Frances Flatman's Teachings on next weekend's Readings :-
As in Matthew’s Gospel we inch ever closer to his passion and death, Jesus’ parables become increasingly astringent and pertinent to our own lives in Christ. It is fundamental that his Parables of the Kingdom give us teaching about the rich generosity of the God who became human to take us, good and bad alike, into his very life eternally; yet at the same time they teach us how to be Christians, people of imagination and ability, willing to risk all in the service of the master in return for his great bounty. Indeed, both in our Reading from Paul where he speaks of our ‘miming’ or copying Christ (in the Jerusalem Bible oddly translated as ‘initiation’), and our Gospel with its picture of the king’s banquet – quite out of proportion to the expectations of ordinary people - we are lifted out of ourselves, shown the kind of followers we are called to become. Made and formed into the image/icon of the Lord, we are all given opportunities to reach out and become what God has made us. In Matthew, with his great lament for the failure of Israel to accept the Messiah, we see the outcome of the Jewish elite’s rejection of God’s offer, and must be left wondering if we too might be accused as they were of ‘hubris’, a failure of the virtue of Temperance, as we see the king’s chosen reject his invitation and follow their own ways. As the Synod in Rome takes place, we too need to consider how and where we are called to be followers of Christ in a world crying out for his grace and salvation, not merely in a world which rejects him, but sometimes within the Church as well, as was Jesus’ experience of Judaism.
We begin on a positive note with 1st Isaiah (25:6-10). Isaiah was the prophet of the 8th century Assyrian conquest of the Holy Land, and we have previously read his passionate condemnation of his nation as it rejected Yahweh. Now however the prophet speaks of a time when God will turn in love and compassion to a repentant people, and they will find him once more, returning to the riches of his embrace. ’On this mountain the Lord of hosts will prepare for all peoples a banquet of rich food, a banquet of fine wines….’ Significantly this is to be ‘for all peoples’, not just Jews.
In a world in which famine, and for the ordinary folk poverty, was the order of the day, learning how to cope was a question of survival. In what we have as the end of his Letter to the Philippians (4:12-14.19-20), we find Paul, still in prison possibly in Ephesus, writing a letter of thanks and solidarity to this Christian community which had clearly sent him financial support more than once. In prison of course, Paul could not work with his colleagues in the leather industry, and it was donations from the Philippian Christians which helped him and his colleagues to survive. Those in prison usually had to find ways to get food and also the means to bribe the guards. Paul had of course in the past relied on the support of patrons in some cities he visited, such as Philippi where he was supported and housed by the wealthy Lydia, a trader in purple cloth under imperial edict. On other occasions, notably journeying, his position might have become much more precarious as the mansios (places to stay on the roads) were expensive, but full of danger from thieves. Paul had experienced both these conditions, and writes of how modelled (miming himself on Christ), he can cope with either situation whilst his benefactors will be rewarded, as the Greek puts it ‘according to the riches of his glory in Christ’. So we are speaking of the Christian expectation of life ultimately in the glory of God, something totally different from the harsh lives of the majority of Greco-Romans.
Matthew’s Gospel (22:1-14) always deals in superlatives with Magi from the fabled east and kings and duplicate madmen and lepers healed. Last week we read the parable of the kingdom of the vineyard in which the tenants murdered the slaves and heir of the vineyard owner with terrible repercussions. Here, Jesus is still in Jerusalem before his passion and is confronted by the chief priests and Pharisees, the Jewish elite, following his attack on the corruption of the Temple. As in so many of these parables, the king represents God. Here we have an account of a marriage feast in which the king’s son and of course his heir, invite vast numbers to the wedding feast, here representing the heavenly banquet as we found in Isaiah. We have to think here of a huge villa such as that owned by the Poppea family (one of whom married Nero) at Oplontis in Italy. (Go onto Google). The visitors would have been given many weeks’ notice of this important event and of their place at it; so imagine the outrage, literally the hubris, the revolt implied by their facile excuses, as regardless of the occasion the invited rejected this great ceremonial day merely to pursue their own affairs, which they could easily have done at any time. Clearly by this time in the Gospel, Jesus has given up all hope of any acceptance by the Jewish authorities as represented by the response of the citizens. It was an appalling affront to the king, and an act of rebellion. Indeed, the rebels slaughter the slaves sent as escort to the villa, all part of the ceremony. In response the king sent an army to destroy the people and burn their town. Matthew of course was writing in the aftermath of the failure of the Jewish Revolt when the elite of the Temple were killed defending the Temple and it was destroyed. Significantly then, the king turns his attention to others, sending slaves to collect those coming into the town at the crossroads, so visitors including Gentile foreigners - let’s think of it as a port - so that they come from far and wide, as clearly Jesus means the sending of the faith to the Gentiles, to us. The slaves, we note, are specifically instructed not to be concerned about the moral probity of the new invitees, but simply bring them into the banquet, clearly clothing them in appropriate garments for the feast as we shall be for the kingdom. During the event we find that the king comes into the main hall where the majority of guests are reclining to greet them. We have to remember that in such situations, as at Oplontis, the host would have dined with his closest friends and family in a much smaller, secluded room apart from the hoi-polloi. Indeed, some of the poorer might have been catered for in back passages and, as Pliny recalls, given lower quality fare. But here the king finds a man improperly dressed, and the treatment of this man puzzles us. The presumption is that this incomer, far from graciously accepting the kings hospitality, and wedding garments, simply grabs at what is given refusing the appropriate clothing, a sign of failure of commitment and of ingratitude, where the rest respond to the kings/God’s welcome as they/we should. Our story, and that of the parable, are deeply intertwined as we are left with the imperative that we live in God’s kingdom with the grace and beauty with which we have been clothed, as we accept the power and glory of God for what it truly is. God’s gift and grace is continually held out to us, will we respond with longing and welcome, or churlishly turn aside to our own ways?
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