"FOR WHOM THE BANQUET BELL TOLLS"
Rev. Jim Petersen      
First Congregational UCC - Great Falls, MT
3-11-07
Text: Isaiah 25:6-10a - Luke 14:12-24

Not to disappoint you, but we do have a sermon this morning.  It's now.  I forgot to give Holly my sermon title on Friday when she was doing up the bulletin, so she must have assumed I was not preaching this morning, and dropped the sermon out of the bulletin.  You'll like Holly, if you have not yet met our new office manager.  I like Holly.  She was probably trying to give me a break, knowing I have been distressed with my daughter Katie back in the hospital. 
 
Katie is doing better.  We are chasing a staff infection, which began in her lungs as pneumonia, but now has moved out of her lungs into her chest cavity, which is serious.  But for the present the antibiotics seem to be winning, praise God!
 
I've preached this Lenten Lukan text before.  If parts of this sermon sound familiar, catch a few zzzs and lower your blood pressure.  We want you to be fit for our March 25 blood drawing.
 
Jesus is eating.  A lot of eating goes on in the gospels.  You should like the book.  Breaking bread is biblical.  One of my edifying purchases on our recent Holy Land's trip was this book, Food At the Time of the Bible, From Adam's Apple to the Last Supper.  Even has some recipes, "Martha's Meat Balls," "Prodigal Son's Stew," Solomon's Shish Kebab."  You can borrow it if you like.
 
Jesus is breaking bread with the scribes and the Pharisees.  It's biblical.  The scribes are the interpreters and teachers of the Law.  The Pharisees are the keepers and enforcers of the Law.  In Jesus' day in Judaism there is a great deal of Law related to dining. What you can eat and what you cannot eat.  With whom you can eat and with whom you cannot eat.  When you can eat and when you cannot eat.  It is all there in the Law.
 
Probably much the same way it is around your house.  Especially if you have children.  You know, the one pop a day, no cookies before lunch, clean your plate if you want dessert type laws.  When in doubt of the dietary laws, ask the scribes, the interpreters and teachers of the Law.  We call them "moms".  If you have a complaint, take it to the Pharisees, the keepers and enforcers of the Law.  We call them "dads". You understand.
 
Jesus is eating with the scribes and the Pharisees, which is like sitting between Emily Post and Martha Stewart in Dining Etiquette 101.  The scribes and Pharisees want Jesus to flunk, for they are looking for an excuse to drop him from the class.  He has been creating disturbances and distractions.  Furthermore, he has been caught cheating, dining with those with whom he is not to eat at times he is not to eat. 
 
One of the fat Pharisees pushes away from the table and belches,  "Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God."  Undoubtedly the Pharisee is referring to himself and his like-minded Pharisee friends.  Undoubtedly he is not including Jesus.  In fact, the message to Jesus is: no way are we going to graduate you  to the kingdom of God class.  Because, Jesus, you have no class.  Look at with whom you hang and when.
Jesus, in response, turns the table on the scribes and Pharisees in the telling of a parable, intended to teach the teachers a lesson about God's kingdom.
 
"There was once a man who was giving a great banquet, to which he invited many people."  A great banquet, by the way, could only be hosted by a great man.  Someone of wealth and status.  Furthermore, only equally wealthy and ranked persons, as in men, would be invited.  Women were neither wealthy nor ranked.  You can guess their role at the great banquet.
 
This great banquet is a Country Club event, an Officer's Club affair.  The scribes and Pharisees are all ears to Jesus' story.  For to be sure, their names would be high on the guest list.
 
Jesus continues, "When it was the hour of the banquet, (the host) sent his servant to tell his guests, ?Come, for all is now ready!'"  A few things we need to know, for some of us have never received an invitation to such a biblical black tie banquet.  And here I refer to the scholarship of Kenneth Bailey, to whom some of you were introduced during our Advent series and in our Bible study when we viewed parts of his DVD about the birth of Jesus.  And whose scholarship I have used before in this parable, which is the part that may sound familiar to you.
 
In Jesus' day, when a host invites a guest to a banquet, to say, "yes," is to confirm your commitment to attend.  For once the invitations are issued and the acceptances received, the host begins the process of planning the meal, depending on how many persons have positively replied.
 
If 2-4 guests RSVP, a chicken or two will do.
If 5-8 guests, perhaps duck is served to the diners.
If 10-15 guests, a kid will please the palate, as in a young goat.
If 15-35 guests, a sheep is sheered and slaughtered.
If 35-75 guests, a calf will crown the banquet table.
 
We've been told this is a "great" banquet - the host butchers a beef.  Here is how it works: knowing the number of guests, and therefore determining what to serve, the host, on the day of the banquet, has the calf slaughtered and cooked, kosher, of course.  Remember, there were no refrigerators then, so the guests who accept the invitations are duty bound to appear or else the meat will spoil.  Back then even the wealthy could not afford to waste food.
 
The host, upon completing the preparations, would then send out his servant to ring the banquet bell.  "Come, for all is now ready," the servant would shout about for all to hear. 
 
The guests, having obliged themselves to attend, would respond quickly to the summons.  They would drop everything and dine, before the fixings grew cold, for remember, there were no microwave ovens back then either.
 
This was the appropriate custom of invitation and response.  The scribes and Pharisees knew this.  They wrote the book.  In Jesus' story before the ding of dinner bell dies out, our parable takes
a turn.  "But they" we are told, meaning the invited guests, "all began, one after another, to make excuses."
 
Unheard of.  Unacceptable.  If the invitation was accepted you were socially obligated to be there.  Certainly a last minute declination to attend a dinner party is bad taste in any culture. But in Jesus' Middle Eastern culture, not to show was a horrible insult to the host.  Let alone a waste.  Bad form!
 
It's actually worse.  Much worse. Listen to the excuses, again, my thanks to Kenneth Bailey, who, having lived in the Middle East for forty years, really knows this stuff.
 
I. "The first guest tells the servant, ?I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it.  Please accept my apologies.'"  A bold face lie.  A bold face lie and the scribes listening to the story know this.
 
Look, land in Palestine then as now was holy and hard to get.  No one bought a field without:


1.          Exploring every square foot of the terrain - the springs, the wells, the hills, the trees, the soil, the stones;
2.          Investigating the human history of the land, i.e., the generations of ownership, revealing whether good stewards or poor stewards had possessed the land;
3.          Researching the potential profits, based upon past sales receipts, annual rainfall records, anticipated crop yields, etc.  Hear again the guest's excuse:  "I have bought a field and I must go and see it."  Never happen!  Is the host of the banquet to believe his guest has purchased a plot of land sight unseen, and now he must go and see it?  No way!
   


 
A contemporary equivalent: you've invited a couple to dinner, and at the hour they are to arrive, they call on the cell and say,  "Our apologies, we were on our way over when our realtor called and said he'd just closed on a house for us, so now we are going to swing by and take a look at what he bought for us."
 
Actually, the process of buying land in Jesus' day was a long, complex process, intentionally so, for land wasn't supposed to change families.  So it was discouraged by red tape.  To have to suddenly go over and see the property does not cut it.  It is uncouth.  The first guest has insulted the host. 
 
II.  The next guest says, "I have bought five yoke of oxen and I am on    my way to try them out.  Please accept my apologies."  Bull pucky!  This is a fallacious fabrication.  You may not know this, for perhaps it's been awhile since you've bought a team of oxen, but you can bet the Pharisees listening to Jesus knew this.
 
In Jesus' day teams of oxen were sold in one of two ways: 


 
1.          either they were taken to market, where prospective buyers could try out the oxen before making a purchase; or
2.          the farmer invited interested parties out to his farm, where he would demonstrate the oxen at work before accepting bids on the beasts.


 
 
In either case, teams of oxen were never purchased without first being test driven, for no matter how beautiful in appearance, if the oxen did not pull together in evenness of strength, they were worthless as a team.
 
Hear the excuse again, "I have bought five yoke (a team) of oxen, and I am on my way to try them out."  This would never happen.
 
A contemporary equivalent:  the husband phones home and says to the wife, "Say, honey, my apologies, but snuff the candles.  I'll be home late for dinner.  I just called the car dealer and bought a new SUV.  Now I'm on my way over now to find out who the manufacturer is and what the make and model are.  And, no, don't ask, I have no idea what color it is."
 
The second guest has doubly insulted the host, not only with his phony fabrication,  but by implying the oxen are more important than the host.
 
 I mean, it is one thing for the previous guest to say his land is more important than the host.  At least land was holy.  But oxen are unclean animals.  A really rude rebuff of the host.
 
III. Yet a third guest says, "I have just married a bride, and therefore I cannot come."  Well, this excuse takes the cake.  Again, as in purchasing land, or as in buying livestock, selecting a bride was not a spontaneous decision.  One did not "just marry a bride."  Now I am not saying one could test drive the bride, but the marriage event took detailed planning and was the conclusion of years of pre-arrangement.
 
The Hebrew wedding, itself, was a great banquet, an elaborate eight-day festival, involving the entire community.  No way would the host in our parable be so gauche as to schedule his great banquet in conflict with the wedding feast that would have been on the community calendar for a year.   To do so would be greatly uncivilized of the host.
 
Furthermore, even if the marriage were true, the groom would have never used this excuse, "I have just married a bride, and therefore I cannot come," for gentlemen did not discuss nor make reference to their women in public.
 
The guest to the servant: "I have just married a bride..." I don't think so.  A vulgar response, demeaning both the bride and the host.
 
The scribes and Pharisees listening to Jesus would not have missed the meanness and the lameness of the excuses.  Neither could they have mistaken the message of the parable.
 
The scribes and Pharisees are the ones waiting for the messianic call to the final feast, described by Isaiah as, "a fat banquet, a banquet of juicy marrow and good wine."
 
Yes, the scribes and Pharisees have their silver corkscrews ready.  They are sure their names are on the guest registry.  As the fat Pharisee puts it, "Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God."  Meaning, himself and his friends.
 
But Jesus says to them,  "Men, the messianic meal is here.  And you are missing it!"  You see, in Jesus the kingdom of God is at hand.  In Jesus the table is set, and these guys not only cannot see it, they are falling all over themselves with feeble excuses to skip the meal, insulting God as much as the invited guests insult the host in Jesus' parable.
 
Jesus cannot be the kingdom of God at hand, say the teachers and keepers of the Law.  Cannot be.  For look how Jesus:  forgives the sinners, heals on the Sabbath, feeds the poor, reaches out to the outcast, gives vision to the blind, empowers the lame, affirms women, speaks to children, and ministers to the Gentiles.  This cannot be the Messiah.  He does not keep the Law.
As the scribes and Pharisees reject Jesus, so they reject the great banquet of salvation God has promised through the prophet Isaiah.  This is why Jesus tells them the parable.  Jesus turns the table on them, for deep down he does not want them to flunk the test.
 
Furthermore, Jesus warns them through the parable, that even if they reject their invitation, the banquet will still go on.  For as in the parable, the host sends his servant out into the streets and alleys of the village to invite the poor, the maimed, the blind, and the lame to the banquet.
 
And still the banquet table is not full.  So the host sends the servant out again, to the highways and by-ways of the countryside, to compel others to come as well, Jew and Gentile alike.
 
You get the idea why Jesus is not popular with the people in power.  Jesus opens the kingdom of God to persons deemed "unworthy."  To those in power Jesus tells the parable of the great banquet.  To them he says, come to the table.  But with you or without you the banquet will be served. 
 
Instead, the scribes and Pharisees plot to spoil Jesus' supper.
 
Seven Lenten lessons for us from this parable, one for each day of this next week:
 


 
1.          Through Jesus, God invites us to "a banquet of juicy marrow and good wine."  Rejoice, life is not all Lent!  Which is why Sundays are not included in the Lenten count.  Lighten up and enjoy the banquet!
 
2.          The table is set.  Now is the time to participate in God's love.  Not tomorrow.  The table is set and the servant is ringing the bell, "Come, for now is all ready."
 
3.          A question: how often and in what ways do we refuse God's invitation?  How lame and rude are our excuses?  The guests in the parable have their counterparts in every age.  If only we could hear ourselves as we prefer other things to the real thing.
 
4.          How ironic the excuses flow most frequently from those who have been blessed the most.  How ironic, but not at all unusual.
 
5.          Every child of God is invited to God's banquet table, including those in our society we cast out.  We cannot diminish God's love.  We can only make small our own interpretation of it.
 
6.          A careful reading of the parable shows that at the end the banquet hall is still not filled.  Such is God's grace.  There is always room for more.  So get out the invitations.
 
7.          Ask not "for whom the banquet bell tolls."  It tolls for thee.

AMEN.