Banquet Parable Parallels

Please click the link above to get the document referenced in the sermon!

1. Matthew’s parable 
   1. Why read this today? Revised Common Lectionary. 
      1. We get Matthew’s version of this parable, which is also in Luke, and I believe Matthew’s version is pretty distorted – – why it sounds like such a terrible party!  
         1. A wonderful paper I found exploring this parable, by Ernest van Eck at the University of Pretoria: “Almost all scholars agree that the Matthean version of the parable is secondary.” 

2. Look at page – comparisons. 
   1. Matthew and Luke are two of the four Gospels (explain). 
      1. Mark is the earliest written Gospel. 
      2. Most Biblical scholars agree that Matthew and Luke both draw on Mark, AND seem to have had access to another source that seems to have been a collection of Jesus’ sayings and parables. (Q source)
         1. There are debates about that hypothesis but it’s held up pretty well over time. 
         2. So when we see something in both Mt and Lk, that isn’t in Mark, we might guess that they got it from Q; & then they both maybe put their own spin on it & worked it into the narrative in their own way. 
   2. And then there’s Thomas. 
      1. Gospel of Thomas – discovered in 1945 as part of a cache of ancient documents found in Egypt. 
      2. Dating uncertain; probably sometime in the 2nd century, later than the canonical gospels, but built on/contains some earlier material. 
      3. It is a sayings gospel – no narrative, just teachings. Overlaps by about 2/3 with the things Jesus says in the canonical Gospels. 
         1. Some of the other stuff is … real weird. 
            1. “Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion becomes man.”
            2. “Whoever has come to understand the world has found (only) a corpse, and whoever has found a corpse is superior to the world.”
            3. Or my favorite – simply: “Become passers-by.”
         2. Thomas likely the work of early Christian sect – a group that had split off from the mainstream church – had this set of their own teachings (“secret” teachings of Jesus), reflecting a more gnostic perspective. 
            1. Gnostic – spell it. Gnostic movements or wings within many religious traditions. 
               1. Characteristics: Emphasis on secret knowledge; intentionally cryptic; usually a strong sense of dualism between body and spirit, this world and another divine world. 
         3. The point here is: Thomas is weird. I think early church leaders were correct in deciding that this gospel did not belong in the Christian scriptures that would be carried forward as our holy text. 
            1. But, when it also has a parallel text to something that’s in our Gospels, it can be interesting and informative to look at it alongside!

3. So, let’s look. 
   1. We’ve already heard Matthew. Will someone read Luke’s version? Skip the part in italics; it shows us how Luke puts this parable in the context of a dinner party. 
      1. [Have somebody read it]
      2. Now let’s hear Thomas.  [Have somebody read it]
   2. Comparing these texts… 
      1. All the really scary stuff in Matthew – the king sending troops to murder the invited guests and burn their city! The guests who weren’t dressed correctly being thrown into outermost darkness! – that is JUST in Matthew. And there’s strong reason to believe that’s Matthew’s editorial voice. 
      2. As I’ve said before: Matthew lived through the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70, after the Jewish revolt that started in 66. He makes sense of that trauma by blaming it on the Jews who rejected Jesus as Messiah. 
      3. Sending troops to kill the guests and burn their city is describing what happened to Jerusalem. 
      4. The wedding garment part is just weird. But it’s very clear that this is also Matthew’s addition. 
         1. “Where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” appears SIX TIMES in Matthew; ONCE in Luke; nowhere else in the Bible. 
      5. So: Matthew has stamped this story, as he received it presumably from Q, with his own trauma and rage. Why I’m mad that the RCL gives us his version!
   3. Comparing Luke and Thomas… 
      1. A lot more similar – quite recognizably the same story. 
      2. Luke’s framing of this parable: Jesus is at dinner at the home of a person of status. He criticizes the way people invite “friends and relatives and rich neighbors” who will invite you back in return – so your hospitality only seems like generosity when it’s actually part of a system of honor and reciprocity where you gain status by hosting an event, and will be given favor in return. 
         1. Jesus suggests pointedly that people try having a dinner party for people who can’t invite them to an equally nice party in return. 
      3. Van Eck notes that some scholars say the inviting of the poor, crippled, blind and lame is something Luke has added to the parable, because it’s the kind of thing Luke likes to emphasize. However, says van Eck, you can also flip that: “Because eating with the poor, crippled, blind and lame was so important for Jesus, Luke included it [here].” There are other passages that support that conclusion! 
         1. Luke – third invitation – “roads and lanes” – the host wants to fill their home. 
            1. Social geography of first century Palestine. People in your neighborhood, likely invitees, would share your social status. The farther you go out, the bigger the social drop in who you’re bringing into your home. A big deal, in a very status- and honor-conscious society. 
            2. This third invitation feels very Lukan. Even though I think Luke is right to understand the inclusion of the marginalized as central to Jesus’ message and mission, it also seems very possible to me that Luke added on that final invitation to really drive the point home. 
      4. Thomas – More elaborate and specific excuses, and an explicit anti-business slant. Those making excuses are too busy making money off the backs of their neighbors to come to this party. “Buyers and traders will not enter the places of my father!” 
         1. Thomas is not interested in who *does* end up at the party. That part is totally absent here. 
            1. Lots of stuff in Thomas that does have parallels in the Gospels is shorter, abbreviated. 
            2. But also: In gnostic thinking, defining who’s out  can be as important as defining who’s in. So it tracks that Thomas frames this story as a story about how terrible business people are. 
         2. What Thomas’s text does, though, is possibly add weight to Luke’s version as being more likely closer to the original. A lot more like Luke than Matthew. 

4. Jesus’ “original” parable? 
   1. Everybody takes whatever Jesus actually said, and tries to make sense of it and re-tell it reflecting their concerns. 
   2. Is it possible to peel away the layers and get to Jesus’ original teaching – and what Jesus meant by it? 
      1. Somebody hosts a party – a banquet. They start by inviting the usual suspects – people with existing connections and relationships, people of comparable social standing. 
      2. But those people don’t want to come. 
         1. Van Eck’s paper: A new idea for me – The excuses are snubs. I always kind of saw that, but had never thought about it. But the universal refusal of the first round of invitees means something. 
            1. The invited guests in the story feel like this party is not the place to be. Van Eck says: “Attendance was socially inappropriate.” Maybe they don’t want to be beholden to that host – to feel like they owe them a favor. Or maybe that host is not generally socially esteemed. 
            2. A surprising and provocative idea for me because this is one of the parables where it seems like the central figure is a stand-in for God.
               1. I can understand feeling cautious about owing God a favor, or getting drawn into God’s social circle! God is weird and unpredictable, keeps strange company, and often makes big demands! And in our time and place, being known to be a friend of God does not generally boost your social status!

4. 2. 3. The rejection of the first round of invitees ties in with a lot of the passages in the Gospels about people who feel like they don’t need what Jesus is offering. It’s easy for me to see this as part of Jesus’ story. 
      4. But the host really wants to have this party. Everything is ready! The food, the drinks, the music! They need some people to join their celebration. So they send out their slave to invite literally anyone they can find. 

1. 1. 1. 1. People who are usually not invited to the party, get invited to the party. It becomes a wild chaotic gathering of misfits, outsiders and weirdos. Presumably they eat and drink and dance and have a grand old time. (And let’s be clear, nobody accuses them of wearing the wrong clothes and throws them into outermost darkness.) 
      2. It makes me happy to think about what this means for the guests. Lots of us know what it feels like to not be on the A-list of invitees for something or another. Joyful to think that God’s party isn’t like that. 

4. 3. Van Eck: Not just what this means for the guests but what it means about the host. 
      1. This host rejects the expectations of their time and their social class, and instead gives to those who cannot give back; breaks down social norms about who does and doesn’t belong, status and class, purity and pollution; and treats everybody as family. (Van Eck, paraphrased) 
      2. The glimpse of God’s way of doing things that we get through this parable, as Jesus likely told it, is a glimpse of a world in which those with social standing and power do not “ostracize or marginalise the so-called unclean or expendable.” 
      3. And, Van Eck points out: “Like the host in the parable, Jesus regularly associated with the so-called ‘impure’ and ate with the so-called ‘sinners’ of his day.” And seemed profoundly unconcerned about how this might affect his own social status – choosing instead to care about those with whom he spent his time, their needs, their hopes, their hearts and souls. 
   4. That’s the core of this parable, which it’s almost impossible to pry out of Matthew’s terrifying anti-party. That’s the message of a Savior I want to follow – and the vision of a holy banquet I’d like to attend. Amen. 

Source:

VAN ECK, Ernest. When patrons are patrons: A social-scientific and realistic reading of the parable of the Feast (Lk 14:16b-23). Herv. teol. stud.,  Pretoria ,  v. 69, n. 1, p. 1-14,  Jan.  2013 .   Available here. Accessed on  10  Oct.  2023.