Excuse me ! Tuesday, 31^st Week in ordinary time – Luke 14:15-24

If Jesus ever turned down an invitation to dinner, there is no record of it. As one commentator put it, Jesus ate his way through the Gospels. Today’s text is the third and final part of a three-part pericope that forms part of a dinner that Jesus is invited to at the home of a leader of the Pharisees (Luke 14:1)

At this dinner Jesus exposed their clamour for power and their mutual admiration society to which only fellow bat-patters were invited. For the Lord, it was those whose love was truly genuine, who would be rewarded at the resurrection of the righteous. Jesus’ words must have caused all of those present at the meal great discomfort. Jesus had effectively exposed and rebuked their sinful ambition.

Hearing the mention of the “resurrection of the righteous,” a clear reference to the coming kingdom of God, one man saw a way to defuse the situation, and so he called out, “Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.” This man, like the other Pharisees, assumed that if anyone were to be at this messianic meal, this banquet of the kingdom of God, it would be people like him.

Realising they had lost the plot; Jesus tells them a parable in which he portrays the kingdom of God as a festive meal. This motif of a festive meal is common in the Bible. To this meal, those invited refused to come, each one making an excuse. The story presents God as being disappointed and even angry that those chosen, namely the Jews represented by the Pharisees, do not respond. Whatever anger God has does not last; the empty chairs at the banquet are to be filled by people who might not expect an invitation.