Enlarging the Family

The parables Jesus told were often a challenge to the social norms of his day.  He used these stories to speak about human relationships and God's love and compassion for all people, and he urged his listeners to try new and different ways of doing things that were often taken for granted.

Jesus knew many different people.  He was concerned about those who were disadvantaged or disabled, as well as about those who were in good health and in positions of leadership.  He cared for friends and relatives, and for "the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind." 

The gospel story about a wedding banquet tells us that a religious leader of the Pharisees invited Jesus to be his guest at a Sabbath meal in his home.  Jesus used this occasion to tell his listeners about humility and those who are actually in need of being served.  He said, "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host…. But…go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you."  Then he added, "When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.  And you will be blessed."

This story about the wedding banquet reflects advice from the Old Testament Book of Proverbs: "It is better to take a lower place and be honored by being invited to come up higher than it is to take too high a place and be humiliated by being asked to move lower."

The account of the wedding banquet is a valuable resource for exposing one of the strongest resistances to the reality of God's community.   God’s community is not an exclusive gathering of like-minded people.  Rather, it is a community of inclusiveness and true pluralism.  To think otherwise is to live in a fantasy world of self-containment and total control. 

Robert McAfee Brown, theologian and New Testament scholar, wrote about the wedding banquet.  "Notice that Jesus addressed not only the invited guests but the meal's host.  He had significantly different messages for them.  The guests were to be humbled about the places they chose when invited to a feast, letting the host assign places of honor.  Simply being invited was honor enough; any further esteem should come from the host."

As for the host, Dr. Brown said, "For a moment it appears that the host can do whatever he or she pleases, but Jesus quickly rejects that kind of privileged power play.  Addressing the host, he said, 'When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors…. Invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind.'  If we would follow Christ, we who can afford to be in the position of 'hosts' or 'givers' are called to enlarge the 'family' instead of merely serving our own cozy inner circle."

Enlarging the family reflects the interdependence of all people -- rich and poor, the “crippled, the lame, and the blind,” healthy and sick, women and men, gay and straight, white and black, religious and non-religious.  We begin with ourselves and we move through our parish community into our neighborhoods, our places of employment, and throughout the world.

We are not self-sufficient beings; we are not completely independent.  All that has been done for us, and everything that will be done during our lifetime, is accomplished in concert with others.  Other people have made the things we possess, built the houses we inhabit, provided the modes of transportation we use, and created the wired and wireless infrastructures we depend upon for communication and information.  The ability to see and live with this interdependent reality is the true meaning of the gospel.

Our Church doors are open, and the ministries of Word, Sacrament and service to those in need are here for all who desire a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  We are all invited to a heavenly banquet, and we are also hosts who can invite others to share this meal with us.  Amen.