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Parables of the Kingdom

PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM

TEXT: Luke 14:16-24

 

 

During the first three Sundays in June, I will be preaching on the parables of Jesus. I love this genre. A parable is a little story with an open-ended meaning. Lots of religious teachers tend to use them. They don't beat you up with a moral but open your heart to possibilities. Many times when Jesus' parables are reported in the gospels, the writer won't just let them stand but follows them with an interpretation. And sometimes the interpretation differs from one gospel to the next. I suspect Jesus didn't interpret his stories but just told them and let the people puzzle them out. I'm exploring parables that deal with 3 topics. Today, the kingdom of God, next week, parables of ethics, and on June 17, parables of grace.

Jesus told lots of "kingdom" parables comparing the realm of God-now and in the future-to a mustard seed, a rare and precious pearl, a lost coin, the welcoming of a wayward son. The concept of the kingdom of God is multifaceted so Jesus holds it up and looks at it in lots of different ways. Today's parable of the kingdom compares it to a big banquet. Since parables were often earthy stories rooted in the familiar world of the listener, I'm going to use a contemporary version of scripture to capture the feeling of these little stories that sounded both ordinary and strange.

The scene where Jesus tells this parable is, appropriately, a dinner party. Jesus is reclining with some guests at the table of a well-to-do religious leader in the Jewish community. He seems to be the guest of honor since he is holding forth and telling stories.

LUKE 14:16 - 24 ~ THE BANQUET


NARR: Jesus [told this story:] There was once a man who threw a great dinner party and invited many. When it was time for dinner, he sent out his servant to the invited guests, saying,

HOST: 'Come on in; the food's on the table.'

NARR: "Then they all began to beg off, one after another making excuses. The first said,

VOICE 1: 'I bought a piece of property and need to look it over. Send my regrets.'

NARR: "Another said,

VOICE 2: 'I just bought five teams of oxen, and I really need to check them out. Send my regrets.'

NARR: And yet another said,

VOICE 3 : 'I just got married and need to get home to my wife.'

NARR: The servant went back and told the master what had happened. He was outraged and told the servant,

HOST: 'Quickly, get out into the city streets and alleys. Collect all who look like they need a square meal, all the misfits and homeless and wretched you can lay your hands on, and bring them here.'

NARR: The servant reported back, 'Master, I did what you commanded- and there's still room.' "The master said,

HOST: 'Then go to the country roads. Whoever you find, drag them in. I want my house full! Let me tell you, not one of those originally invited is going to get so much as a bite at my dinner party.'"

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE AS A BANQUET
The first place I want to begin with interpreting this story is that the kingdom of God is compared to a banquet. This metaphor appears often in the Gospels. While the bounty, richness, and glamour of a banquet and the privilege of being invited to one is quite evocative to us, it was vastly more meaningful among the Palestinian peasants who were Jesus' audience for many of his stories. When your stomach is growling, a banquet is the object of your dreams. When you are nobody, getting invited to a dinner party of this sort is beyond all expectation.

In this parable, God does not tell you to be content with your lot, God sends an invitation to come and be filled with good things. For the poor who heard this parable in Jesus' time, this would be good news. For the power structure, this could be bad news. A religious system whose basic tenet promoted respect and a decent life for even the outcasts and nobodies would create tension with a political system which not only denied, but thwarted those rights.

HOPE FOR THE OPPRESSED
You can see why, from early times, the priestly ruling classes tried to keep the Bible out of the hands of the masses. This is revolutionary material. Liberation theologians in developing nations still read it this way, often to the dismay of the powerful. But what about us? How does this apply to folks who are used to having plenty?

AND CHALLENGE FOR THE POWERFUL
First: We are all part of the Body of Christ, and we are called, I believe, to strive for the Kingdom of God on this earth-justice and well-being for all people. As we Christians recreate and live in the realm of God, we are charged with setting the table for the banquet on both a small and large scale.

This week Mary Mackie and Marcia Mitchell spent a day in the kitchen cooking meals to take to the families with new babies or the folks facing surgery. That gesture of Christian love was in complete harmony with the kingdom teachings of Jesus. Every time you put your name on one of the Bristol Lodge sign-ups agreeing to bake cookies or shop for milk to feed the homeless and working poor in Waltham, it is in complete harmony with the teachings of Jesus that tells us that kingdom of God is among us now.

Each time we host a Room at the Table event, go to New Orleans or Honduras, we sit down at the banquet table with our sisters and brothers. It is important to realize that we're not the hosts, God is. We are all being fed by God at this kingdom pot luck. Some bring food, others supply meaningful conversation. When we join in a communal meal with people who struggle just to survive, we learn much about faith, endurance, and what is really of value in life.

DOES OUR FAITH FEED US? IS OUR SPIRITUAL LIFE A BANQUET?
And second: there is also a symbolic and metaphysical interpretation. The kingdom of God is a banquet. Is that the way we experience our faith? Does it give us joy, a sense that we have been chosen, invited to enter into a fabulous state of celebration? Does it fulfill us? Do we have plenty spiritually?

Robert Farrar Capon suggests that, like the guests in the parable, we resist this invitation to joy and affirmation. We seem more comfortable with a dark and fearful religion. Capon comments on this gloomy religious mind-set: "We would sooner accept a god we will be fed to rather than a god we will be fed by."

The privileged guests who heard this story as they sat at the Pharisee's table might have seen themselves in the people who were too busy, too rich, too tied to domestic responsibilities to come to a party. And Jesus might have been critiquing their excessively ritualistic religion which emphasized duty and rule-keeping rather than relationship and joy.

Every time we gather around the communion table, we make the connection between real food and spiritual food-something that sustains our very life.

A pastor told this story about communion. They were serving it at his church that day just as we will today-a loaf of bread to pull pieces from and a cup of grape juice to dip it in. It was a hot day. His own three year old daughter came forward with her mother. When the deacon offered the chalice to the little girl, she grasped it in both hands and downed the whole cup without stopping for a breath.

Come to me and never be hungry.
Trust in me and you will not thirst.