St George's Cathedral, Cape Town

A sermon preached by The Reverend Bruce W. B. Jenneker at Evensong in St George's Cathedral, Cape Town on the Thirty-second Sunday of the Year, 8 November 2009

I often wonder what it would have been like to meet Jesus in the flesh. Would I have been threatened by his rampant urgency or caught up in the grip of his passion? Would I have been engaged by his preaching and convinced by his miracles? Or would I have been impatient with a country bumpkin I considered an upstart and a rabble-rouser? Would the gaze of his piercing eyes have penetrated the depths of my heart and the sound of his voice calmed my troubled breast? Or, educated and theologically sophisticated myself, would I have dismissed him as inconsequential, and rejected him as undermining and dangerous? I wonder.

Two thousand years of Christianity have brought me to his feet, made me his follower and given me 'eyes to see and ears to hear.'

At the very heart of Luke's Gospel are two remarkable parables. Situated right in the middle of the Third Gospel, giving them structural significance and thematic importance, are the parable of the Great Banquet - appointed to be read tonight - and alongside it, the parable of the Prodigal Son. Holding the two together are some powerfully challenging words on the cost of discipleship, the urgent demands required of those who choose to follow Christ. With this construction Luke is saying that something profoundly essential to the Gospel is buried in this pair of parables and the exhortation that links them.

Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God. He announced to all who would listen to him the beginning of a new reign, under a redefined authority, with a renewed understanding of covenant and law. Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God.

The phrase kingdom of God occurs some 60 times in Matthew, Mark and Luke. Matthew uses it only 5 times since he prefers kingdom of heaven which he uses 31 times. Mark uses it 14 times. Luke uses it 33 times. It is without a doubt a predominant theme of the Gospels. Jesus preached about the kingdom of God: to invite his followers into it, to challenge them to live its values and to claim its hope. Those of us who are baptised into Christ's life and seek to live Christ's way must be citizens of this kingdom before whatever else we choose to be.

There is no reference to the kingdom of God in the Hebrew Scriptures, it is a concept unique to the preaching of Jesus and the New Testament. Judaism knew of and celebrated the reign of God certainly, God's sovereignty and judgement are proclaimed and venerated. The covenant which binds God and God's people together is acknowledged and cherished. But the kingdom of God, the inauguration of which Jesus announced, was a new idea in which the old notions were confirmed and subsumed.

Clearly this new idea needed definition and description if people were to understand it. Clearly also, the kingdom of God was an idea so new, so unfamiliar and so unexpected, that it required careful exposition and an accessible way of approaching it if people were to make sense of it. Jesus created a dynamic new way of teaching precisely for this purpose. The parable, which he employed to explain the kingdom and make it familiar to his hearers, was his unique creation. No less an authority than Joachim Jeremias makes this positive statement: "Jesus' parables are something entirely new. In all the rabbinic literature, not one single parable has come down to us from the period before Jesus." (Joachim Jeremias, Rediscovering the Parables, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1966, p 10.)

This new literary and teaching device invented by Jesus is neither a simple figure of speech nor an allegory. It is not a myth nor a fable. A parable is a short story, drawn from common life, which is intended to convey a single moral or religious truth. Each parable has one focus and one focus only. We miss the point of the parable when we treat it as an allegory, identifying a corresponding reality in our experience with each of the elements of the parable.

Of the over 50 parables in the Gospels, 40 are parables of the kingdom. In the words of Dr Georgia Harkness, the American Methodist theologian and long time professor at the Pacific School of Religion, 'taken collectively the parables of the kingdom affirm three truths: the ultimate sovereignty of God; the acceptance of this sovereignty through human response and obedience to God's will; and a final, victorious consummation' of the whole process of redemption and salvation. According to Dr Harkness, 'the kingdom is above, within, and at the end of human history.' (Understanding the Kingdom of God, chapter 5, Abingdon Press, New York & Nashville, 1974)

How would Jesus' audience have heard the parable of the Great Banquet? Listening to it with their own experience of banquets, invitations to them, the cost of them, the privilege and responsibility of being invited to them, they would have understood that this was about being invited to the Messianic Banquet. They would have known that Jesus was speaking about the feasting of the redeemed that is the blessed eternity with God for those who have responded to God's invitation. From the parable which Jesus told at the dinner table it would have been clear to his hearers that no one may enter the kingdom of God without an invitation from God; that the invitation itself is an offer of grace – lavish, extravagant and unearned – but it is and invitation urgently offered for which the response is eagerly anticipated; and finally that the invitation 'expires,' so to speak.

The parable of the Great Banquet is often interpreted as a teaching on radical hospitality, that everyone is included and no one is left out. While this inclusiveness is characteristic of the kingdom Jesus inaugurated, and the invitation in the parable of the Great Banquet is indeed sent far and wide, the point of the parable is not in the first place about inclusion, it is about being invited and the urgent demand for a response. Matthew's variant of this parable (Matthew 22:1-14) makes this point inescapably clear when those who are invited last, without any prior notice, are expected nevertheless to be ready, dressed for the wedding, wearing appropriate wedding garments. Those without them are thrown into outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The parable of the Great Banquet offers us the astonishing good news of our invitation to share in the reign of God. Each of us is invited: those rightfully invited first, but who are out of tune with God's purposes and make excuses; and those invited last, the ingathering of all and everyone, worthy and unworthy, desirable and undesirable. Everyone of us is invited to share in the glorious kingdom of abundant life where judgement is met by mercy, forgiveness heals guilt, joy conquers despair, unity overcomes estrangement and the integrity of the whole created order is restored.

Along with the astounding invitation to this remarkable and abundant new life, there comes the urgent demand for a response. There is something imperative about this invitation, a burning, pressing urgency. This RSVP is non-negotiable. This kingdom into which we are invited and summoned is no pie in the sky, no cleverly designed political scenario, no cost-effective service delivery. This kingdom is nothing less than the love of God made manifest in time and eternity, it is the will of God breaking into human history to transform and redeem it, it is the dream of God in which all things come to their fulfilment and perfection. It couldn't be more different from the selfish dog-eat-dog world in which we live. It is in direct contrast to the power-grabbing and consumerist patterns that shape our society and culture. This is our invitation. Our response is required.

Seduced by the cosy comfort of our self-indulgent lifestyles, we are blind to the emptiness we have chosen and deaf to the invitation that summons us to a transformed and transforming life. We are so captivated by the purchases we make, the relationships we enjoy, the rhythm and pattern of our self-involvement, that we assume that our world is the best of all possible worlds. Consequently we reject and dismiss out of hand the invitation to a higher life and a nobler dignity.

God is remaking us and our history. God is touching you and bringing grace into your life. God is standing by to be strength for the heavy lifting, wisdom for the pressing decisions, solace for the pain that won't go away. The invitation is in your hand. Your response is urgently anticipated.

God is redeeming time and renewing the world. God is healing the conflicts that divide us. God is bridging the gulf that separates, reconciling those who stand apart. God is transforming the world of exploitation and greed, injustice and war into a kingdom of generosity, justice and peace. The invitation is in our hands. Our response is urgently anticipated.

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