The Parable of the Feast

The Parable of the banquet includes a parable within a parable, namely the wedding garment. The parable in the parable is puzzling in that it confronts us again with an Old Testament God of wrath and punishment, law, and order. The excluding, punishing God King is in direct contrast to the other image of God also offered in the Gospel, a God of unparalleled graciousness and abundant, extravagant, reckless love.  Let us agree for one moment to put the wedding garment aside and concentrate on the Parable of the Banquet.  

Jesus’ primary audio-visual image for communicating grace is the feast, the open table fellowship. The Gospel reading is one such example of this.  

Grace is God’s love that God lavishes over us. How do we respond to that love? Do we accept it with confidence and gratitude that God could be that good? Or do we make excuses. It is the undesirables that are then invited to the feast: The good and bad alike. The early readers would have been aghast at this suggestion: Go out and call the good and the bad alike and call them in. Our consciousness cannot take that. The early church was shocked at the suggestion that the kingdom of God be open to the good and the bad alike. Jesus offers the symbol of the meal, the feast, the open table fellowship as an audio-visual teaching aid to offer people a new way of seeing reality. Our response is gratitude. Meister Eckhart says that if you have only prayed one prayer – thank you and meant it – you have prayed enough.  

Babette is a refugee who is a French, and she joins the community.  She offers to cook them a French dinner. People feel very threatened by this. The sect agrees to the meal but promises not to enjoy it! During the meal they start to forgive each other, loosen up and enjoy the feast. At the end of the meal a general gives a speech. The general had obtained everything he had striven for, he only knew of a fact, that he was not happy. It seemed to him that the world was not a moral concern but a mystical concern.

General Löwenhielm's Speech summarises beautifully the resented banquet presented by Jesus:

“Mercy and truth, my friends, have met together. Righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another. Man, my friends, is frail and foolish. We have all of us been told that grace is to be found in the universe. But  in our human foolishness and short-sightedness we imagine divine grace to be finite. ... Grace, my friends, demands nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it in gratitude. Grace, brothers, makes no conditions, and singles out none of us in particular; grace takes us all to its bosom and proclaims general amnesty. See! that which we have chosen is given us, and that which we have refused is, also and at the same time, granted us. Ay, that which we have rejected is poured upon us abundantly. For mercy and truth have met together and righteousness and bliss have kissed one another! 

Trusting that God could be that good for us; and living your life in gratitude for God’s goodness. This is what the bible leads us to.  

What about the person with the wrong wedding garment?

There are many interpretations as to the meaning of the wedding garment and its wearer who is excluded from the feast. The fluidity of meaning is perhaps appropriate for a parable. I suggest that one interpretation acknowledges the shadow side of being an inclusive, welcoming, grace filled community. The parable within a parable makes clear that it is precisely because an inclusive, open, grace filled, invitational community unlocks wide their heart and doors, that a destructive element can creep in. The parable of the wedding garment is a caveat to protect what is precious, the pearl of great price, a community emulating the extravagance of the Divine. Here is the warning: without justice, grace is shallow, without truth, mercy is empty, without righteousness, bliss is irrelevant. I quoted in full General Löwenhielm's speech that married apparent opposites: mercy and truth, righteousness and bliss. The point is this, to be truly inclusive, at some point we may have to exclude. To be truly open, welcoming, and hospitable requires that we vaccinate ourselves against the destructive effects of immunological failure from persons who are harmful to the community.  

The COVID pandemic provides me with a parable that proves my point. All our welcome in our church, except if you have a temperature or have been to a COVID hotspot, in which case you are excluded, and we might also bind you hand and foot, and throw you into the outer darkness. Excluding potential carriers of COVID does not negate our inclusivity but protects it. Healthy communities need healthy boundaries. Have you ever been part of a group or organisation where you have been frustrated that one or two people ruin the fun for everyone? The parable begs the question, when dealing with an uncompromising force, is peace possible? Friedman’s fable, the friendly forest gives us an example of the need for healthy boundaries in establishing an all-inclusive community.  

The story of “The Friendly Forest” describes a place where all of the animals live happily together. One day a tiger asks to join the friendly forest. The tiger disrupts the enjoyable environment, especially for the lamb who is frightened when the tiger growls at her. The tiger seems to stalk the lamb and even when he not physically present the tiger stalks the lamb in her dreams and consciousness. The friendly animals in the friendly forest beg the lamb not to leave. In attempting to solve the lamb’s dilemma, some friends suggest that maybe the lamb is too sensitive or maybe she should accept the tiger for who he is. Some of the animals insist that it is merely a misunderstanding that can be resolved if the lamb and tiger sit down and communicate. The lamb is worried about compromising since there is something wrong about an invasive creature agreeing to be less invasive if the invaded creature agrees to tolerate some invasiveness. Another member of the friendly

Forest overhears the mediation and blasts out: this is ridiculous, if you want a lamb and a tiger to live together in the same forest, you do not get them to communicate, you cage the bloody tiger!