Sunday of the Holy Forefathers; Octoechos Tone 2; The Holy Martyrs Thyrsus, Leucius, Philemon, Apollonius, and Callinicus.
Nativity Fast. Resurrection Gospel 5.
Colossians 3:4-11; Luke 14:16-24.
Read Luke 14:16-24
This is not the first time those with whom Jesus was dining envisioned a “great supper and many invited.” One of the guests saying, “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God,” would have brought to mind Isaiah 25, “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of fat things, and He will swallow up death for ever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,” prompting Jesus to tell this parable.
Jesus reminds them that God is like how he had just taught his host to be (“When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”), rather than how his guests were acting, “choosing the places of honor.”
By marginalizing others because they thought themselves to be more righteous, the Pharisees were like those who made excuses to not attend the feast. In Deuteronomy 20, God says that Israel could trust him in war against larger armies, confidently going with even fewer soldiers, excusing from service those who “built a new house,” “planted a vineyard,” or “betrothed a wife.” God said they could be excused.
By using the word of God for self-righteousness to exclude others, the Pharisees were ironically like those making God-given excuses to not attend the banquet that God is giving. Their mistake was loving their righteousness instead of the the one who gives it and the others he gives to.