The Parable of the Great Banquet

Isaiah 25:6-9 and Luke 14:15-24

 

            A couple went up to the Pearly Gates following their untimely demise in an auto accident only to be met by St. Peter who was more than willing to show them around and play the part of real estate agent as they looked for their new home.  The first neighborhood St. Peter showed the couple had the best streets: paved with gold they were and the people were dancing in the streets.  The second neighborhood St. Peter showed the couple had the best front doors: solid pearl from top to bottom and the people were opening their doors to everyone around.  The third neighborhood St. Peter showed the couple was the strangest: high, thick concrete walls that hid everyone and everything.  As they passed this neighborhood, St. Peter told the couple, “Ssshhh!  We have to be very quiet as we pass by this neighborhood.”  “Why,” the couple asked, “who lives here?”  “It’s the folks from the Church of Christ.  They think they’re the only ones here.”

 

            Most of you have heard a version of this joke before.  Sometimes the punch line is told with Baptists or Mormons or Catholics or somebody else.  Normally, I think it best to make oneself the butt of a joke, but the joke simply doesn’t work with “Presbyterians” as the punch line because everyone knows we’ll let most anyone in.

 

            A woman once wrote a letter to the editor of a Presbyterian journal read by pastors and elders.  She told of a conversation she overheard in front of her before a Sunday worship service at her local Presbyterian Church.  One woman saw her friend and said, “I didn’t know you go here.”  The friend replied, “I don’t.  I’m just here because my daughter is singing in the choir.  What about you – do you go here?”  The first woman answered, “Yeah, but I don’t believe in god.  I just want my ten year old to grow up with morals.”  The friend added, “I don’t believe in god either, but if I went to church, I’d want to be Presbyterian.”  Right or wrong, this is how we are often perceived: so bland that those who profess no belief in God whatsoever can feel comfortable enough to use the church to teach “morals.” 

 

            So, should we be more exclusive?  Should we draw a harder line?  Would a little fire and brimstone hurt us…or help us?  You decide.

 

*****

 

            Jesus was at a feast with a bunch of Pharisees around the table when one of them asked Jesus, “Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.”  Now, this is not a statement but a question that seeks a response, akin to saying, “The Broncos sure kicked butt last night.”  The statement expects a response, an opinion. “Yeah, they killed the Chiefs, but can they do it again?” Here, the Pharisee uses local idiom that means, “What are your opinions about the great banquet in the Kingdom of God?”  Jesus is supposed to respond, according to the traditional teaching of the day, “Oh that we may keep the Law well enough to be found worthy.”    Instead, he speaks the parable of the Great Banquet.

 

            “A certain man had prepared a great banquet,” Jesus says.  According to Ken Bailey, who will be our Theologian in Residence in a mere two weeks, social custom dictated that the folks who are about to make excuses about why they cannot attend the banquet, had said already they would be there, they would attend.  The way banquets worked, the host would find out the number of people who were going to attend, then choose the right amount of meat to butcher and prepare, whether a calf or sheep or a couple of chickens.  Once the banquet was ready, then the host would send a servant around to let all those who had RSVP’ed an affirmative that the time had come for the banquet.  Consequently, to make an excuse at the last hour was a huge insult because it meant causing the host to waste all the preparations.  But excuses are all the Master hears.  And boy are they lame excuses.

 

            The first excuse is from a man who tells the Master’s servant, “I have just bought a field and need to go see it.” Now Middle Eastern real estate is not done this way.  There is only a limited amount of arable land so buyers made sure they knew the land “hand over hand.”  That is, they would research its water source, its soil, its profitability for the last ten years, its previous ownership for the last fifty years.  It could take up to a year to research and negotiate the purchase of land.  It would be like us saying, “I just bought this house sight unseen and need to go find out how big it is and what neighborhood it’s in.”  This is a lame excuse! 

 

            The second excuse is from a man who tells the Master’s servant, “I have just bought five yoke of oxen and I’m on my way to try them out.”  Look, the way plowing worked was this: a yoke of oxen only worked if the oxen were the same strength and pulled together both in the morning and in the evening.  If one was stronger than the other, the yoke would pull in a curve, which is bad for plowing.  So what a potential buyer would do is go test out the oxen himself or watch the farmer work his field both in the morning and in the evening.  To hammer the point home, Jesus says the man making this excuse has just bought five yoke sight unseen!  It would be like us saying, “I just bought five used cars sight unseen and need to go see if any of them start.” This is a lame, lame excuse! 

 

The third excuse is from a man who tells the Master’s servant, “I just got married.” Now, Middle Eastern courtesy to women is hyper vigilant. According to Middle Eastern social custom a male should never talk about a female in public, especially to other males.  But here is this husband talking openly about his wife. There is a sub-text here that suggests, “Hey, I can’t wait until tonight; I’ve got a nooner that I can’t pass up.”  This excuse is not only lame, it’s offensive!

 

What’s going on here?  What is Jesus up to?

 

Jesus is entering into a six hundred year old debate.  Imagine: how long have we been debating gun rights or abortion, seems like forever, right?  Now imagine having these same conversations for another five hundred years!  That’s the scene into which Jesus is stepping.  It all links back to the original question from the Pharisee: “Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God. What are your opinions about the great banquet in the Kingdom of God?” This question is asking Jesus how he reads the prophet Isaiah.

 

In our Old Testament lesson from Isaiah 25:6-9, written about 600 years before Jesus, we hear how God is going to host a great banquet.  Our English translations don’t all make a clear distinction, but in the original Hebrew it was quite clear that two kinds of people would be there: the peoples and the nations (goyyim).  Essentially, the Jews and the Gentiles.  And at this great banquet God was going to throw, God would serve thick meat and rich wine, lift the shroud of death from the earth and restore Israel to a place of respect.  Everything would be wonderful; everyone would be joyful, both Jews and Gentiles, the peoples and the nations.

Well, about 400 years before Jesus the Jews put together a book called the Targuum, which is an Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures with some interpretations added in beside the text.  It says of Isaiah 25: “and although the nations suppose it will be an honor, it will be a shame to them and great plagues will fall upon them, plagues they will not be able to escape.”

Well, about 150 years before Jesus, we read in another book, this one a commentary on the Hebrew Scriptures, this understanding of Isaiah 25: “The Angel of Death will cut up the nations and blood will flow in the streets.  Then the peoples will sit with the Messiah.”

Well, in Jesus’ day, there was a group called the Essenes who lived in the Qumran community in the desert outside Jerusalem.  The Essenes wrote a group of documents called the Dead Sea Scrolls, which has this understanding of Isaiah 25:  “And then the Messiah of Israel will come and the chiefs of Israel will sit with him according to their dignity…and no one is to be allowed in who is smitten in his flesh or paralyzed or lame or blind or deaf or dumb.”

Ok, so let’s follow the path here.  Isaiah says that God is going to host a great banquet where all peoples, Jews and Gentiles, will rejoice in God’s provision.  This gets changed to: “The Gentiles will be there, but they’ll sure be sorry.”  This gets changed to: “The Gentiles will be there, but they’ll be dead.”  This gets changed to: “The Gentiles aren’t even going to be there.”  And then Jesus gets asked, “What are your opinions about the great banquet in the Kingdom of God?”

            Notice who Jesus says will be there.  “Go out quickly to the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.”  Sound familiar?  I wonder what the good folks from Qumran thought of Jesus?  It’s pretty clear what Jesus thought of their theology.  Jesus continues the parable, “Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house may be full.”  What Jesus is saying here, according to the culture of the day, is to bring in all those Jews who the “good folk” consider unrighteous.  All those who are broken or scarred or even immoral.  Bring ‘em all in!  But Jesus takes it a step further when the Master has the servant go to the roads and country lanes; in other words, if there aren’t enough Jews to fill the party, go find me some Gentiles.  But the Master’s party must be full.

 

            You know, I sometimes wonder what the Pharisees thought of Jesus.  Can you imagine the reaction of all those Pharisees, pillars of the community all, good folks standing for the rights of good folks.  I have to say I find some devilish delight imaging their reaction.  But Jesus goes even one step farther.

            The parable ends in 14:23.  We can’t tell this in our English translations; actually it looks like the parable continues into 14:24: “I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.”  This sounds like it could be the end of the parable, right?  Sure it does.  But in the original Greek we read the true translation: “I tell y’all (all y’all?), not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.” The “you” is plural in the Greek. 

Why does this matter?  Because in 14:23 the Master is speaking to the servant, singular.  If the Master were still speaking to the servant in 14:24, the “you” would have been singular. 

Why does this matter?  Because it means that in 14:24 Jesus has turned to the Pharisees gathered around the table and said to them: “I tell y’all, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.”  Whose banquet?  Did Jesus say, “my banquet”?  But I thought in Isaiah it said the banquet would be hosted by “the Lord Almighty”?  Hmmm.  Could it be that Jesus is claiming that he, himself, will be the host of the Great Banquet of God?  I’ll say it again: I find some devilish…no, no, some divine delight imagining the Pharisees’ reaction.

*****

            Let’s get back to our original questions.  Should we be more exclusive?  Should we draw a harder line?  Would a little fire and brimstone hurt us…or help us?  It seems to me that these are not merely academic questions.  If I hear Jesus correctly in this parable, he is calling his Church to a radical openness toward others for the sake of the Father’s feast.  And yet, there are Christians who argue it is inappropriate to hold a community prayer service and invite a Muslim.  There is a well-known Christian pastor who recently called for the assassination of Venezuela’s president.  There are Christians who kill abortion doctors in the name of our Lord. In northern Africa some of our brothers and sisters no longer use the name “Christian” because of its association with slavery and cruelty in the past; these our brothers and sisters now call themselves “Followers of Jesus” for they want to be known by their love not their hate, by what they are for rather than what they are against.

            It strikes me that for 600 years our spiritual ancestors argued mightily about what they were against.  And they seemed to take great pride and pleasure in seeing who could be against something the most, as if they could put a “notch in their belt” if they were the harshest, most punitive voice in the shrill choir singing songs about God’s wrath.  And then Jesus comes along to remind them that every song they sing is not only lame but offensive in the ears of our Lord. Maybe we Presbyterians are a little too bland, but, my friends, I don’t want to be one of those good, religious folks making a lame excuse. 

            So what are you for?  Are you for God’s grace?  Are you for a love that is ridiculously wide open?  Are you for the people for whom Christ died?  If you’re for these things, then “Go out to the roads and country lanes and bring them in, for the Master’s feast must be full.”

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