Homily, Receiving the Invitation to Feast at God’s Table
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 23A, 2023
Good Shepherd Episcopal Church
Tequesta, FL
The Rev. Derek M Larson, TSSF
Today’s Lectionary Readings:
Exodus 32:1-14
Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23
Philippians 4:1-9
Matthew 22:1-14
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
So who is the protagonist in this story? Who is the good guy? Who is the one that stands as a symbol of good news for the weary listener? Because this is a difficult parable that sounds a lot more like the violence of this world than the peaceable kingdom.
We have those who were first invited to the banquet—so resistant to the invitation they killed the messengers.
We have the king, who responds with a vengeance so disproportionate, he burns down an entire city.
And then there’s the man who shows up to the feast but refuses to participate fully by honoring the dress code—a dress code the king takes quite a bit too seriously.
It’s hard to find what exactly Jesus means by “the kingdom of heaven is like…” in this parable.
And yet, right there in the middle of it all…is a feast. A celebration. A banquet. And I’m struck by the dissonance between these two images: a feast in the midst of violence. And perhaps that’s where we can find the message in today’s parable.
There’s this incredible movie called Of Gods and Men (I have it in my office if you’d like to borrow it). It’s based on a true story of a group of French, Cistercian monks living and working in a small Muslim village in Algeria when civil war breaks out in the mid-1990s. Throughout the movie you can see the wonderful relationships these men had developed with the people in their community, despite having significant differences in religious belief. But as the area becomes more and more dangerous, and the monks begin receiving threats from nearby terrorists, they have to make the impossible decision of whether to stay and continue serving this community, or to leave for their own safety.
Throughout this aesthetically beautiful film, there aren’t many smiles. Instead the film is filled with grave faces, worried about their future. And yet there’s this one scene when just as the monks sit down to eat, one of them brings out a couple bottles of wine. And turns on some music. And they feast. And as they feast, grave faces turn to smiles. And smiles turn to laughter. And laughter turn to tears, which turn to smiles again.
That’s the kingdom of heaven.
The kingdom of heaven is like a feast in the midst of violence.
A celebration in the midst of chaos.
A banquet in the midst of turmoil.
The kingdom of heaven is the subversive practice of joy in the face of despair. It is the surprising growth of a peace that surpasses understanding. The kingdom of heaven is a feast.
And the feasting doesn’t wait for things to get better. It starts in the here and now. It starts right in the middle of all the messiness in this world. It is not a reward or a luxury for when things finally become as they should be; feasting is in itself, a means of bringing healing and peace to the world. It is the in-breaking of goodness and hope to otherwise hopeless situations.
Feasting refuses to allow the pain and violence of this world to rob us of the presence of God. It does not allow suffering to win. The kingdom of heaven is a feast.
And we are all invited to that feast.
Each one of us individually and collectively are invited to participate in that feast. When the world around us feels like it’s falling apart, we are called to bring out the bottles of wine and to turn on the music, and to shine a light into dark places. We are called to never give in to defeatism, but to find hope and joy in the midst of despair.
The kingdom of heaven is a feast. And Good Shepherd has a table at that feast.
When we say that we exist to be a beacon of faith, hope, and love in this place, what we mean is that we are committing to setting the table and lighting a candle in the shadows that sometimes overwhelm.
When someone is struggling in their marriage and they walk through these doors for worship, we feast together.
When someone isn’t sure how they’re going to put dinner on the table tomorrow and they come to our food pantry, we feast together.
When someone is riddled with skepticism and doubt, and they gather here to study books and Scripture, we feast together.
When a child is struggling in school and finds a community of support from our teachers and staff, we feast together.
When a person is diagnosed with a life-altering illness and they know that our parishioners are praying for them, we feast together.
When a family in Haiti sends their child to school knowing they will have a lunch to eat because Good Shepherd packed it for them back in March, we feast together.
And when all eyes are on the Holy Land, and our hearts join together in prayer for those that suffer, we feast together.
Good Shepherd exists to be a feast of faith, hope, and love in the world.
And you are invited to that feast.
In your service program today you’ve received an invitation—an invitation to feast at the table of God. I invite you to take that invitation, and to put it up on your refrigerator or somewhere you’ll see it regularly. And over the next few weeks as we begin to consider how we might support Good Shepherd financially in the coming year, I hope that it will remind you of why we are here.
We are here because even in the messiness of this world, we have been invited to feast at the table of God. Amen.
Thoughts on Faith 