that make the headlines in the UK, one involving the Lord Mayor of London and the other various big wigs at the appropriately named Mansion House, close by the Bank of England.

Even for the coronation of the King in May most of us got no higher than a street party (which was, frankly, probably a lot more fun than any meal involving a toast-master and long political speeches). Given our lack of banqueting experience, the question arises: are we likely to be impressed by the junketings described in today’s scriptures? In a world of seeming plenty, having so much rich fare to share – the prophet Isaiah’s vision of tables groaning under the weight of ‘food rich and juicy, fine strained wines’ and all the rest – might not seem that exceptional, even if our dieticians might point out that such indulgence could be unwise for our long-term health prospects. Some of us got in a little panic last winter because there was a shortage of red peppers and cucumbers. We didn’t ask why on earth we think we should be using such unseasonal foods in the depths of winter. The contemporary supermarket is designed to showcase a secular feast of plenty – hence fresh fruit and veg are always at the entrance, while the smell of baking bread is usually to be found at the heart of the enterprise (admittedly the Kensington Church Street Sainsbury’s seems to have their bakery out of order more than it’s working).

Could it be that this constant proclamation of plenty has left our palates jaded? The heavenly banquet ends up sounding rather prosaic, even a little dull, when you have been told for years that you can ‘have it all’. But suppose you lived in a community that faced famine every few years, in a time when barely 50% of children made it to adulthood? Suppose that your culture was defined by the memory of exile and Holocaust as well as ongoing persecution and terrorist attacks, much like our Jewish friends who finished their celebration of Sukkot less than a fortnight ago? Suppose you were yourself effectively a slave, someone never allowed to share the good stuff on the master’s table? ‘Come to the feast!’ would be an electric invitation, an unimaginable joy, miraculous.

Jesus’ parable has a remarkably contemporary ring. It speaks to the experience of many of us – those of us whose diaries are permanently full and who can satisfy themselves with the comforting story that they are ‘too busy’ to go to a wedding reception, be that literal or metaphorical. I am okay because I am productive, occupied, overstimulated, over-communicated. There’s no need to ask awkward questions about what my busyness has to do with the Kingdom of God, or even with simple human happiness. Look up from your iPhone and your conference call and all your projects and plans. See the invitation the present moment holds. Come to the feast!

Again, look at the people streaming past us into the banqueting hall, according to Jesus: ‘everyone the servants could find, bad and good alike’ – in other words, the sinners and tax-collectors, the lepers and prostitutes, the shamed and the broken ones he spent his time with.

Somehow, Church has to be the place where the divide is bridged: where those who have a ticket for the best seats encounter those who are left outside the door by society; where, to coin a cliché, the afflicted are comforted and the comfortable are afflicted – by a dose of reality. Church has to be the place where those of us who are told by life and by society (and by our own diaries) that we’re doing okay become aware of – and embrace – the Lord’s hunger for a world of welcome, where worth and dignity is no longer defined by productivity. We Christians have to march to the beat of a different drum. Saint Paul (whom some of you might know by now that I normally find insufferable) makes a remarkable statement in his letter to the Philippians: ‘I know how to be poor and I know how to be rich too. I have been through my initiation and now I am ready for anything anywhere, full stomach or empty stomach, poverty or plenty.’ That is true freedom. That is a man ready for the wedding feast of the Kingdom.

So perhaps we can, after all, relate to the strange image of ‘the banquet’ in our world where the illusion of plenty hides the depth of human need which exists here among us, on the diamond-encrusted streets of Kensington. And in the daily, grateful sharing of what we have we can discover again the joy of the wedding feast and the presence of Christ, the Bridegroom, at our table.

As I will say at Grace later,

“make us ever mindful of the needs of others”.

In Nomine +

Amen