Sermon for the Second Sunday after Trinity
“If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart”
The Gospel is Christ’s parable about the kingdom of God being likened to a great supper to which those who were invited all made excuse. The Epistle speaks about our hearts in relation to the truth of God revealed.
We are the ones who are invited to a great supper. Our churches stand as the banquet halls of the kingdom of God. “Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God,” we may say, as, indeed, did “one of them that sat at meat with Jesus.” Why, then, does Jesus tell this parable to one who was at meat with him about a great supper to which many were invited and yet no one who was bidden came? To make him and all of us realize the nature of our blessedness. It is found in our being with Jesus.
The point of the parable is clear. “Come, for all things are now ready,” we hear. God provides so much and more for us. But, more often than not, it is we who are unready and all because of our excuses. We turn to our own ways, to the ground, quite literally, and to the ways of dust and death. We ignore the vision and refuse the invitation.
The consequence would seem to mean “no feast” and all because of our refusals of God’s inviting grace, as if our convenience and self-interest were to take priority over God’s will. But our preoccupations and our indifference are simply the forms of our atheism, our denial of the will of God for us. No feast for us because there is no God for us. We are unaware of the wonder of grace.
