Everybody loves a banquet: great food and drink, good times, fun people, and you don’t have to cook or clean up. That’s how the scriptures describe being with God: a time of joy coming as a gift, with God as the father of the bride. “The Lord will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines; juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines… The Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces.” Who wouldn’t want that! Apparently, many, at least as Jesus tells the story. In the parable of the wedding banquet Jesus points out that some people don’t accept the invitation, don’t want to receive the gift. What about us? If God is blessing us, how come we don’t feel very blessed? We are here today because we believe, according to our faith, God invites us into happiness. Why aren’t we happy? Do we find it hard to accept the invitation into joy? What are we doing that keeps us from enjoying the banquet? Why, if we want joy and happiness, aren’t we feeling what God wants to give us?
I can think of three reasons: First, we doubt that God will just give us happiness. Perhaps we hear all this talk in the Bible about the invitation to the banquet of God’s joy as just a spiritual version of Publishers’ Clearing House giving away ten million dollars. (“You are already a winner.”) We wish it were true, but we fear we will be suckers to think that such happiness can be ours. We know in this world to get something good you have to earn it. God is just going to give it away! A second reason we aren’t filled with divine happiness: we have a pre-conception of what that happiness will look like. It’s kind of like expecting to get brats and beer at the banquet but instead they serve steak. I had my mind fixed on brats but filets mignons, again! In life we can do the same thing. We imagine, the only way I can be happy is by getting X. (Fill in the blank for yourself: a good income, a wonderful marriage, a healthy body, peace of mind.) When we don’t get what we want (kind of like children playing “go fish”) we figure that happiness can’t be ours. Since things didn’t turn out as I expected, I miss a different sort of happiness that God offers to us. Yes, even the poor, single, sick person can be divinely joy-filled. A third block to receiving happiness: we don’t think we deserve it. Things I have done, things done to me have somehow or other made me unworthy of receiving divine gifts. Maybe if I were holier, or more prayerful, or more charitable, then God would bless me. But I am too wounded. Since I’m just making it I won’t get any of those goodies. A banquet is not meant for the likes of me.
But wait, you say, how about that guy without the wedding garment? Maybe the reason we are not getting divine happiness is because we are messing up. As Jesus tells the story, we do have to do something to enjoy the feast, to enter into happiness – have on the proper garment. The improperly dressed man (the first century equivalent of “no shirts, no shoes, no service”) reminds us that the invitation is not generic but specific. God does not just say “Y’all come” but invites us each by name. Notice the personal nature of the encounter of the king with the man with a dirty shirt. “My friend,” he says. But the man has nothing to say in response. It’s almost as if he thinks of himself as a wedding crasher. It’s almost as if he doesn’t realize he is being gifted with the banquet of love. The happiness God offers freely does not fill us because we are not ready to receive the gift.
So how to do that? How do we get into in the banquet? The trick is not so much doing something we are not doing. Rather, it is getting out of the way so that God can do the divine thing. The great mystics have reminded us that the spiritual life is not so much about addition as it is about subtraction. Think about our senses. We don’t need to do anything to be able to see — just take away whatever obstructs our eyes. We don’t need to do anything to be able to hear — just take away the things blocking our ears. We don’t need to do anything to be able to smell — just remove whatever hinders our noses. And we don’t need to do anything to be filled with happiness — just take away whatever inhibits our hearts. Fear, a sense of unworthiness, unfulfilled hopes can make God seem far away and out of reach. We must learn to see God as the bountiful creator who yearns to shower goodness upon us. We must learn that what we do does not make us valued guests but who we are, children of God.
There is a famous story from the age of exploration of the new world. It seems that one of the boats sailing across the Atlantic from Spain got caught up in a horrible storm that lasted for days. They got completely disoriented. Food and drink were running out. When the storm finally ended they were miles from shore with no water and their mangled mast made forward progress impossible. The crew turned to the Madonna and prayed, “Water, water. We must have water.” Their prayer was so sincere that Our Lady answered them. “Drop your bucket over the side of the boat and drink.” The skeptics among them doubted. They were a far from shore. They would die if they drank the salt water. Finally a brave soul did lower his bucket into the ocean and drank. The water was fresh! You see they were at the mouth of the Amazon River which enters the ocean with such force that its freshwater current pushes a many miles out to sea. We are afloat on an ocean of divine grace but are reluctant to lower our buckets into it. The banquet is there if we would just open our eyes and see it. “Only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life.” Can you see it!
