Both bad and good – 10 October 2014

Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. (Matthew 22:10)  The Gospel for next Sunday is the parable of the wedding feast.  This one should have wide appeal in today’s church – it’s about food.  The story is a bit fanciful, but it images a culture in which all the right people, all the beautiful, successful people, all the privileged with status, all the ones who dreamt of being at George Clooney’s wedding in Venice, somehow, unaccountably, are now so bored and sated with their lifestyle that they can’t be bothered showing up at the wedding of the king’s son.  It reflects perhaps the ultimate tedium of a life spent answering the demands of the Ego, as on a cruise ship.

But all this food is there and ready, so the king sends his servants out to the streets to gather in all the nonentities, the powerless in society, the poor, the ones who queue up at Winz.  The servants collected, says Jesus, all they could find, both bad and good, and the hall was full.  Imagine that.  (In passing, it amuses me that some modern translations reverse what the Greek says; the Greek says both bad and good; the translators make it both good and bad – as though Jesus was deficient in style.  It’s nicer if you put the good first...)

However, the fact is, admittance to the king’s feast is now no longer a matter of who you are, and no longer a question of what you are like.  Nobody disputes – well, I don’t dispute -- that it’s better to be good than bad, although at times it’s not as much fun.  But indeed, each of us is more or less morally compromised, whether it’s in actions or in thoughts, in our treatment of others, in what we have done or left undone, in matters we can’t mend now, in attitudes...  This is called the human condition, and on a macro scale it causes wars and beheadings.  I have seen it cause the breakup of churches and of families and marriages.  Its walking wounded wander the earth, and most of us are among them or could easily be. 

We are invited and welcome at the king’s feast.  Contemplatives dare to believe, we are there already if we stop, are still and silent, simple and accepting, consenting...we are in there, seated, and at the feast, waiting, content, and the main reality around us is love.  The next reality we know is a reminder of a world of injustice and of hideous violence.  So our stillness is both disturbing and upsetting, as well as relaxing and health-giving.   The kingdom we are in is not the kingdom of power and privilege, strength or status, or social safety.  The king has welcomed all who labour and are heavy laden.   It is not winners and losers any more, it is sufferers and lovers, and all of us who have found how to receive humility and simplicity.