Homily on the Eleventh Sunday of Luke
(28th Sunday After Pentecost)
On the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers
and on Those Called to the Wedding Supper
By Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov
(28th Sunday After Pentecost)
On the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers
and on Those Called to the Wedding Supper
By Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!
Dear brothers and sisters, two weeks before the feast of the Nativity of Christ, our Holy Orthodox Church reminds us of its approach and prepares us to meet it worthily. In the present, first preparatory week for the feast, she remembers the saints who lived before the Nativity of Christ – the Old Testament prophets and all the pious people who awaited the coming of the Savior with faith, which is why this Sunday is called the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers. With this remembrance, she mentally transports us to the times of the Old Testament, to the times preceding the appearance of the Savior promised by God, and to encourage us to moral self-purification, she places before us a whole host of great forefathers who shone with their God-pleasing lives.
All the forefathers lived in hope for the Redeemer who would appear and constantly expressed their faith in Him. But while a small number of pious people were expecting the appearance of Christ the Savior on earth and accepted Him, the majority of the God-chosen people of Israel did not accept Christ the Savior, rejected God's voice and care for their salvation, deprived themselves of eternal blessed life, which is what was read today in the Holy Gospel.
The Holy Evangelist Luke tells how the Lord Jesus Christ was reclining at a feast with a certain Pharisee ruler, and one of those reclining said: "Blessed is he who will eat bread in the kingdom of God" (Luke 14:15)! And the Lord offered him and all those present at the meal the following parable in response to this: "A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So that servant came and reported these things to his master. 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 here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’ And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’ Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper” (Luke 14:16–24).
The image of the good master in this parable is understood to be God, the Heavenly Father, Who constantly calls us to His supper, that is, to the Kingdom of Heaven, prepared for us from the foundation of the world, inherited through the acceptance by faith of our Redeemer Christ the Savior and ready to be revealed at the end of this world. The servant, according to the interpretation of the Holy Fathers, in this parable is understood to be the Only Begotten Son of God, Who took the form of a servant for the sake of our salvation, Who always calls us: "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28).
This parable most closely relates to the Jews and pagans of our Lord Jesus Christ’s time, who for many centuries were prepared by the actions of Divine Providence to accept the Savior and enter the Church of Christ, but due to their stubborn unbelief, their fascination with the vanity of life and sinful pleasures, they did not want to appear at the wedding feast of the Son of God, did not enter the bosom of His Holy Church, while He Himself, the Bridegroom of the Church, and His friends, the holy Apostles and Prophets, called them to the path of repentance and salvation in Christ Jesus.
After those who were invited were found unworthy of the wedding supper, the Servant of God, by command of His Master, invites to the feast all the poor, maimed, lame and blind, who gratefully respond to the invitation to enter the feast and be participants in the great supper. By the poor, maimed, blind and lame are meant people who really have natural shortcomings, who more readily respond to God's invitation to follow the Lord to attain the Kingdom of Heaven, as the Apostle Paul also says about this: "Consider your calling, brethren, how that not many wise after the flesh were called, not many mighty, not many noble, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and God chose the base things of the world and the things which are despised, the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things which are, that no flesh should glory in the presence of God" (1 Cor. 1:26–29).
One can understand by the poor and wretched people, imperfect in moral and spiritual terms, people mired in errors and vices, not gifted by nature with virtues, who, however, responded to the call of their Lord with repentance and are the first to go to the Kingdom of God.
Although this parable has, as has been said, the closest relation to the people of Jesus Christ's time, it has the closest relation to all of us. In it, everyone will find, if only they listen attentively to the voice of their conscience, an image of their own relationship to the Church of Christ, to their eternal salvation. From the parable we see that those who are invited to the supper first of all are people who are engaged in lawful labor and are comforted by innocent family joys, which is not an insult to the goodness of God, because the Lord Himself gave the commandment both to work and to have a wife. And nevertheless, the fate of these people, engaged in lawful labor and indulging in innocent pleasures, is very sad. Everything ends for them with the fact that they are deprived of participation in the eternal royal feast and perish. For what? Of course, they are condemned not because they worked and were comforted by family joys, but because, in the midst of everyday worries and cares, they became puffed up with their honorable position and, having become addicted to their work, trade and joys, they forgot about the duty of obedience and respect for their Master and neglected the invitation to His feast.
And among us, dear brothers and sisters, there may be such people who, possessing certain good qualities, and merits, and virtues, spend their time in various works, occupations, entertain themselves with pleasures and innocent joys, and in the midst of their works and joys completely forget about God and their duties in relation to Him. In proud confidence in their righteousness, they consider themselves not in need of mercy, gifts and blessings of God, decisively refuse deeds of self-denial, obedience to God and remain deaf to any call to salvation.
Passion for the earthly, for pleasures, for wealth, for the pleasures of this age, passion for individuals of the opposite sex drown out the call to the Kingdom of God in a person, and he, like those invited in the Gospel, answers: "I cannot come, I beg you, excuse me." Of course, these invited ones will not taste the Lord's supper, will not enjoy the eternal blessedness that they themselves renounce. During their earthly life, they do not acquire anything for life in the abodes of the Heavenly Father. Love, joy, peace, patience, meekness, mercy, kindness, self-control, faith (cf. Gal. 5:22-23 ) - these are the qualities that open the gates of heaven for a person and lead him into the palaces of paradise. But these qualities, which constitute the fruits of the Spirit, are unknown and inaccessible to those who live according to the principles of the flesh, who live only for the earth, without thinking about Heaven, about Jesus Christ and His commandments. And therefore, without apparently grave sins, without evil deeds that disturb the soul, the lover of peace and sensuality, who gives himself over to his worldly cares and joys, forgetting about God, is ultimately subjected to eternal perdition: "He who sows to his own flesh will of the flesh reap corruption" (Gal. 6:8).
But people of the second kind, called from the roads and crossroads, that is, people less gifted and capable in life, turn out to be more responsive, and the call of God addressed to them is crowned with success sooner than addressed to people puffed up with their righteousness or their gifts. The poor in spirit, conscious of their insignificance, moral poverty and inability to arrange their own salvation by their own efforts, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, with all fervor respond to the call to the Kingdom of Christ, to the Christian life, and from their midst come the best guests at the wedding feast of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.
All the great people who have done good to the Church by their exploits, all the great shepherds and teachers of the Church, the holy martyrs who sealed their unbreakable love for Christ with their deaths, the holy ascetics, both male and female, and all the saints of God have come forth from among the called ones – the poor in spirit, the humble-minded – and are now celebrating the wedding supper of the meek Lamb. Many of those poorly endowed with intellectual and moral gifts – the lame, the blind – are entering the hosts of God’s chosen ones, as are many of those who, by abusing them, squandered the gifts of God entrusted to them on sensual and shameful deeds, but then, having repented with all their hearts, healed their sinful wounds and were clothed in a bright wedding garment. We are convinced of this by many saints who, after a wicked, sinful life, became pure and righteous, such as, for example, Saint Mary of Egypt or Saint Moses the Black.
Brothers and sisters! We too are called to the Kingdom of Heaven. Let us therefore be attentive to the voice of God, remembering that there is a limit to our earthly existence, that the time will come when the mercy of God, which now calls us to repentance and correction, will, as it were, give way to justice and the righteous wrath of God. "Behold, now is the accepted time, behold, now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor. 6:2). Let us cleanse ourselves with repentance and correct ourselves, so that we may meet the feast of the Nativity of Christ with a clear conscience and spiritual joy, and from the fullness of joy and feelings sing to the God-child born in Bethlehem: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, to men who pleased God" (cf. Luke 2:14). Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
