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There were some interesting encounters and one that sticks in my mind was a lady who lived in a council maisonette and had five children and no visible husband. Over a cup of coffee we had a stimulating conversation about God at the end of which I assured her that she and her family would receive a ready welcome at St Mary's. She doubted that very much and told me that the middle-class church we were would probably not welcome the likes of her and her children from the poorer part of the parish. Despite her misgivings, she turned up the following Sunday and to my embarrassment she was proved right. Totally ignored and given no welcome whatsoever, she simple said as she left, "Told you so!". I do not know if she ever went to Church again.
We were not an unwelcoming church, or so I believed, but we were definitely a middle-class church and maybe we gave off vibes that could put off others in less fortunate positions, materially. We certainly didn't make her feel 'at home'. I have never forgotten that lady and she always comes to mind whenever I read today's Gospel.
There are two themes in our Lord's story about the guests invited to a meal. The first is hospitality.
Jesus had been invited to a meal by a leader of the Pharisees. he was not, however, invited because he was a special favourite of theirs, The Pharisees always had ulterior motives in their encounters with Jesus and Luke tells us that they were watching him closely. We know from the Gospel as a whole that the Jewish religious leaders, perceiving Jesus to be a threat to their cosy status-quo were out to trap him and de-stabilise what they saw as his dangerous message. This meal was to show them just how much a threatening opponent he was.
Interspersed between the first verse of today's gospel and the rest is the healing of a man with dropsy. As Jesus was going to the Pharisee's home, the sick man came to him and Jesus healed him - to the scandal of the Pharisees who had strict rules about what you could or couldn't do on the Sabbath. The healing led to Jesus asking them whether they would act humanely on the Sabbath if a child or an ox fell down a well. They didn't answer the question because it might incriminate them but you sense their anger.
So the meal began with a bit of bad grace and when Jesus noticed how they all jockeyed for position at the table he told his little story about the wedding banquet. In telling it Jesus showed that he was quite happy to rise to baiting his hosts which might be construed as rather rude of him, but he saw into their hearts. He knew exactly what kind of people he was dealing with. They had not invited him to show genuine and gracious hospitality. It was the last thing on their mind.
Hospitality - the genuine welcoming and acceptance of people is a very important Christian virtue. St Benedict, when he wrote his Rule by which his community of monks were to live, wrote:
All visitors who all are to be welcomed as
if they were Christ .. and fitting courtesy should be paid to all ...
He laid down in great detail how guests should be
treated and the roots of what he said lie in the Old Testament practice
of taking care of the needy. Hospitality, so given, was not with
any thought of repayment or reward and this was brought home to the
Pharisees as it should be to us, in what we should care about - those
who cannot repay and who cannot offer any reward. Hospitality is
an act of generosity and graciousness.When I think of the lady at the beginning of my sermon, I realise that we failed her in hospitality and for that I am sure there will be a judgement when we stand before God because, as St Benedict reminds us in his Rule:
I was a stranger and you took me in -
Matthew 25
- and conversely, I was a stranger and you didn't.
Jesus is quite harsh about any shortcoming when
it comes to helping others and accepting them with open and generous
love. The other, and perhaps major, theme of this Gospel story is about Inclusivity. In drawing the contrast between the kind of guests invited and the kind of guests that should be invited, Jesus is giving us a glimpse into His Father's heart and mind.
The Pharisees were perhaps right to watch Jesus closely because what he taught and what he came to bring about was a total revolution in how we are to view people. The Pharisees stand for all those who treat people well who can be of use to us and who would exclude others who seemingly are of little use to us. There were doubtless many dinner parties given last night so that people could curry the favour of others, perhaps for promotion or for a better social standing. We all know of those who name-drop their way to the top and sometimes there are those who feel they can do this with God too. Those with a holier-than-thou attitude which seeks to curry favour with God by trying to outdo others in self-righteousness. There is still a residue of belief that we can earn our way to heaven. In his little story, Jesus blows this sort of thing out of the water because the truth is that it is, as always, through God's free grace. So Jesus tells us to act differently.
When you give a banquet, invite the poor,
the crippled, the lame and the blind.
Invite those who to you seem to inhabit the
margins of polite society. Invite the ones nobody seems to care
about. Except Jesus, of course. He seemed to like those the
world despises. He spent an awful lot of time with the outcast
and the sinner.But this is not really a story about who we invite to dinner or to share in our social life. This is more than a parable about how we are to behave towards others, especially those in need. This is ultimately a parable about God himself and about the Kingdom which is a kingdom of redeemed sinners and marginalised people. When you don't think you are good enough to get to heaven, you can bet your life that you are immediately put on the guest list! This is a story about the inclusivity of God and about what he thinks of those who try to exclude others.
Sadly, the church has been on the wrong end of this at times. Throughout our history we have excluded people from our cosy circle beaus they don't quite fit in or don't conform to our careful man-made rules:
slaves, black people, women, gays, the poor, the leper, gypsies, those whose religious beliefs don't fit in with ours, and those we really feel to be way outside the boundaries of our faith such as those of other faiths - to name but a few.
In the book, Re-enchanting Christianity, Dave Tomlinson tells of a friend who went on a trip to the Balkans to help build homes after the devastating war in the early 1990s. As the convoy he was in arrived at a border crossing, it was held up when hundreds of Muslims left their cars and knelt by the grass at the road for afternoon prayers. Struck by their devotion and spiritual practice his friend commented on what a wonderful sight it was. One of his fellow travellers replied, "Yes, it's a shame they're all going to hell, isn't it?"
Taken to extremes, this view provides justification for Hitler's extermination of the Jews, gays and gypsies and perhaps, ironically and sadly, Israel's current treatment of Palestinian Arabs. It also provides ammunition for the Taliban against who it views as the Infidels. Not to mention the Church's own mediaeval Inquisition.
Yet I find the spirituality of other faiths to be truly challenging. In Morocco earlier this year I was struck by the five daily calls to prayer which sent Muslims rushing to their mosques. I reflected on how many Christians rush to church five times and day and we dare to claim moral and spiritual superiority over those of other faiths. Will God really consign to hell those who pray to him sincerely five times a day? I leave that question hanging in the air for another time or for your serious consideration. What concerns me is we have in what Jesus says today as elsewhere, a picture of an accepting, forgiving, loving and inclusive God. None of us need feel excluded from the Kingdom because we feel unworthy though if we are too self-righteous and smug and judgemental we may well be in for a surprise if and when we get to heaven.
This inclusivity of God should cheer us because whatever we achieve in worldly terms by way of success, power, fame, status we will always be found wanting when we measure our lives against Christ's. None of us deserves God's free and accepting love. None of us an be so perfect that we can be assured that our deeds will get us to heaven. We all need God's grace; his saving, forgiving love.
This week I was in Salisbury and not far from the parish where a wonderful English priest and poet crafted some of the most beautiful poetry in the English Language. George Herbert wrote a poem called Love bade me welcome. It has been a favourite of mine since I studied it for A level. I was reminded of it by Jane Williams in a reflection she wrote on today's Gospel for the Church Times some years ago. It begins with an invitation by Jesus to sit at table with Him - Love bade me welcome. But the poet felt unworthy:
yet my soul drew back, guiltie of dust and
sinne.
Jesus noticed the holding back and quietly
invited this poor sinner to be his guest.I the unkinde, ungrateful? Ah, my
deare, I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
But protests the poet, Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
I have marred them,
Let my shame go where it doth deserve.
And know ye not, says love, who bore the blame ...
And so the sinful poet takes up the invitation
and did sit and eat. It is a
beautiful poem about the acceptance and inclusivity of God. He
looks on us with eyes of love, with a compassionate heart and with an
open generosity which has no bounds.Let my shame go where it doth deserve.
And know ye not, says love, who bore the blame ...
This is at the heart of today's parable. Jesus loves all who know their need of God - the sinners, the tax collectors, the poor, the disabled, the marginalised. He is less kind towards those who hide behind religion and care little for God himself. He makes a radical statement - the uninvited become the invited, the unloved become the loved. This is what is so revolutionary about the Gospel, about Jesus. He overturns the prevailing strictures of religion with its multiplicity of rules and power control over others and he replaces them with God's Kingly rule of Love. this frees us to become truly children of God because we are truly blessed. all of us are included, no-one is excluded if we allow God to truly transform us with his grace.
And if we are transformed, the the true manifestation of that transformation is to be seen in how we behave towards others. As a Church that means we cannot be anything but inclusive, accepting and loving - open and requiring nothing of those who join us except to know that they are truly loved. Had we been such a church that day when the lady brought her children to church she would have stayed. That's why Jesus sent her and we failed. May that never be true of us in Epping. Perhaps in a very different way to the Pharisees, we should watch Jesus closely. He will show us all we need to know.