Will You Come to the Feast?

A Sermon for the 27th Sunday After Pentecost & the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers

My brothers and sisters, today is the Second Sunday before Nativity, the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers of Christ. On this day, we commemorate the righteous ones of the Old Testament who preceded the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ — especially the Patriarch Abraham, who received from God Himself the promise that “in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed My voice” (Gen. 22:18, emphasis added). We Christians often remember the first half of that verse — “in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” — but how often do we remember the obedience of Abraham that allowed God to give such a promise to him in the first place? Truly, God desires to bless each and every one of us without exception — more abundantly than we can possibly imagine. But all too often, we ourselves despise and resist and run away from the unfathomable heavenly gifts which God offers unconditionally to us all.

This is the tragic reality of which Christ warns us in today’s Gospel parable which we have just heard. God invites all men to the great supper He has prepared — that is to say, the Mystical Supper which we are even now celebrating, and (God willing) will celebrate yet more perfectly in the life of the age to come. But so many of those whom God has called choose not come to the feast, but prefer rather “to make excuse” (Luke 14:18), being totally occupied with the pleasures of the flesh or the cares and possession of this world. So many do not imitate the example of the Righteous Abraham, who despite all his wealth did not hesitate to obey God’s command: “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee” (Gen 12:1). So many follow instead the example of Esau, despising their birthright as those made in the image and likeness of God, and selling their heavenly inheritance in exchange for a mere mess of pottage (cf. Gen. 25:29-34).

So it was with many of the Jews in the time of Christ — but so too it remains with many of us Christians. Therefore the Holy Church offers us this parable on the Second Sunday before Nativity, so that before the Feast each of us might examine honestly the manner of life which we are leading, and the kind of treasure which we are laying up within our hearts (cf. Matt. 6:21). All of us have received an invitation to the Feast. The Lord God will refuse entrance to absolutely no one — indeed, on the contrary He has sent Christ specifically to “compel [all] to come in” (Luke 14:23) — even “the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind” (Luke 14:21), which is to say all those scarred by any manner of sin. The terrifying truth is that there is one thing, and one thing only, that can possibly keep us from entering into the unending joy this Feast: our own unwillingness to go in, our own free choice to go somewhere else instead — like Judas, to “go to [our] own place” (Acts 1:25).

All our lives on this earth have been given to us for this one purpose: to decide whether we want to be with God for all eternity, or whether we would really prefer for Him to simply leave us alone. Perhaps it seems to us impossible that we would ever, like the Gadarenes (cf. Luke 8:26-39), ask God to go away. But, my brothers and sisters, we must all ask ourselves: how many times a day do we, too, “[begin] to make excuse” (Luke 14:18), offering to God (as well as to ourselves) various justifications for the fact that all sorts of other things so often seem more necessary and important to us than being with Him? To put it another way: do we often find ourselves looking for every opportunity to lay earthly things aside and spend more time in prayer? Or do we often find ourselves looking for every excuse to lay prayer aside, and spend more time immersed in the cares and pleasures of this world? Thank God, we have been given all our lives to repent, to learn at long last to make the right decision when we hear His divine call. But, my brothers and sisters, this does not mean we do not have to make the decision until the end of our life finally arrives. No, we make this decision constantly, every minute of every hour of every day: do we want to be with God, or not? In each and every moment, we accept or refuse God’s invitation to His Heavenly Banquet.

It was not for nothing that Christ soon after said: “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!” (Luke 18:24). And make no mistake: all of us standing here today are astonishingly rich according to the standards of Christ’s day (not even excepting those of us who have taken vows of poverty). So for all of us, the allure of this world — with all its innumerable pleasures and riches — is a siren song from which it is exceedingly difficult (perhaps even impossible) to escape. But let us take heart, for most assuredly “with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26).

For proof of that, we need look no further than the obedience and faith of Abraham which we commemorate this day. Despite all his riches — and despite the fact that he had never even glimpsed the promises of God from far off — he not only forsook his earthly home, but was even ready to lay down the life of his own beloved son Isaac for the sake of the Lord God. Indeed, it was precisely after this supreme act of faith that God was able to make him the promise I quoted earlier: “in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed My voice” (Gen. 22:18). Abraham held absolutely nothing back, but offered everything and everyone in his life unstintingly to God.

And herein lies a great mystery: by so doing, Abraham lost absolutely nothing; on the contrary, he gained everything, both in this life and in the life of the age to come. Abraham left his home in Ur and gained the Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey. Abraham offered up his son Isaac, and gained not only Isaac but the very Son of God Himself: the Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, in Abraham we see prefigured the great promise of Christ:

Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My sake, and the gospel's, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.

Mark 10:29-10

So often we think of a sacrifice simply as something that we lose. And because of the weakness of our faith and the blindness of the eyes of our heart, we fear to give up the things of this world that are so precious to us, since as yet “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9). So instead we cling foolishly to the trifles and trinkets of this life, because they are all that we have ever known.

But the true meaning of the word “sacrifice” (etymologically) is not to give something up, but rather to make that thing holy. In this sense, Abraham did truly sacrifice Isaac to God that day on Mount Moriah. In sparing Isaac’s life, God foreshadowed the Resurrection that followed the Mystical Sacrifice of His own beloved Son Jesus Christ, and revealed the great truth that no sacrifice we make to God is ever lost to us, but rather is given back to us by Him — transfigured into what it was always truly meant to be.

My brothers and sisters, in our hearts all of us hunger and thirst insatiably to taste of the Mystical Supper to which the Lord God calls us. Therefore let us ponder well on today’s Gospel parable, confessing honestly and repenting wholeheartedly of all the excuses we have fallen into making for our sinful and foolish desire to avoid the Feast. Let us remind ourselves — over and over again, every minute of every hour of every day — that nothing and no-one in this world can possibly compare with the eternal joy of which we will one day partake at “the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Rev. 19:9) — and of which we are even now about to receive a foretaste. And as we take these last few days to prepare to celebrate the Feast of the Nativity of Christ, let us firmly resolve — with God’s help — to become wholly obedient to the call of the Church which we will again hear only a few short minutes from now:

Let us who mystically represent the Cherubim, and chant the thrice-holy hymn unto the life-creating Trinity, now lay aside all earthly care, that we may receive the King of all, Who cometh invisibly upborne in triumph by the ranks of angels: Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!