C’mon and Celebrate!
(Is 25:6-10; Phil 4:12-14,19-20; Mt 22:1-14)
Speaking about food and cultures: an African lady, who used to work for an ethnic Indian family in East Africa, once told me: “You Indians take so much time to cook, but you eat it all so quickly.” As an Indian, I had never thought of that! Come to think of it, it seems so true. Our women spend most of their day cooking – despite the grinding machines and ‘mixies’ these days! Traditionally and even now, in most Indian families, people squatted on the floor while eating, and used their fingers. Both these factors could be accelerating the speed of eating. In a sense, while eating Indians don’t ‘sit at table’, which is the expression used in most Western cultures, implying the connotation that a meal is not just eating! In the Indian culture, though, people sit and talk for long before and after the actual hurried eating.
In any case, in most cultures a meal is an occasion for coming together. It is communitarian. It is a fellowship. That is why, even people eating alone in trains and buses might invite others to join them, and if forced to eat alone, they would do it rather awkwardly.
In the context of a meal, strangers become friends (Lk5:29), and even enemies become covenantal partners (Gen 26:26-31). No wonder then, meal or celebration is used in the Gospels as a powerful image of the Kingdom of God (or the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’, as the Gospel of Matthew has it).
1. Life in God is a celebration
Yes, the Kingdom of God is a party! The book of Deuteronomy (14: 22-23), says, “Every year, you must take a tithe of what your fields produce from what you have sown and, in the presence of Yahweh your God, in the place where he chooses to give his name a home, you must eat the tithe of your wheat, of your new wine and of your oil, and the first-born of your herd and flock; and by so doing, you will learn always to fear Yahweh your God.” (Just an aside: this seems to be the original meaning of offering tithes!) But I am struck by the expression here that by this common celebration “you will learn to fear the Lord God”. It seems to me that coming to experience God as an awesome God is a celebration. It is a party.
That is why, in the first reading of today, prophet Isaiah declares, “On this mountain, for all peoples, the Lord God is preparing a banquet of rich food, a banquet of fine wines, of rich and juicy food, of well-strained wines” (Is 25:6-10). With no apology to teetotalers – like me! What a powerful image!
But how come, our children sometimes say: “I don’t want to go to church, it is so boring!” Why have we made the experience of God so boring! How do we make it ‘cool’? Jesus challenges those, of his time, who had made religion a matter of the dark and cold corner! He goes out to parties. It didn’t matter whose home he went to: a Pharisee (Lk 7:36f) or a Publican (Lk 19:1f). It didn’t matter what was the occasion – a wedding (Jn 2:1ff) or a Sabbath (Lk 14:1). It didn’t matter even if there was no occasion – he just invited himself (Lk 19:1-10). He went, he ate, and he conquered (Lk 7:36ff; 11:37ff; 14:1ff; 19:1ff). No wonder, they called him a drunkard and a glutton (Mt 11:19).
In the Gospel of John, Jesus begins his public ministry in the context of a wedding feast. In the synoptic gospels Jesus uses the image of the meal or celebration to invite us to contemplate the mystery of the Kingdom. Today’s gospel is one of those powerful texts!
2. The Celebration is a gift and a choice
I have always wondered about the ending of the story of the prodigal son (in Lk 15): did the elder son actually go in to join the celebrations? Today’s gospel has a similar story.
Those who were invited refuse to have fun with their king. The reasons they offer turning down the invitation are valid, though some of them act aggressively: they beat up the messengers. When God invites us to spend time with him, we too find it difficult. And we have valid reasons. We fail to celebrate life: because we are too busy. We choose to stay out! My own struggle is this: particularly when it comes to spending quality time in silence and contemplation. I too am caught up in this rat race of the competitive world.
There are two levels of choices involved here. In the gospel today there were those who refused to come to the party at all; and those who came without proper preparation: those without the wedding garment in the parable of today are thrown out of the party (Mt 22:11-14).
Does this make sense for us – in the contemporary world? There are those who have not responded to the invitation of God at all in their lives. They have no time for him! But there are those of us who have responded to the invitation of God. We have made the first choice – to be part of a believing community. But we may not make a choice to respond to our inner desire to experience God personally. Celebration is allowing the life of God to flow in us. Yes, “many are called but few are chosen” (Mt 22:14). Can we say, many are called but few have chosen! But does responding to God simply solve all our problems?
We conclude with a caveat: celebration of life does not always mean plenty of food and drink. Celebration is a choice. It is a choice to accept whatever God/Life offers. Accepting whatever life offers does not imply lethargy, lazy resignation, and apathy. It is choosing to enjoy an inner freedom. This inner freedom allows the life of God to flow in us. It is this freedom that St Paul talks about in the 2nd reading of today (Phil 4:12-13) and this is what we pray for today: “I know how to live modestly, and I know how to live luxuriously too: in every way now I have mastered the secret of all conditions: full stomach and empty stomach, plenty and poverty. There is nothing I cannot do in the One who strengthens me.”