Psalm 145.8-9, 15-22
Romans 9.1-5
Matthew 14.13-21
It it sometimes difficult to come to grips with the truly creative genius behind the composition of the Gospels; not least of which because of the nature of the lectionary. Too often because specific episodes in the life of Jesus are isolated and stand alone on a Sunday morning, awe can miss much of their intended impact and meaning. I often told my students on the Reader Training Course in Southwark diocese that in preparing their sermons it is not enough to look at the text itself, but what comes before it and what comes after. Today’s lectionary selection is an excellent example of this. Both the reading from the Hebrew Scriptures and that from the Gospels centre around the feeding of God’s people, indeed a banquet of abundance grounded in the spirit of divine hospitality and generosity: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”(Isaiah 55.1); “And [the multitude] ate and were filled…and those who ate were five thousand men, besides women and children.”(Matthew 14:20, 21)
But there is another banquet in this narrative; a banquet hidden from our eyes by the lectionary, and which sheds light on that impromptu banquet in a deserted place. Indeed a banquet, without which we can not fully comprehend the meaning of the feeding of the “five thousand men, besides women and children.” This other banquet does not take place in the wilderness, but in a royal palace. Its guests are not weary-worn travellers, but prominent and noble citizens of Judea. Its outcome is not life and refreshment, but death and betrayal. It is the banquet at which the daughter of King Herod’s wife asks of her step-father the head of John the Baptist and gets it. For the Matthean and Markan communities at least, these two stories must have had a joint siginificance, because both place Herod’s banquet directly before Jesus’.
These two kings — and two kingdoms — are purposely set side by side, and the significance of that would not be lost on the original reader, hearer. In placing together these two narratives, the writers allude to strong cultural and religious symbols of the Hebrew Scriptures and of first-century Judaism: God’s feeding of the children of Israel with manna in the wilderness, and also the anticipated eschatological banquet promised after the apocalyitic cataclysm when God would end the old age (and all forms of distortion and evil) and establish the divine reign in its fullness; and perhaps much more simply is the contrast in these two narratives between slavery and exodus, between Egypt and the desert, between Pharoah and Moses. At same time the writers use these traditional and potent cultural and religious images to point to the future, a new way to be the people of God in the world. In hearing the story of the feeding of the multitude no Christian — whether two thousand years ago or today — could possibly be deaf to the resonance with still another meal, the meal we celebrate Sunday by Sunday: Jesus, “taking the five loaves and the two fish,…looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.” (Matthew 14:19) So there is here still another hidden banquet, the banquet of the Eucharist. The banquet that for Christians is not only a foretaste of the eschatological banquet at the end of the age, but the very sign that the consummation of the age has already begun. And so, contrasting the banquet of King Herod in his palace and the banquet of the eternal King in a deserted place, the evangelists point to the banquet of another kingdom – the kingdom of God. We can thus begin to see how subtlely and how cleverly are crafted these narratives; and that as they invited the original readers and hearers to the resonances of the past and the vision of the future, it is the hope that they do so to us today.
For me, I suppose, there arise several questions from my encounter with these resonances, and while I claim to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God, I do wonder in which kingdom I spend most of my time,and while I share regularly in the banquet which is the foretaste of God’s ultimate victory, I do wonder sometimes where I eat most of my meals. The fact is that I spend a lot of time in the kingdom of Herod, and I think that if we are honest we all do. Perhaps, execution is not a regular part of our agendae, but that is the more overt accident of that kingdom. If you are like me, I find that I live in its more sublte aspects. I live in a kingdom in which I am served, much more that I serve; I eat at banquet in which I am the guest much more than I am the host; I live in a kingdom in which like Herod, I sometimes turn away from doing what I know to be right in order to save face or reputation; I eat at a banquet in which I am always acutely and selfishly aware of how little there is to go around, because I cannot fully trust a God who sends manna from heaven.
The contrast to all this is that banquet in a deserted place in which, like all of Jesus’ disciples we are all called into God’s own work of service and compassion. It is the banquet in which God is praised for the good things provided and then we are instructed to distribute them, to share them. It is the kingdom where we all of us sit down on the grass together close to the ground from which which were created, and regardless of social precedence and position. It is the banquet where no one goes away hungry and there is more than we could ever have asked for or imagined. It is the kingdom where we are called into personal responsibility for care-taking of the creation and for the well-being of the most vulnerable in our world.
And we do all this because of what happens here, in this place, within these walls We commit ourselves to live this way because we learn it at the table of the new creation, at the banquet of the kingdom. It is here that we practice the life of the kingdom in which the greatest is the servant of all, in which we all stand equal before each other and before God, in which everyone one is welcome and everyone included. The People of God — the Church — and the Eucharist are the places where we should be experiencing the prefiguring of God’s reign in order that we can go back out into the world and work within it towards the fullest revelation of God’s reign and God’s purposes. This banquet is the training ground for how to eat at the banquet of Herod, the banquet of the world; and not just how to eat at it, but how to transform it.
Yes, the fact may be that we live at Herod’s banquet with its jostling for position and regard, with its pomp and prestige, it surreptious and even deceitful dealings; but our calling is that banquet in a deserted place where we are invited to sit on the grass with out sisters and brothers, where we give thanks to God for the goodness of the earth and creation, and where God God’s self calls to us in welcome and generosity: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” (Isaiah 55:1, 2b) We also gather as the Lord’s people around the Lord’s table to learn how to behave at that second banquet, how to respond to that call, how to listen carefully to the Lord, how to eat what is good; how to be formed into a people who shall be a witness of God’s reign to all peoples, calling them by our lives and actions to its fullest revelation in order that “the kingdom of the world may become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah” (cf Revelation 11:15), the kingdom of justice, compassion, kindness, mercy and peace.
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