2nd Sunday after Trinity: Homily

“THAT MY HOUSE MAY BE FILLED”

Saint Luke 14. 16-24

2^nd Sunday after Trinity: 9 June Anno Domini 2013

Fr Jay Watson SSP

In The Name + of Jesus

   The Lord’s parable is about His Kingdom and thus, about Himself. It is about His unconditional love for miserable sinners and crushed victims of the Law. It is also about the hard-hearted and uncircumcised Pharisees who seek to justify themselves.

   So, is the “great supper” to which a “certain man” “bade many” about: election, salvation, the Eucharist or heaven on the Last Day?

   From other words, the Savior makes clear that His Father loved the world (Universal Atonement) and that whosoever believes (subjective individual faith necessary for Salvation) will be rescued. You also receive His word that “many are called but few are chosen” which, in that context, has the word “many” meaning all and “few” meaning those who come to faith through the Word.

   But rather than attempt to read your own correct theology, taken from the Lord’s full counsel, back onto and into this parable, it behooves faithful listeners to let Jesus’ Words convey His meaning in the context to which He spoke them.

   “Come for all things are now ready,” and “there is room,” and “that My house may be filled.”

   Jesus parable, while of course spoken in the presence of the “12” or now this day in the presence of the New Testament disciples, was spoken TO the Pharisees, Scribes and all the rejecting Jews, who both condemned Christ for eating, drinking and associating with unclean losers and the dregs of “proper” Jewish society, as well as actively watched and waited for Him to do “something” that they could accuse Him of to the High Priest. He also spoke the parable to condemn your own sinful nature which is also self-justifying and hateful of your fellow man.

   Paul gives Gods words, when in writing to Saint Timothy, he states “God desires all men to be saved.” [1 Ti. 2.4]  Jesus wants and commands that the Gospel be preached in all the world. The good news of the Kingdom of Heaven being “at hand” and “repent and believe” and “given and shed for you for the remission of sins” is to be heralded to the many, that is, to all ears, all nations, all peoples!

   “All things are now ready” because “for us men and for our salvation”…“the Son of God came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.”   The Feast is ready because it has been prepared! Christ bought the ground when He made the world (Jn. 1) and He bought the land back when He restored the world in HIM by lawful obedience and by taking that of the world “flesh and blood”—this “sinful dust” from the Virgin and sanctifying it perfectly in the Personal Union with His Godhood. Adam is restored in Jesus the second and perfect Adam as well as nature—though but for a little while longer, she groans awaiting her own Eden-resurrection. Christ bought and paid for, satisfied and accomplished all the plowing, by being the five yoke of oxen; by doing all that the 5 Books of Moses demanded of the Israelites. Not all the blood of beasts, not all the yokes of oxen, on Jewish altars slain…but Christ the Paschal Lamb…Whose Blood sets you free.  The plowing was made in Jesus’ own virgin Body by whip, thorns, nails and spear. Jesus planted in the tilled earth of His Work.  “It is finished” and thus no feeble excuses of having to do or to test or to “prove” can be accepted. The fatling is killed—nailed to the crucifix; the finest wines on the lees have been poured—poured out into the Holy Chalice, held and collected by attending Seraphs.

   Christ has married the “wife” of His own flesh, first by His incarnation—His redemption of all human flesh by sanctifying it in Him, and also by giving His life for His adulterous bride and washing her clean and white in the red Blood of Holy absolution.  All other “marriages” are feigned and bigamous.

   The Pharisees objected to Jesus eating with sinners. The Pharisees objected to what Jesus was feeding the sinners—Himself—His words of forgiveness and peace. The Pharisees objected to what they, “correctly” understood to be Jesus’ intimations and assertions of His identity. The Pharisees, then and now, the “old Adams” for them, and for you, objects to passively being brought into the nuptial hall, and being fed. There’s no satanic pride, or Eve-like acquiescent “empowerment” in being taken care of and clothed and fed. There are no “bragging rights” in being rescued from the dead, washed, clothed and fed like a babe.  And thus, the Pharisee will always object to being with the “poor, the maimed, the halt, the blind” because it is an open admission that he too is sinful and unclean.

   But you, dearly beloved of the Father and bought-back by the Son; you have been carried in from the streets and lanes of the city of man; you have been gathered before the creation of the world from the highways and hedges to be HERE, in THE WAY, surrounded by the hedge of Jesus’ arms, HERE in the City of God to eat His Supper. “It is finished.” The sacrifice of the Lord’s Body and Blood on Calvary has cooked the Feast in the heat of the Father’s wrath against your trespasses—trespasses which are no more.  Receive the banquet prepared two millennia ago and served up this Mass day!

   Yes, you will very soon dine with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at that eternal Eucharist of Life. But now, this day, His house is filled and you need His food and drink; His Body and Blood; His mercy and peace. 

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost