In Luke 14 Jesus tells a parable of a great banquet. In the story a man was preparing for the great feast and had invited many people, when the feast was ready he sent his servant out to tell the guests that it was time. But when the servant started delivering the news the guests started delivering excuses. One said that they had just made a large purchase of land and needed to inspect it. Another had purchased some oxen and needed to make sure they were of good stock. A third had just gotten married, and, well, they were about to be busy, wink, wink.
The servant came back to his master and delivered the news that all who had previously been invited had decided that there were more important things that deserved their attention. The servant's master became angry and told his servant to then go out into the streets, into the dark corners, into the forgotten places and once there he should invite all that he would find. If there were poor who needed fed, they should come. If their were those with physical limitations, the blind, the lame, the handicapped, they should be invited. The servant went and did as he was told.
When the servant came back this time he told his master that it had been done, and they had arrived, but that there was still room. So the master told his servant to keep going, to all the roads and the country side and to invite all that he came across, friend and stranger alike. And then, finally the master said that those who were first invited would not get one morsel from his table.
In all my years this parable has always been a warning about being ready for when Jesus returns, someday, at sometime, in the future, that we do not know. And while I think this is still true, this morning I had a new thought. Mary was preaching about Advent, the time of waiting for Messiah's entrance and she talked about how the words translated Wonderful Counselor in Isiah 9:6 is, in the TANAK (Hebrew translation of the first testament), translated instead of God who is planning grace. With that she started talking about the second Advent, the one in which we currently find ourselves, the Advent of Christ's returning.
Sitting there the parable I shared above popped into my head and I started thinking about how if A=B then B=A. And if the promise of the first Advent is true for the second Advent then the warning of the second Advent was true about the first Advent. With that thought I started thinking anew about the parable, and about 2020 and about 1918 and about how during the flu epidemic then things shut down and during the COVID epidemic now things shut down and how history is always repeating itself in some way, because humanity is always repeating itself in some way, because what was true about us 100 years ago is still true about us now, because what is true about us now will be true about us in the future. And if that is the case then what is true about us in the time of Jesus's return was true about us at Jesus's birth. A=B then B=A, and it does.
Isaiah lays out his prophesy, lays out the promise, 100s of years before the manger. We know this because we can read it today, but we also know that they knew this at the time because of the wisemen's story to Herrod [Matthew 2], "doesn't it foretell" they say. The knowledge was available, the truth was out there. But who shows up at Jesus's bedside? Is it the wisened? Is it the learned? Is it the wealthy? Is it the powerful? Is it anybody in the know? No, it is not.
The ones that show up are shepherds, because angels appeared to them in country lanes. The shepherds show up because they are the only ones not too busy paying attention to other things to notice the miraculous. And in noticing the miraculous they reorient their plans to make a journey.
The story goes that the wisemen, whom we traditionally call kings were mostly like stargazers, which makes perfect sense. Only someone staring at the stars all the time would notice something that wasn't there before. And when they notice it they try to figure out why its there, and in figuring out the reason they are so compelled that they set everything else aside and make the journey.
In each case it was the ones who were not too busy, the ones without more important things to do, or people to see. Which makes me think back to that parable and about how Jesus can tell a story about how we will be in the future because he already knows how we have been in the past. Jesus came and those that should have rejoiced ignored. Of course that is what is going to happen upon his returning. The question we are left with, the question Jesus always leaves us with is will we be ready? will we be willing? what will we allow to hold us back? what will propel us forward? in the end, who will show up for the grand banquet, and who will go hungry?
Kenny
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