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Dear Saints, dear Miles, dear Declan, the time for excuses has passed.
Now there once was a time for excuses when Israel stood on the banks of the Jordan. The Prophet Moses delivered his final homily to Israel, Israel who was to gird its loins and go to holy war with the peoples of the land of Canaan. And Moses he permitted some to refrain from the otherwise required military service. Has a man just built a house? Let him stay back, lest he die in battle, and another man live in it. Has a man just planted a vineyard, and not yet enjoyed its fruit? Let him stay back, lest he die in battle, and another man eat it. Is there a man who has just betrothed a wife and has not yet taken her? Let him stay back, lest he die in battle, and another man take her.
Israel was to cross through the Jordan into the Promised Land — a miracle, to be sure — going through waters when they were at their highest. But it was only a precursor to, and a prefigurement of Declan, Miles, and of each Christian passing through the waters of holy baptism, to dwell in the promised land, the true promised land, the land that has already been purchased by God, conquered by God’s death, and whose spoils are ready to be distributed.
In fact. The early church father Hippolytus of Rome tells us that in the Eucharistic liturgy following a baptism, they would mix together milk and honey for the newly baptized. In fulfillment, he says, of the promise which was to the fathers, which stated a land flowing with milk and honey, which Christ gave as His flesh, through which those who believe are nourished just like little children. The serenity of His word making sweet the bitterness of the hearts.
So today. For Declan, for Miles, for us — the new Israel here to receive the promised land and the kingdom of God — the time for excuses is over. Today, Lady Wisdom raises her voice; she sends out her young women to announce her banquet. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.
Our Lord today is not teaching of an earthly banquet of this life, but the banquets of the kingdom of God. The banquet, of course, is a picture of heaven, of eternal life. It is the promised land that is the God-Man Himself. It is to dwell in the God-Man Himself. Cyril of Alexandria, another Church Father, writes in his commentary on Luke: “The Creator of the Universe and the Father of Glory made a great supper, a festival for the whole world, in honor of Christ. In the last times of the world and at our world’s setting, the Sun rose for us. At this time, He suffered death for our sakes and gave us to eat His flesh, the bread from heaven that gives life to the world.”
Towards evening, and by the light of torches, the lamb was also sacrificed according to the law of Moses. The banquet — it’s a motif we have throughout Scripture for the celebration of and the participation in the eschatological victory of our God. The prophet Isaiah, for example, in chapter 25, he looks to the future and says, “On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a banquet of rich food. On this mountain, the covering that is cast over all peoples will be swallowed up.” He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord will wipe away every tear from our eyes. Yea, Christ, our Passover Lamb, who bears the sin of the world, has been sacrificed, and yet so few wish to keep the feast.
As the Lord’s words show, so many reject the invitation to the feast immediately, one after another. These people are conquered by a love for the flesh. They seek and toil for what is below, and do not know the hope of eternal life stored up with God in heaven. As the Lord’s Sorry. Last week, do you remember? We saw this in the story of rich man, the rich man and Lazarus. This rich man he rejected the love of God for the sake of his stomach. The rich man was a picture not of the happy life but a miserable life, the life that rejects the life-giving fellowship of God. The rich man was a slave, shackled with gluttony and drunkenness. He was wrapped in a purple straitjacket of fine linen. His belly was full, but his soul was empty.
Father Abraham would have us know that the dealings of this life should never distract us from God’s earnest call to attend His banquets. We should, on the one hand, by the fear of God, be warned of missing the feast and going to hell, and on the other hand, by the love of God, we should be incited to rush to this heavenly banquet. We have just such a warning and invitation in the Old Testament, in the book of Proverbs, from which we had our Old Testament reading. The first nine chapters of Proverbs — it’s all instruction of a father to his son. And in chapters seven through nine, this father he places two women in before his son. He juxtaposes them with one another.
There is the adulteress, he says, Lady Folly, and then there’s Lady Wisdom, who is the pre-incarnate Christ. In the book of Proverbs, the father teaches how both women are going to call out and try to persuade the son. The adulteress, she’s a woman of the world. She stands in the street like a prostitute. She entices by her makeup and perfumes. She speaks smooth words. She seizes fools. She promises them pleasure, love, delight. But she’s the way of death. The father says men who go to her are like oxen going to the slaughter. They’re like a bird rushing into a snare. The man who goes to her, he says, does not know that he’s going to his death. That it’s going to cost him his life. Her house is the way to Sheol, built not with chambers of love, but built with chambers of death.
This is scary. The man who enters his house, he says, does not know that the dead are there, and her guests are in the depths of Sheol. Be warned of this. This is the way of the world: to take what’s pleasing to the eyes, despite God’s word. In contrast to this woman of folly and harlotry, there stands Lady Wisdom, Christ our Lord. She does not try to draw away under the cloak of darkness, and in the shady parts of the street, she raises her voice on the heights, on the crossroads, the highways, the byways, the gates in the front of the town. From her lips come forth what is righteous and what is just. She gives knowledge and wisdom surpassing the hustle and bustle of the world.
And she says, “Take my instruction instead of silver, and my knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.” I don’t know how to better incite you than by this loving call of wisdom to dwell with God. She has built her house; she’s hewn her pillars; she has set her table, and she says, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of my wine.”
Every anxiety-inducing distraction wishes to draw you away from this, but consider what Saint Paul says in our epistle: Christ Jesus Himself is our peace. That means only He can give us satisfaction. Christ Jesus created in Himself one new man to reconcile us all to God in one body. And Paul continues talking about this dwelling with God. He says, “Through Him you have access in one Spirit to the Father, and so you’re members of the household of God, being joined together, growing up together into one holy temple in the Lord. In Him you are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
Dear saints, wisdom, the Son of God lifts up His voice, and we’re invited away from the things that are perishing into God Himself. This is our end, our goal, our destiny. It’s through the Son, in His body given in this banquet, that God is truly enjoyed, known, contemplated, and loved. And this is what we’re created for. Augustine famously, famously said, “Our heart is restless until it rests in You.” It is God’s own presence that finally gives rest. Rest that when we’re in God’s presence corresponds perfectly to the presence of God within Himself, the indwelling of God. Each person within another rest in the Trinity is our goal.
Even now in Him we live, move, and have our being. But there in heaven at that banquet it shall be so in His perfected image. For we shall see Him as He is. Saint John writes at the very end of the New Testament when Saint John saw a new heaven and a new earth. In a new Jerusalem, he wrote, “I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, and He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.'”
So if you have bought a field, come, for you’ve been invited into the Lord’s field, into a new Eden where no thorn or thistle annoy. If you’ve bought five yoke of oxen. Come, feast and adore before the throne with the four living creatures. If you’ve married a wife, come, for Christ is your true spouse. You are bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Your home is where your heart, your head is, Christ. If you’re poor, crippled, lame, blind, come, for the Lord sets the prisoners free. The Lord gives sight to the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous. Come, Jesus says, for everything is now ready.
O taste and see that the Lord is good. O fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him shall lack no thing.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.