Webinar: God, and the Problem of Suffering |
August 27, 2015: 7:00 - 8:30 p.m. CDT Free-will donation
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Christianity is a religion which concerns us as we are here and now, creatures of body and soul. We do not follow the footsteps of His most holy life by the exercise of a trained religious imagination, but by treading the firm, rough earth, up hill and down
dale. - Evelyn Underhill
["Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world just as it is, and not as I would have it." (The
Serenity Prayer)] |
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JGS 11:29-39; PS 40:5, 7-10; MT 22:1-14
R. Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
Blessed the man who makes the LORD his trust; who turns not to idolatry or to those who stray after falsehood.
Sacrifice or oblation you wished not, but ears open to obedience you gave me. Burnt
offerings or sin-offerings you sought not; then said I, “Behold I come.”
“In the written scroll it is prescribed for me. To do your will, O my God,
is my delight, and your law is within my heart!”
I announced your justice in the vast assembly; I did not restrain my lips, as you, O LORD,
know.
USCCB Lectionary
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Why does Jesus' parable of the marriage feast seem to focus on an angry king who ends up punishing those who refused his invitation and who mistreated his servants? Jesus' parable contains two stories. The first has to do with the original
guests invited to the marriage feast. The king had sent out invitations well in advance to his subjects, so they would have plenty of time to prepare for coming to the feast. How insulting for the invited guests to then refuse when the time for celebrating came! They made light of the King's request because they put their own interests above his. They not only insulted the King but the heir to the throne as well. The king's anger is justified because they openly refused to give the king
the honor he was due. Jesus directed this warning to the Jews of his day, both to convey how much God wanted them to share in the joy of his kingdom, but also to give a warning about the consequences of refusing his Son, their Messiah and Savior.
An invitation we cannot refuse! The second part of the story focuses on those who had no claim on the king and who would never have considered getting such an invitation. The "good and the bad" along the highways certainly referred to the Gentiles (non-Jews) and to sinners. This is certainly an invitation of grace - undeserved, unmerited favor and kindness! But this invitation also contains a warning for those who refuse it or who approach the wedding feast unworthily.
God's grace is a free gift, but it is also an awesome responsibility.
"Lord Jesus, may I always know the joy of living in your presence and grow in the hope of seeing you face to face in your everlasting kingdom." DailyScripture.Net
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The Cloud of Unknowing, by Anonymous
How these young presumptuous disciples misunderstand this other word “up”; and of the deceits that follow thereon.
NO more of these at this
time now: but forth of our matter, how that these young presumptuous ghostly disciples misunderstand this other word up.
For if it so be, that they either read, or hear read or spoken, how that men should lift up their hearts unto God, as fast they stare in the stars as if they would be above the moon, and hearken when they
shall hear any angel sing out of heaven. These men will sometime with the curiosity of their imagination pierce the planets, and make an hole in the firmament to look in thereat. These men will make a God as them list, and clothe Him full richly in clothes, and set Him in a throne far more curiously than ever was He depicted in this earth. These men will make angels in bodily likeness, and set them about each one with diverse minstrelsy, far more curious than ever was any seen or heard in this
life. Some of these men the devil will deceive full wonderfully. For he will send a manner of dew, angels’ food they ween it be, as it were coming out of the air, and softly and sweetly falling in their mouths; and therefore they have it in custom to sit gaping as they would catch flies. Now truly all this is but deceit, seem it never so holy; for they have in this time full empty souls of any true devotion. Much vanity and falsehood is in their hearts, caused of their curious working. Insomuch,
that ofttimes the devil feigneth quaint sounds in their ears, quaint lights and shining in their eyes, and wonderful smells in their noses: and all is but falsehood. And yet ween they not so, for them think that they have ensample of Saint Martin of this upward looking and working, that saw by revelation God clad in his mantle amongst His angels, and of Saint Stephen that saw our Lord stand in heaven, and of many other; and of Christ, that ascended bodily to heaven, seen of His disciples. And
therefore they say that we should have our eyes up thither. I grant well that in our bodily observance we should lift up our eyes and our hands if we be stirred in spirit. But I say that the work of our spirit shall not be direct neither upwards nor downwards, nor on one side nor on other, nor forward nor backward, as it is of a bodily thing. For why, our work should be ghostly not bodily, nor on a bodily manner wrought.
- Chapter 57 |
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