28th Sunday Year A - Homily 2

Homily 2 - 2008

Today’s Gospel story talks about people who were invited to a sumptuous banquet, but who turned it down, even when they were given a second opportunity to come.  Jesus was thinking of those leaders, those chief priests and aristocrats, who wouldn’t accept the utterly gratuitous love of God who wanted to gift them.

We could draw any number of possible messages from the story, but behind them all lies the image of the gifting God.  Isaiah, as we heard in the First Reading, showed a similar sense of the gifting God: a free feed! a banquet of rich food, of fine wine, of food rich and juicy, of fine strained wines.  A king’s banquet to celebrate his son’s wedding would be no less lavish!  The gifting God …  We earn nothing; we simply receive – and it makes no difference who we are.

With the Planned Giving Program getting under way, Fr Peter and I have been asked to reflect today on the gift of time.  In giving us life, God has given us time.  All of us have been given all the time we need, at least, all the time to do what God dreams for us: all the time we need to learn, to love, to experience, to enjoy.  All of us, invited to a banquet, a feast of living and loving.

In Jesus’ story, we read that some of those invited wouldn’t come, weren’t interested: one went off to his farm, another to his business.  Apparently, they all felt they had other things to do – there wasn’t time.  There’s never enough time for other things – never enough time for the myriad other things that we’re pressured into doing, that we feel we must do, or must do first.

But there’s always all the time in the world… God has given us all the time in the world that we need to learn, to come alive, to grow in love and to enjoy.  If there isn’t enough time, the wires have got crossed somewhere.  It can’t be life and love that we’re on about.  And what else matters!  

We have twenty-four hours in each day, and seven days in each week.  There’s time to work - and to make a difference, to eat and to drink - and to replenish, to rest and to sleep - and to recreate.  There’s time to be alone, to be still.  There’s time to be together, and to connect.  We have our talents and our responsibilities.  We live in our families, our extended families; the family of fellow believers, the family of the wider community… The banquet of life to which God has invited us!  By finding the balance – and that’s up to us – we come alive; and we grow in love.

Let’s focus again on the Planned Giving Program.  This week the parish – the family of fellow believers – wants some of your time, too.  At the Information Meeting this Wednesday evening, to be held in the Parish Centre, beginning at 7.30, we will detail our recent achievements, our present financial situation and our plans for the future.  We will also provide details of the current Renewal Program, and there will be ample opportunity for questions.

This is a very important meeting for us, and everybody is invited.  It is your parish, and this meeting will chart our course for the next few years; so, if you consider yourself a member of the parish, you really should be there.  If you can help with the renewal, so much the better; but, even just to be  there and lend your support and to hear of our plans will add impetus to the renewal and reassurance to those who are leading it at parish level.

In order to plan properly for the meeting – including having name tags for everyone so you can get to know others – we need to know who’s coming.  I ask our committee now to hand around some clipboards, on which you can put some details to indicate your presence on Wednesday night.  Please don’t leave it to the person next to you – This time I’m not talking to the person beside you or behind you –  I am talking to you!  The renewal comes around only once every three years, and it will be over and done with in three weeks time – so please get involved, pray for its success and be generous in your response.  Together we can achieve a great deal, alone we can do little….  Thank you for your ongoing support.