The Sánchez Archives TWENTY-EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Year A

By
Patricia Datchuck Sánchez

Of Food and Feasting

ISAIAH 25:6-10
PHILIPPIANS 4:12-14, 19-20
MATTHEW 22:1-14

Through the concerted efforts of Isaiah, Paul and Matthew, this community is invited, today, to consider the significance of food and feasting and gathering as a family to be fed by God.

In both the first reading and the gospel, the joys of salvation are described in terms of a great banquet. Rich foods, choice wines and a place at the table will be provided for every guest, honored by the invitation of their divine host. In order to become participants in the feast, the invited need only show a hunger and willingness to be fed. Paul, in his letter to the Philippians wrote that his relationship with Christ was so sustaining and nurturing that it enabled him cope with every circumstance, whether feast or famine.

A metaphor for salvation which appears frequently in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, the banquet motif must have held great appeal for our ancient near-eastern ancestors. After toiling long hours, in a brutal climate, on rough terrain, with only the simplest implements, they considered themselves fortunate to be able to provide a simple meal for their families. . . only to begin the whole laborious process all over again the next day. Surely, the very idea of a sumptuous, free banquet at which every hunger and desire could be indulged was tantamount to paradise. But does the idea of such a feast carry the same significance for twentieth century modern believers? Perhaps today’s readings warrant a certain degree of serious reflection on contemporary eating habits and life-styles.

Unlike our spiritual forebears, food, and even an extravagance of food, is as readily available and as rapidly obtained as the nearest “golden arches”. With drive-through service, this so called fast food generation need not even leave their vehicles. Those willing to wait a few more minutes can telephone a food order to an ever growing number of food factories and a meal will be delivered to the door. All too frequently, these meals in a box or bag are eaten en route or alone, and without benefit of the table-talk and companionship that are also integral to an authentically nourishing experience.

Busy schedules, long commutes to work and school, and dual career marriages have also contributed toward making the shared meal an endangered species in contemporary society. Granted, there are certain occasions when special efforts are made to prepare and enjoy meals together, e.g. Christmas, Thanksgiving, July 4, birthdays, anniversaries, etc.) but these seem to be too few and far between for many.

Sociologists have traced the present change in eating habits back through almost five decades to the time of the second World War. More and more women, who had previously been able to maintain both home and family were called into the workplace to fill the jobs and pick up the slack left by the thousands who had entered military service. After the war, continued economic strain necessitated that both parents find work outside the home in order to provide for the family.

In commenting on the changing family situation, Jeff Smith, a Methodist minister, better known as The Frugal Gourmet, said that the advent of television and frozen pot pies and other T.V. dinner fare did much to change America’s eating habits. As a college chaplain in the sixties, he ministered to a generation that had gown up eating from shaky trays in front of the TV. Shows like Gunsmoke and the evening news precluded any communication; all were eating dinner together, but privately. As a result, many of Smith’s students rejected traditional marriage and family life in favor of communes and other shared living experiences. They were hungry for that human exchange which occurs naturally within the context of a common meal. In order to revive in them the values of family and committed relationships, Smith began cooking and feasting with his students; he attempted to restore mealtime as a time of nurture, exchange, fulfillment and growth.

Given the insights of this minister-chef and the challenge offered by today’s readings, there may be cause to consider . . . If we have become so unaccustomed to feasting together around a common table, the how can the altar be understood as a gathering table? If fast-food pit stops are our only dining experience, then how will we see the necessity of setting aside sufficient time each day (each week) to be physically and spiritually nurtured at the communal celebration of the Eucharist. If the sharing of a meal is regarded simply as an unwanted, time-consuming chore, and relegated to only a few days during the year, then, how will we ever learn to recognize and value, the feast of salvation when the invitation is extended?

ISAIAH 25:6-10

In his study of banquets in the ancient world, Bruce Malina has explained that people in biblical times “used food and drink both as nourishment and as ways of saying something to each other” (“Banquet”, Harper’s Bible Dictionary, Harper and Row, San Francisco: 1985). In general, there were two types of banquets, ceremonial and ritual. Ceremonial banquets were occasions to celebrate the solidarity between the host of the banquet and the invited guests. Ritual banquets celebrated a transformation or important social change such as the transformation of a stranger into a guest (Genesis 19:3-14), or of an enemy into an ally (Genesis 26:26-31). The banquet featured in today’s first reading appears to be both ceremonial and ritual . . . ceremonial in that it celebrated the solidarity of humankind with God, and ritual, in that it marked the transformation of sadness to joy, defeat to victory and death to life.

Isaiah’s vision of a wondrous, ecumenical, gourmet picnic on the mountain is an excerpt from what has become known as the prophet’s Apocalypse (Isaiah 24-27). The material in these four chapters is comprised of several independent eschatological prophecies which have been interspersed with psalmic texts. The prophecies alternate between predictions of desolation and visions of restoration while the psalms respond to the prophecies with prayers of petition and thanksgiving. Most scholars assign a post-exilic date to the Apocalypse and believe it functioned as both warning and inspiration to a people rebuilding their lives after a terrible tragedy.

Not original to the Old Testament, the theme of the great banquet was borrowed from the mythic literatures of Israel’s ancient near eastern neighbors. The motif of the universal feast which celebrated the destruction of enemies and the beginning of a new era of peace can be found in the creation myths of the northern Canaanite tribes.

Perhaps the Hebrew borrower of this myth, and author of today’s Isaian text wished his people to understand that the end of their exile in Babylon should be celebrated as a victory, won for them by God, and the new era of peace and restoration as God’s victory gift to Israel. The joy of that victory and the ensuing peace lent itself to a renewed hope for the future, an eschatological future when humanity’s most formidable enemy, viz. death, would also be vanquished by God.

As Wilfrid Harrington (The Saving Word, Michael Glazier, Inc., Wilmington: 1980) has noted, emphasis on the wine of the eschatological banquet (v. 6) was meant as a counterpart to the dearth of wine caused by the destruction of the earth (vv. 7-9). Boundless joy (symbolized by wine) replaces dire distress (symbolized here by the veil and the web that covers all nations).

Early believers in Jesus recognized the feast of the Eucharist as a realization of Isaiah’s vision and as a prelude to the eternal victory banquet yet to come when all the blessed will be called to the wedding feast. God himself will wipe away every tear; death and mourning shall be no more for the old order will have passed away (Revelation 19:9; 21:4).

PHILIPPIANS 4:6-9

According to an old fable, there once was a king who suffered from a very painful ailment. The royal doctor advised the king that he would be cured if he found a contented man and wore his shirt night and day. Messengers were sent throughout the kingdom in search of such a person. Several months passed and finally the messengers returned to the palace, but, with no shirt. “Couldn’t you find one contented person in all my realm?”, asked the king, his disappointment audible in his voice. “Yes, your majesty”, the messenger replied, “we found one, just one contented man in the kingdom.” “Well then”, demanded the king, “where is his shirt?” Quietly, the answer came back, “He had no shirt.” That Paul had come to experience similar contentment is evident in this excerpted reading from Paul’s letter to Philippi.

So content was he in his relationship with Jesus, that Paul believed that everything else paled into insignificance. If he was hungry or filled to satisfaction; if he were humiliated or raised up in honor; if he had what he needed or if he was totally bereft . . . it was of no consequence to Paul because his value system centered on one priority. That priority was the person of Jesus Christ in whom Paul found the strength for everything he was asked to do and for everything he had to suffer for the sake of the ministry he exercised in Jesus’ name.

In describing his sense of contentment, Paul used a word (see v.11) which would have been familiar to his readers. Autarkes, a term used by Greek ethicists and philosophers signified an attitude of satisfaction and self-sufficiency which was achieved by eliminating all desires. According to the Stoics, a person could become content by a deliberate act of their own will. Paul, on the other hand, was filled with desire, desire for Christ; this overshadowed and subordinated every other need. Paul also understood that his contentment was not achieved by his own strength of will but through the gift of God in Christ Jesus.

His deep sense of contentment notwithstanding, Paul was not insensitive to the needs of others and he was grateful to the Philippian Christians for sharing a similar sensitivity. As referenced in verse 14, the church at Philippi had sent Paul gifts while he was in Thessalonica (see vv. 15-16). Contrary to his customary policy, Paul accepted their help and assured the Philippians that their generosity to him would not go unanswered; God would attend to all their needs and, in the end, bless them with a share of glory (vv. 19-20).

Paul’s challenging message for the first century Church has lost none of its significance over the centuries. . . Christians will be content and able to cope with life to the degree that they are authentically committed to and centered on Christ.

MATTHEW 21:33-43

Among the various sources of Christian tradition, this parable of the wedding banquet has been preserved in three distinct versions. The simplest, and some say most authentic, rendering of the parable can be found in the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas. An independent collection of saying and parables of Jesus, the Gospel of Thomas was discovered almost twenty centuries after its supposed composition in 50-60 C.E. Greek fragments of the text were unearthed at Oxyrkynchus, Egypt, ca. 1900 C.E. and the complete gospel written in Coptic was discovered at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945.

In Thomas’ version, the parable is comprised of a series of refusals to a dinner. Each of the guests who begged off did so for reasons of business or commerce. Consequently the host sent servants into the streets to bring back whomever they could find. The tag line of the parable proclaims: “Buyers and merchants will not enter the places of my Father” (Thomas 64:12). Scholars believe this version to be entirely consonant with the teaching of Jesus, who continually upset social convention and preached that the kingdom would be characterized by a reversal of situations and expectations.

Luke’s version of the parable (Luke 14:16-24), also preserves the reversal motif and bears evidence of the evangelist’s conviction, that the poor, outcasts, those otherwise marginalized from society will find a welcome in the kingdom.

However, when Matthew’s rendering of this parable is compared to these other sources, there are, several obvious differences. The main portion (vv. 1-10) of the parable is offered as an allegorical presentation of salvation history. The host has become a king (God) who was preparing a wedding banquet (symbol of kingdom) for his son (Jesus). The two groups of servants were probably representative of the Hebrew prophets and the Christian apostles, whereas the invited guests who repeatedly refused the king’s invitation and brutalized the servants were intended to portray Israel. People from the byroads represented the gentiles to whom the gospel was also to be extended.

In verse seven, the parable takes a strange twist; the city of the guests is destroyed. “Launching a war after the meal has been prepared but before it is eaten strains even the wide range of probability allowed to parables, and the mention of the burning of the murderers’ city comes out of nowhere” (John P. Meier, Matthew, Michael Glazier, Inc., Wilmington: 1980). For this reason, scholars believe that the Matthean community and evangelist were referencing the destruction of Jerusalem which occurred in 70 C.E. at the hands of Titus and the Roman army. Matthew anachronized this event back into what was purported to be a parable of Jesus. By so doing he was simply updating the history of salvation as it had unfolded by the time his gospel reached its final form in the mid-80s C.E.

The contribution of the Matthean church can also be detected in the incident regarding the guest who was ejected from the feast (vv. 11-13). Aware that God’s invitation to salvation was extended to all of humankind, good and bad alike, the early Christians were also aware that not everyone who received an invitation would remain as a guest. The improperly dressed guest represented those who had not cooperated with or appropriated the invitations which God had offered. As a result of his/her unresponsiveness, the improperly dressed guest forfeited a place at the banquet.

In the sorry experience of guest, readers of Matthew continue to be admonished. Divine overtures of love and daily invitations to salvation are to be welcomed with a willingness to be daily transformed by God’s grace and according to God’s will. To do otherwise is to choose an eternity of insatiable hunger and unquenchable thirst.

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