Translation of the Epistle for the Second Sunday After Pentecost (1 John 3:13-18)
Dearly beloved, wonder not if the world hate you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not, abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in himself. In this we have known the charity of God, because He hath laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. He that hath the substance of this world, and shall see his brethren in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him, how doth the charity of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth.
Continuation of the Holy Gospel According to St. Luke (Luke 14:16-24)
At that time Jesus spoke to the Pharisees this parable: A certain man made a great supper, and invited many. And he sent his servant, at the hour of the supper, to say to them that were invited, that they should come, for now all things were ready. And they began all at once to make excuse. The first said to him: I have bought a farm, and must needs go out, and see it: I pray thee hold me excused. And another said: I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to try them; I pray thee hold me excused. And another said: I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. And the servant returning, told these things to his lord. Then the master of the house being angry, said to his servant: Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the feeble, and the blind, and the lame. And the servant said: Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the lord said to the servant: Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. But I say unto you, that none of these men that were invited shall taste of my supper.
The Saving Words of the Gospel.
Everything is now ready.
In the Name of the Father, of the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Transcription of Sermon
Christ speaks of this great supper, and the early Church Fathers saw in this symbol, and, so to say, two things: certainly, the Supper of the Lamb, which is our Sunday Mass, but also the Wedding Banquet of the Lamb in Heaven, eternal life. And these invitations that God makes are very personal. And it says that everything is ready, which means that, with great solicitude, with great care and love, Our Lord prepared this banquet, and this preparation is basically all of the Old Testament. And then Christ arrives on the scene, and all of those Old Covenants are overcome and replaced by the New. They’re all obsolete, and now comes this New Covenant in the Blood of Christ, the final definitive covenant in His Blood. Everything is ready, and nonetheless, not every heart is ready.
God makes His invitation. And in doing so, He exposes Himself. He exposes a certain vulnerability. He who is Almighty, He who is Infinite Majesty, He who is omnipotent, omniscient, has a weakness. And this weakness is that when He invites us we can say “no” and He can’t do anything about that because He’s given us free will – which is an awesome responsibility to have a free will. Do I use it to say “yes” to Him? – because that’s why I have it.
And so, He makes this offering, and we see excuses from some of the invited. One says, “Well, I just bought…” and it’s called αγρον (agronin) in Greek, which means like a villa, so it’s like a field with a rustic cottage next to it. He says, “I just bought one of those villas, and I want to go have a look at it.” And the other says, “I bought five oxen. I’m going to go have a look at it.” – I don’t know. They all look alike to me. – But he says, “I want to go have a look at those.” And then the other one says, I have a wife. He doesn’t say, “Hold me excused.” So, basically, she was doing the talking for him, I guess.
Nonetheless, when I was reading this, I was remembering about 25 years ago in Germany doing a youth mission in rural Bavaria, and, obviously, we put the boys in the forefront. They did all the talking, and the priests were there just for the sacramental needs. The boys knocked on the door of this very poor farmhouse in a beautiful valley and they invited the man to our offering of the sacraments; we were having the Adoration, we were having the Rosary and the opportunity for Confession, and then there was – this was all week long – we had activities in the parish, and then on Sunday there was like the final Mass of this parish mission.
And this one man in this very poor farmhouse – he had a dirt floor, which you don’t imagine in Germany, you know, which is supposedly first world – well, he said, “I don’t need God, I don’t need to go to Mass, I don’t need any of that.” He says, “I’ve got everything anyone could want here.” And I thought, “You really don’t want much, do you, when Our Lord is offering something far greater?” And He is not compelled. He is responsible, but He is not compelled.
That was a real good lesson for those boys. They said, “Boy, he’s happy with so little.” And I thought, “Yep, that’s kind of sad.” But imagine how sad Our Lord is who, with great charity, had the man baptized, probably had His first communion and confirmation, and he grew out of those things apparently, and was happy with his little shack.
And nonetheless, in all of those cases, the villa, the oxen, the wife, those are God’s gifts that He made for us. We can fool ourselves into thinking that “I did that.” We can fool ourselves into thinking that “I deserved it.” And nonetheless, whether it’s work, whether it’s a house or a family, that’s something that ultimately is a gift of God. And the nature of a gift is that we don’t deserve it. The nature of a gift is that we don’t merit it, we can’t work for it. It’s freely given, it’s gratis.
And this Gospel comes on the heels of a series of Feasts of the Gift. Think of Pentecost, which was the gift that God gives Himself in the Holy Spirit. This mutual giving and taking in the Trinity. And then, we see that in a more expansive way the following Sunday on Trinity Sunday, God’s….. it’s what theology calls the περιχώρησις (perichoresis), or the circumincession, the exchange, the loving exchange that blessed Trinity has within itself, this constant giving and taking, receiving. It’s the first community. It’s the first family. And then Corpus Christi, in which we see God giving Himself to us.
And then we have this other gift which Our Lord is offering, and it’s ultimately salvation. And that, too, is a gift. We can’t earn it after Original Sin. We’ve been estranged from God. We’re aliens. We’ve been alienated from Heaven. We don’t belong in Heaven; we can’t survive in Heaven without grace. That’s like trying to live in outer space or under the water. Well, we’re not made for that. We’re not made for Heaven naturally. Supernaturally, Our Lord gives us life of grace and equips us, and that’s the gift of Himself. He elevates us, makes us a part of His Trinitarian family. Gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit. He gives the gift of the Son in the Eucharist, and He says, “I want you to be a part of what I’ve always been.” There’s a great intimacy there, there’s a great confidence on His part in the invitation, and what a responsibility it is to receive that invitation.
So, the nature of the gift is something that Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 6:2. He says, “In an accepted time I have heard thee, and in the Day of Salvation, I have helped thee; behold now is the acceptable time; now is the time of salvation.” Everything is now ready.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, the Holy Ghost. Amen.
~ Fr. Ermatinger