Last week I told you a story about a family that was so caught up in the consumer culture that it just about destroyed them – until, mercifully, they realized they could intentionally back away from it. Disentangle themselves from the consumer treadmill. And one of the first things they did was to sell or give away some of their possessions.
In last week’s gospel reading, Jesus told his listeners, “Your life does not consist in the abundance of your possessions.” And sometimes we need to get out from under the mountain of our possessions to begin to know that.
He told them a parable about a man who was living his life, trying to take care of his stuff, and then out of the blue was told he was a fool for doing that. That his time was up. “Your life is being demanded of you this very night.”
And then, maybe, Jesus looked into the faces of the people who were listening to him and he saw fear. Because they recognized themselves in that man – the “rich” man. Maybe they, themselves, were not rich, but it is what they were striving for: to have enough. Always it is about having enough.
Maybe Jesus saw the fear in their eyes and he felt compassion for them. I say this because his next words are, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear.” He appeals to their common sense: did worrying ever do a bit of good for you? Can worry add a single hour to your lifespan?
He asks them, can you not see how much God values you? But perhaps they could not see that. Perhaps their expressions still held uncertainty. Confusion. Fear.
Fear is our natural reaction, whether we like to admit it or not. Because every day of our lives we know that we might lose what we have. This world holds a constant threat of scarcity, in so many ways.
If we are employed, we could lose our job. And if we lose our job we probably lose our health insurance. So we could also lose our health.
If we are self-employed, so many things could happen: an accident, a lawsuit, a downturn in business, a supply chain problem. There are so many hazards.
Inflation causes us to worry about making our dollars stretch far enough and worry about how much worse it might get. Bad days on the stock market cause us to worry about the size of our savings and whether we have enough.
We can lose anything and everything, including our life, and so we take measures to protect ourselves, like the man who built bigger barns to store all his grain. But, still, we know nothing is guaranteed, don’t we? And so we worry. We worry about being caught short, just as the ones who stood listening to Jesus that day worried.
So he softened his tone a bit more. “Do not be afraid, little flock. For it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” He wants them to really believe this, to shed their fear and know how much God cares, and so he does the thing Jesus does best: he tells them a parable.
“Be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks.”
As is so often the case, we can better grasp the meaning of the parable if we have an understanding of the first century culture in which he lived. The scholar Kenneth Bailey is helpful in this way.
Bailey suggests we should understand the banquet as taking place within the master’s house (because of the language that is used in the Greek manuscripts.) He hasn’t gone to a banquet somewhere else; he is actually hosting the wedding banquet in his home. And so he most certainly has servants serving in the banquet hall, and servants serving in the kitchen. But he also has servants waiting in his bedroom. Bailey says we should assume these last servants are at the lowest rung in the household servant hierarchy. These ones are, as Jesus might say, the least of these.
These who are the least know their job as well as the other servants do, and they do it. Just like little Daisy at Downton Abbey whose job it is to get up before everyone else to light the fires throughout the huge mansion, they know their job and they do it.
And so these servants wait. All throughout the banquet, they wait, ready to perform their duties when they are needed, when the master comes in from the wedding banquet. They are dressed for action with their lamps lit, ready. No matter how late the hour, they are ready.
Is this a burden for them? Is it an unpleasant chore? We might think so – until the master returns and we see what he is like.
He leaves the banquet that he is hosting because he is thinking about the servants upstairs, waiting to serve him, no matter how late the hour. He has compassion for them, so he brings the banquet up to them.
Were the servants surprised to see him? In a sense, no, because of course they knew he was coming. In another sense, yes, because they had no idea when to expect him.
Were they surprised by the sudden appearance? They could hear the banquet still going on down below. Guests were still celebrating, the party wasn’t finished, but here stood their master before them. And he was carrying bits of the banquet in with him.
He walks in. He cinches his belt, hoisting up his tunic, just like a servant, so it will not get in the way of the work. He invites his servants to sit and he begins to serve them. The master serves the servants.
And if these servants knew him to be the kind of master who would do this? then, no, this work is not a burden at all. Their job is not an unpleasant task because they have the most loving, most generous master one could imagine. They have a master who will be sure, no matter how far from the action, to bring the wedding banquet to them. to make them, also, a part if the banquet.
These servants are not just lowly slaves. They are not just the lowest peons in the kingdom. These men and women are wedding banquet people. Because they know their master for who he is, they know that they are wedding banquet people.
Isn’t that a lovely phrase? I have another preacher, Chelsey Harmon, to thank for it. We need not be afraid, as Jesus tells us in so many ways. There is no need to be afraid because we, too, should know ourselves to be wedding banquet people. And as wedding banquet people we share in the celebration, and also in the sharing of the gifts, the joys, of the banquet with everyone else.
Joy is a gift of the Spirit. And, as another talented spiritual writer put it, joy is our first line of defense. Against weakness, against failure, and I would add, against fear. Our master is one who wants us to know and embody joy and so we are also invited to participate in the banquet.
Every time we celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper that is just what we are doing. I am sometimes bothered that we tend to do it so somberly, with all our attention on the death of Jesus, the sacrifice that gives us the bread and the cup. After all, this is not a funeral feast. This is a wedding banquet.
This is the joyful celebration of the victory of life. We are all invited guests.
Do not be afraid, little flock. For it is our Master’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.
All thanks and glory and love and joy be to him. Amen.
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Photo: Lana Foley Photography
