Tuesday in the 31st Week of Ordinary Time, November 6, 2023

Luke 14, 15-24

One of those at table with Jesus said to him, “Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.” He replied to him, “A man gave a great dinner to which he invited many. When the time for the dinner came, he dispatched his servant to say to those invited, ‘Come, everything is now ready.’ But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves. The first said to him, ‘I have purchased a field and must go to examine it; I ask you, consider me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have purchased five yoke of oxen and am on my way to evaluate them; I ask you, consider me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have just married a woman, and therefore I cannot come.’ The servant went and reported this to his master. Then the master of the house in a rage commanded his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in here the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ The servant reported, ‘Sir, your orders have been carried out and still there is room.’ The master then ordered the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedgerows and make people come in that my home may be filled. For, I tell you, none of those men who were invited will taste my dinner.’ ”

The Lord Jesus is in the house of a prominent Pharisee who invited him for dinner on the Sabbath.  The Lord accepted as it presented him the opportunity to teach the Pharisees the truth about their movement and about their own need to convert, giving themselves entirely to the service of God.  They stood very much in need of this conversion because, whether they realized it or not, they had set themselves at the service only of one another while the people went without the true teaching of the Law and the Prophets.

“Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.”  One of the Pharisees offered these words after hearing and perhaps in response to the Lord’s teachings that instead of serving each other they should serve the poor — proposing to them that they invite the poor to their feasts instead of their wealthy family and friends.  The Pharisee meant here to extol the happiness of the Jew who would feast in the times when the Kingdom of David has been restored by the Messiah.  There would be plenty of everything in those happy days, for the poor as well as for the rich.  If we read his remark in this way, he is saying: The poor will have to wait until the Messiah comes and then they will eat.  We recall here that the Jews expected their Messiah to appear at any time. 

“A man gave a great dinner to which he invited many.”  The Lord’s response corrects the man as to his understanding of the Kingdom of God and who would enter it.  This also acts as a counter to the man’s dismissal of helping the poor.  “When the time for the dinner came, he dispatched his servant.”  We should understand the man giving the feast as God the Father and his servant (the Greek word means “slave”) is his Son.  The Father sends out his Son to summon those previously invited to the feast.  The invitation went out in plenty of time for those invited to prepare themselves for it and so they should be standing by awaiting the official summons: “Come, everything is now ready.”  All the invited guests needed to do was to come.  They would not have to wait to be served with food and wine for it had been painstakingly readied for them.  We should compare the servant’s message in the parable with the Lord’s primary message in his preaching: “The time is accomplished and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the Gospel” (Mark 1, 15).  Repent and believe: Come.  

“But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves.”  They say, in effect: What I am doing now, which I could have done earlier or which I do not need to do, is more important than the great favor and honor you have done me by inviting me to your feast.  There refusal to come indicated no mere breach of etiquette but enormous and irreparable disrespect to the host whose feast they had they previously signaled they would attend.  “I have purchased a field and must go to examine it; I ask you, consider me excused.”  The invitation had been issued long beforehand so that the land could have been examined another time.  This excuse signifies attachment to the world, ambition, and wealth.  “I have purchased five yoke of oxen and am on my way to evaluate them.”  Likewise, this man had plenty of time to make this purchase and could just as easily evaluate them in a week as on the day of the feast.  This signifies attachment to carnal sin, that is, living like an animal.  “I have just married a woman, and therefore I cannot come.”  This signifies fear of the opinions of family, friends, and society at large.

“Then the master of the house in a rage commanded his servant.”  God does not rage but out of respect for us, which is an aspect of his love for us, he allows us to make our own decisions and to experience the consequences of our actions, whether for good or for ill.  Many times he mitigates the bad consequences of our actions but he is under no obligation to do so, and the day will arrive when we might reject him and determine to live without him, as the high priests and many Pharisees did in handing our Lord over to be crucified.  The consequences of rejecting God and blaspheming him are too horrible to contemplate.  The wicked experience them as God’s “rage”.

“Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in here the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame.”  Now, we should note here that the people the master of the house ordered to be brought in to to his feast are precisely the same people that the Lord urged the Pharisees to invite to their feasts instead of their families and friends: “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” (cf. Luke 14, 13), whom the Pharisee who provoked this parable had essentially washed his hands of aiding.  These represent the Gentiles, who were “poor in their lack of knowledge of God; “crippled” through their sins; “lame” in their inability to help themselves; and “blind” in their worship of idols and pursuit of worldly goods as though they would deliver some permanent benefit.  The Jews, having rejected the Kingdom of God although long invited to it and for whom it was prepared, are replaced by these Gentiles.  The Father now sends the Son to preach to the Gentiles, which he does through the Apostles and their successors.  “Sir, your orders have been carried out and still there is room.”  There is always room for those who repent and believe in the Gospel, no matter what their past: “The master then ordered the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedgerows and make people come in that my home may be filled.”  This second summons to the feast signifies the great desire of the Father for our salvation.  He is more desirous of it for us than we are.

“For, I tell you, none of those men who were invited will taste my dinner.”  They will not even taste it, let alone be filled with it.  Jesus meant to show the Pharisees themselves as in a mirror.  They would have understood the various signs in the parable, and the reference to the poor shows clearly the true and desperate state of the Gentiles in terms they also would have understood.  Indeed, “Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God”, who gladly enter it when summoned that it is ready and receive the grace to dine with God at his eternal feast.