Homily

All the reasons the guests give for not coming to the banquet might appear to be reasonable at least to some degree. But for most of us it’s probably pretty easy to say that their reasons don’t really matter. If they don’t want to go to the banquet, why should they have to go? Even if they have no other excuses, why should they have to go if they don’t want to? It’s a free country, right? But when we stop to realize that the man who is throwing this great dinner party is Jesus Himself, does that change the way we see the reactions of these invited guests? And let us be aware that in the Middle East at this time if you were invited to such a great dinner, three invitations would be sent. These guests had already said they would come to his dinner two times earlier. Only at this third invitation do they tell his servant that they are not coming after all.

As one commentator writes, these guests are so entangled with the people and the things in their life that even if Jesus calls them to His banquet they are not going to attend. They are busy. They have stuff they gotta get done. There are other people involved that have to be dealt with and taken care of. But what if you have pledged your life to Jesus? What if you say you are His follower? What if you claim you share in His divine life? Will you come to the banquet He has invited you to share in? “Well, we want to attend it. We said we’d go. But you know things come up. We have to take care of business. I have a husband, I have a wife, there’s kids to consider, the faucet is leaking, I’m so tired today, I’m afraid this or that might happen, and I can’t do everything, and besides we always do these things like this at this time of year and I can’t be expected to drop everything, can I?”

But what if Jesus is giving the banquet? You won’t come even if it’s Jesus? “We want to come. But how can we with all these other things going on in our lives? I could make a list of all the things I have to deal with and how can I ignore them? There will be other banquets and I’ll probably go to them, but Jesus can’t just expect me to come every time He has a dinner. It’s not that easy, and sometimes I am just so tired in so many ways I just want to stay home and rest.”

That’s where the problem comes in. because we became entangled, intertwined, mixed up, attached to people and things in a wrong way, we can find it easy to excuse ourselves from His invitation. We don’t see the point, we don’t see the value in it, especially compared to the value we have placed on the people and things we are tangled up in. Those take up our attention, our time and energy so much that there’s not much opportunity to sit down at the table with Our Lord. (And, of course, I’m not just talking about physical attendance at Church—even atheists might go for Christmas.)

For example, one great banquet we are called to is to celebrate the Feast of Christmas. And every year we see less and less of Christ in Christmas, and in fact we see more and more how He must be banned from any celebration of December 25th. But how did this happen, and how does it keep happening? Did Jehovah’s Witnesses finally gain control of the U.S. Congress? Have Muslim Jihadis bought all the TV stations and newspapers? Have the Pagan Powers found a way to brainwash the people of the land? I think not. Christian people in a Christian country, have, little by little, thrown Christ out of Christmas and they have allowed business and government to alter our way of thinking of this feast. Christians! We may rightly criticize this, and I do, but we as a Christian people have allowed it to happen, and we have participated in it ourselves, because when the Master of the Banquet calls, we’re not always sure if we want to go or not. We are easily tangled up in other things and other people, and not just for Christmas, but all the time. Jesus is okay for some people on Sundays, but we all know the really important action is found in politics, sports, entertainment and technologies.

When the Master of the Banquet calls why don’t we always accept His invitation? Bottom line is fear. Afraid to give up control, afraid to trust, afraid that it might be too difficult, afraid to change our habits, afraid of what others might say, afraid we might have to give up something we don’t want to give up—and the list could go on for a long, long time.

Here’s where I was going to start listing the benefits and goodness of accepting the Lord’s invitation especially at Christmas. But I changed my mind. I put the question to you: What good can you expect from saying “yes” to the invitation of Jesus to His banquet on the Feast of Christmas? Because if you can’t answer that I’m not sure my ideas will matter to you. What can you expect if you come to His table on Christmas, willingly, faithfully, expectantly, and to come with open heart and mind, putting all those entanglements aside and come just to be with Jesus? What can you expect from it? If we don’t know we won’t go.

There’s eight more days to answer that question for this year. Who’s first on our minds, on our schedules, on our calendar, on our awareness, in our planning, and in our desire for this week? Let us accept the invitation every single day—every single day—and not let those entanglements get in our way. Let us make a daily RSVP declaration—and praise the Lord for His goodness.