Patrick Comerford
We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints and Advent.
Before today begins, before having breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 14: 15-24 (NRSVA):
15 One of the dinner guests, on hearing this, said to him, ‘Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!’ 16 Then Jesus said to him, ‘Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. 17 At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, “Come; for everything is ready now.” 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, “I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my apologies.” 19 Another said, “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my apologies.” 20 Another said, “I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.” 21 So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, “Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.” 22 And the slave said, “Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.” 23 Then the master said to the slave, “Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner”.’
Today’s reflection:
In the Gospel reading yesterday (Luke 14: 12-14), we were told that when we give a banquet, we should invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind (verse 14). Now, in today’s parable, the host of a great dinner invites many. But, one after another, they make their excuses and their apologies.
The dinner host is so disappointed that he is angry, and he sends his slave out into the streets and lanes of the town to bring in those very people referred to in yesterday’s reading, he poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.
The phrase in verse 21 that is translated as the ‘streets and lanes of the town’ (πλατείας καὶ ῥύμας τῆς πόλεως) is rendered in Matthew 22: 9 as ‘the main streets’ (διεξόδους τῶν ὁδῶν).
Both Gospel writers mean not the main fashionable, shopping streets in a chic part of a city centre, but refer to dirty, gritty, street corners and junctions, perhaps the main junctions outside the city gates, where those who wanted to be hired as labour, those who were refused entry, those who were on margins, could be found. Other translations catch this significance when they refer to the highways and the byways.
Notice how the invitation goes beyond the many to those most people would not count in, and then is extended even further. Saint Matthew’s account counts in ‘both good and bad’ (verse 10).
Christ’s audience would naturally associate a festive meal with the celebration of God’s people at the end of time. The feast is a recurring image in the Bible of the heavenly banquet and the coming kingdom.
But what is meant by the ‘many’ who are invited from the very beginning (verse 16)?
We could put the Greek use of the ‘many’ by Christ in this parable in its cultural context. Pericles, in his ‘Funeral Oration’ in Athens, according to Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War, uses ‘the many,’ οἱ πολλοί (hoi polloi), in a positive way when praising the Athenian democracy. He contrasts them with ‘the few’ (οἱ ὀλίγοι, hoi oligoi), who abuse power and create an oligarchy, rule by the few. He advocates equal justice for ‘the many’, ‘the all’, before the law, against the selfish interests of the few.
When we celebrate the Eucharist, we remember that Christ is the victim, and that he said his blood is shed ‘for you and for many’ … you being us, the Church, the few; but the many, οἱ πολλοί (hoi polloi), refers to the masses, the multitude, the great unwashed, who are called too.
Christ dies for the many, the lumpen masses, all people, and not just for the few, the oligarchs. The many are invited to his banquet. If we exclude them, we are in danger of excluding Christ himself.
The feast or the banquet is a consistent and persistent image of the messianic banquet. How often do we try to shorten and edit the guest list for the party? The task of the slave is to gather in more than the many, beyond any invitation we might draw up, beyond any generosity we may imagine in extending the invitation.
A grave in Kerameikós, Athens, where Pericles delivered his funeral oration (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 5 November 2024):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Conflict, Confluence and Creativity’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections by Rebecca Boardman, former Operations Manager, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 5 November 2024) invites us to pray:
Let us pray for our theological institutions, teachers and scholars, and for the work of theological education and churches together.
The Collect:
Almighty and eternal God,
you have kindled the flame of love
in the hearts of the saints:
grant to us the same faith and power of love,
that, as we rejoice in their triumphs,
we may be sustained by their example and fellowship;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
Lord of heaven,
in this eucharist you have brought us near
to an innumerable company of angels
and to the spirits of the saints made perfect:
as in this food of our earthly pilgrimage
we have shared their fellowship,
so may we come to share their joy in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
God of glory,
touch our lips with the fire of your Spirit,
that we with all creation
may rejoice to sing your praise;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
