You Are Invited

[Hand out printed invitations to God’s banquet.] You are invited! You are invited to God’s banquet. You are invited to get to know God more deeply. You are invited to grow in wisdom and in the understanding of your faith. You are invited to partake of all the depth, the richness, the sacrifice, the joy, and the immeasurable love that God offers us. You are invited. You are always invited. All you have to do is let God know that you’re coming.

You can’t miss the invitation to God’s banquet in today’s Scripture. Indeed, the invitation to a rich feast is a common image in both testaments. And no surprise. Hunger is often an image for human dependence on God. Think of the end of Job. After Job has endured testing and torment, and God has restored double all of Job’s fortune, Job throws a great party for all his family and friends. Think of Isaiah 25. “On this mountain,” the prophet declares, “the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines….” Or Isaiah 55. “…you who have no money, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price…. Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” In the Gospel according to Matthew, the parable of the wedding banquet figures prominently. All four Gospels recount both the miraculous feeding of the crowd and Jesus’ last gracious meal with his friends before his death. After his resurrection, in Luke’s telling, Jesus appeared to his friends during a meal and was known to them “in the breaking of the bread.”

So we should not be surprised to be invited to God’s party in today’s Scripture. The invitation in our first lesson is not one we hear very often. Snippets of the book of Proverbs appear mostly in year C, once here, and occasionally on special days. Actually, this collection of sayings, lectures, speeches, and advice is well worth reading. Having grown up over time, as Jewish teachers began to ponder the covenants and the laws, the book of Proverbs represents a compendium of what was considered essential for the life of an individual and the community. In order for us to understand the content of the second two thirds of the book, the first third introduces us to the figures of Woman Wisdom and Woman Folly. Woman Wisdom functions as a guide, especially to the young, whom she invites to partake of her rich feast. Here she especially invites them to feast on her fare and gain spiritual maturity: “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine that I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live and walk in the way of insight.”

God’s invitation to greater wisdom and deeper knowledge of God is equally apparent in our Gospel lesson. We have been hearing for the last month Jesus’ promises in the Gospel of John to feed us with the bread of life. You may remember my mentioning to you last month that often in John Jesus demonstrates his identity through a sign, as he did here with the feeding of the five thousand. The sign is then followed by his explanation of the sign to the crowds and then by disputes with the religious leaders about the meaning of the sign. Today we are in the middle of the dispute. As is usual in John, Jesus and the religious leaders are talking past one another. Jesus speaks on the spiritual plane. The leaders hear him and respond on a literal plane, as they express their dismay at doing something forbidden by Jewish law, i.e., eating the flesh of another and drinking blood. For the hearers of John’s Gospel – both the original hearers and us – those who hear with their spiritual ears hear a different message in Jesus’ invitation. In Jesus’ assurance that “those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them,” we hear Jesus’ invitation to take spiritual nourishment from him, to feast on the manna that he provides, to join the banquet that he hosts, and to grow spiritually. We also hear his promise of eternal life to those who feast at his table: not “pie in the sky when you die,” but lives so rooted and grounded in the risen Lord here and now that they continue forever, even after physical death.

God’s invitation to us is an ongoing invitation. God’s invitation does not expire, and we do not have to reply by a specific deadline. We do not have to come to a specific place to receive God’s nourishment. God’s invitations truly are infinite in number. However, we are finite creatures. We need specific ways to hear God’s invitations more clearly and to continue growing into spiritual maturity. Certainly, God speaks to you through your own private prayer and study. Even if you give God only five minutes of attention a day – although God would assuredly like much more than that – God will find a way to slip a word edgewise into that crack. God will find a verse of Scripture through which God can speak to you. Clearly too the Eucharist is a place in which God has promised to feed us. As we are nourished with Jesus’ body and blood in the bread and wine, his life takes hold in us, deepening our ties with him and ever more firmly rooting us in him.

But there is more to our spiritual lives than Sunday morning or Wednesday evening, important as the Eucharist may be. God also invites us into deeper relationship with God and into greater spiritual maturity through joining with other members of the Body of Christ in Christian formation and prayer. Beginning last Lent, we have followed our Wednesday evening Eucharist with a light supper and interactive class. The first series was an introduction to or a refresher course in the history and practices of the Episcopal Church. The second series was an introduction to some simple contemplative prayer practices. I propose to continue the Wednesday evening classes, beginning after Labor Day, and I invite your suggestions as to what topics and approaches might interest you. One topic on my mind right now, given the recent violence at a Sikh house of worship, is an introduction to the other world religions. Secondly, some of you may remember the Listening Group that I began as part of my Shalem program. A few people, at that time from both St. Peter’s and Grace, met for two hours a month to share their spiritual journeys and to experience different forms of prayer. I propose to revive this group and to open it to all who may be interested, both inside and outside this parish. At the moment, I am considering the afternoon of the second Sunday of the month as a possible meeting time. I invite your suggestions about such a group.

We can choose to accept or decline God’s invitations to us. God cares about the choices we make, but God will not coerce us into any choice. God passionately wishes to be in relationship with us, but God is also patient. God will not love us any less if we find it difficult to accept God’s invitations, and God will wait until we are ready. Neither the Proverbs reading nor the reading from the Gospel of John contain any threat about what might happen to those who decline God’s invitation. However, if we decline, we miss the opportunity to grow into the people God has created us to be. If we refuse to grow spiritually and remain stuck in a primary school version of religious experience, we are like adults continuing to ride children’s tricycles. If we decline God’s invitation, we miss out on the joys that God has prepared for us. And most important of all, we miss the opportunity to follow Jesus in sharing God’s love with our neighbors.

In a few moments we will recognize those who are returning to school. We will demonstrate God’s love for them, as they accept God’s invitation to continue growing intellectually, by blessing their backpacks and school bags. For the rest of us, the start of the academic year, with the beginning of some of our fall activities, is a good time for all us of to look at our own responses to God’s invitation. “Am I pursuing the life of wisdom,” we might ask ourselves, “or am I spending my time on worthless trifles?” Perhaps as a parish we can ask ourselves if we embody a mature faith, or if we are still stuck in what we learned long ago? To what is God calling us now, and are we open to God’s invitation?

Ever-loving God, your Son gives himself as living bread for the life of the world. Fill us with such a knowledge of his presence that we may be strengthened and sustained by his risen life to serve you continually, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.1

1. Sundays and Seasons (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 2011), 251.