‘Come, everything is now ready.’
But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves.
What is this tendency we find in ourselves to excuse ourselves from the feast of the Kingdom? Is it not precisely too great of a preoccupation with the things of this life?
‘I have purchased a field and must go to examine it;
I ask you, consider me excused.’
And another said, ‘I have purchased five yoke of oxen
and am on my way to evaluate them;
I ask you, consider me excused.’
We are caught up in things, not because of their actual importance or worth, but because we are habituated to caring for them. When something more important tries to break into our world, to ask us to open our world out unto some transcendent, we shrink back, protective of life as we know it.
‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town
and bring in here the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame.’
Those with fewer illusions about what they have now are more free from the desire to protect it at all costs. They are more open to transformation and transcendence. They do not expect to be invited to a feast, but, without being able to describe it exactly, they do long for it.
Maybe if we realize that the things which preoccupy us are not much when compared to the great feast of the Kingdom we will not hesitate so much when we are invited. The field and the oxen can wait. Do we really even want to do these menial things instead, or are we just making excuses? And why? Why hide from the feast? Why prefer something less?
Even if we have just married, let us come together with our spouse, for even the consummation of that great good is still not to be preferred to the feast. Everything else will find its time if it turns out to be important. Seeking first the Kingdom ensures that we receive everything else as well. Maybe we fear the feast because it seems too good or too free and undeserved. It is free and undeserved but we need not fear it. Work does have a place. But we were made for the feast.
There is something in us that wants everything to go to those who earn it. We ourselves don't want to attend a feast that if we didn't earn the price of admission. But we can't earn it and could never in fact repay it. There is something about it that hurts our pride. We are called to uproot this pride in ourselves by taking on the attitude of Jesus, who was able to come to us because he did not insist on only ever receiving what was his due.
Have among yourselves the same attitude
that is also yours in Christ Jesus,
Who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
something to be grasped.
When we have this attitude of humility that Jesus demonstrated we will not only be able to come to the feast ourselves, but we will also be able to invite the others whom God is calling through us, people that are pride would make us ignore.
‘Go out to the highways and hedgerows
and make people come in that my home may be filled.
Then, together, we can celebrate with the joy that God always intended us to have. "The lowly shall eat their fill". We can praise the Lord in the assembly of his people, with hearts that are "ever merry".
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
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