18th sunday after pente y a docx

18th Sunday after Pentecost Y.A Throughout His Ministry, Jesus used Parables to teach his listeners, including His disciples things about the God, The Kingdom and many other things.

Sometimes they are perfectly easy to understanding: e.g. The Lost Sheep, Sometimes they need a bit of explain: e.g. The Prodigal Son - simply because there is a lot in it to reflect on.

Sometimes they leave us scratching our heads, what does it really mean?, did Jesus really say that?.

It is too easy to say well He probably meant this, don’t quite get the nasty bit though.

This morning’s Parable of the Wedding Banquet is a classic.

What does Jesus mean?

Where do we begin?

Well, it starts with a king giving a banquet for his son; who is the king – God? But would God act like the king in the story? When there is a guest without the right garment – “Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Is this kind of image of the king one which we would want to ascribe to God? Hardly!

Perhaps in the Victorian era with its “brimstone and fire sermons”, then the Preacher was trying to frighten you into the kingdom that might be an image of God. Not for me thanks.

Or in Tudor England when so called heretics were tortured in the most cruel ways to make them confess the errors of their ways - neither is this part of my picture of God or how he wants us to act.

Let’s time travel back to Jesus’ world and time.

What were kings like then?

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Well, the Herods were a pretty nasty lot; killing indiscriminately was par for the course.

Look what Herod the Great, the founder of his dynasty, did when he heard of the birth of “the Messiah” he wiped out all the baby boys around Bethlehem – he would not tolerate any threat to his rule.

His successor, Herod Antipas gave the Head of John the Baptist to his daughter after she beguiled him with her erotic dancing.

So, when Jesus tells this Parable that tells of a king – who/what does he want us to hear?

What if the king represents the rulers of the day?

Then the story of the wedding banquet would open our minds to some deep insights.

Those first invited, in effect, rebel against the king, and as such suffer for it.

So the king gathers up all the locals his troops can find – no one is going to spoil his party, and he will win favour with the crowds through his hospitality.

So then the king comes in - no doubt strutting his stuff – in front of the adoring crowd.

Then the king sees a man without the proper apparel, and he has him thrown out - into the dungeons – no doubt.

Who is this man?

If the king represents the ruling elite - which would include the religious leaders - who is this poor fellow who is thrown out?

“He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account….”

Is he the suffering servant of Isaiah?

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Is this a Parable told by Jesus, to point to his coming passion and death. A death contrived by both the civic and religious leaders of his day?

You see, in many ways we are conditioned by tired old interpretations that so often had awkward bits.

But, if we come to the parables with a clean slate, or is that a blank i-pod screen?, and look at them with fresh eyes we discover a deeper understanding of who Jesus is, and what his life and ministry, death and resurrection are all about.

Much of how we interpret Parables is conditioned by a robust religious institution, which has taken into itself power and privilege, rather than looking at the parables from the point of view of a “radical outsider” who challenges that privilege and power of the institution so as to reform it.

Like John the Baptist whom the king beheaded, Jesus too is a radical. Radical in its true sense; i.e. seeking to return to the foundation -Jesus was seeking to bring Israel back to being the people God sought to fashion in the wilderness, to be a kingdom of priests wholly dedicated to God, but who even there wandered from the path God was giving to them.

So, as St Paul would say – THEREFORE, stand firm in the Lord.

So my beloved: “Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.”

By living in this way, St Paul became the outsider, to bring all who were on the outside – the poor, the homeless, the prostitute, the widow and orphan, into the glory of the Kingdom of God. Look again at the parable, Look at the Cross And see your salvation is near at hand.

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