21 August 2014 - invited

Don't be this guy.

everything is ready; come to the feast

Today Jesus invites us to experience the joy of our salvation.  He has killed the calves and fattened cattle to feed us with rich fair.  We must "celebrate the feast" because "our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed" (cf. 1 Cor. 5:7).  As Isaiah says, "Only listen to me, and you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare" (cf. Isa. 55:2).  This is the banquet where we may ask and receive, "so that your joy may be complete" (cf. Joh. 16:24).  This is the joy that marks the life of the early disciples in the Acts of the Apostles, so obvious that it was said "there was great joy in that city."  After all, they devoted themselves to the feast, the "breaking of bread" (cf. Act. 2:42).  This is what blessedness means! We read in Revelation, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb" (cf. Rev. 19:9).

How is it that we have better things to do?  Why do we ignore the invitation and go off to our farms and businesses?  What is it about this invitation that can even provoke some to rage?  Somehow the very suggestion that there might be something better, a lasting peace that the world cannot give, can offend us.  We hear it as a condemnation rather than an invitation.  We might wonder how some know about it before others. Are they better than us to have been invited first?  No, the only criteria to be worthy of this invitation is to accept it.  That's why the king says, "The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come."  Even the wedding garment is a gift we do not earn.  St Hilary writes "The wedding garment is the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the purity of that heavenly temper, which taken up on the confession of a good enquiry is to be preserved pure and unspotted for the company of the kingdom of heaven."

Jesus invites us to receive this summons as an invitation.  We're out in the world ignoring it.  We're trying to prove we have value, trying to work to earn our right to exist.  But Jesus loves us into existence.  We don't earn it.  His invitation to the feast is also free and undeserved.  When we finally surrender to him and just let him love us we experience the joy he longs to give us.  We no longer try to prove ourselves with the "better things" we have to do.  We no longer take offense at the messengers who bring this invitation to us.  He creates clean hearts in us that are open to receive all that he wants to give. He wants us in his presence, clothed in his Holy Spirit.  This is the "clean water" that purifies us from the idols of the "better things" we have to do.  We just need to receive it!

Hebrews suggests some practical steps we should take:

We should not stay away from our assembly, as is the custom of some, but encourage one another, and this all the more as you see the day drawing near (cf. Heb. 10:25).

If we act like the banquet of the lamb is unimportant we will certainly come to experience it that way.  If we encourage one another like it actually matters we may even begin to feel like it does.  It may begin to feel like we had just be stone but are now alive.

I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you,
taking from your bodies your stony hearts
and giving you natural hearts.
I will put my spirit within you and make you live by my statutes,
careful to observe my decrees.
You shall live in the land I gave your ancestors;
you shall be my people, and I will be your God.