In response, perhaps, to the question raised above: In the Christian community, particularly when gathered for the Eucharistic dinner, who do/does the inviting? Luke added the following story:
The application of the story was left wide open. The two earlier stories gave little useful context to understand this one.
The reference to the country roads and hedges was to rural areas as distinct from the squares and lanes of the towns The spread of the net was universal. The phrase: the beggars, the crippled, the blind, and the lame connected the story closely with the previous one.
Among the issues are the following:
The host, the house owner, would seem to have been God. The great dinner might then have been a reference to the eschatological meal foreseen by Isaiah, a promise of universal salvation for all peoples:
On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoplesa feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.And he will destroy on this mountainthe shroud that is cast over all peoples,the sheet that is spread over all nations;he will swallow up death forever.Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces,and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,for the LORD has spoken.It will be said on that day,Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.This is the LORD for whom we have waited;let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. [Isaiah 25:6-9]The original guests may well have been the Jewish People who failed to respond to the invitation issued by Jesus, God’s servant (or slave). The beggars, the crippled, the blind, and the lame may then have stood for all those normally marginalised by cultural and religious customs and specifically excluded from worship.
The great banquet may also have referred to the community of the disciples of Jesus, to which all were not only welcomed but urged to belong, irrespective of ethnic background or other irrelevant factors.
The dinner may also have had Eucharistic overtones for Luke’s cosmopolitan readers whose community celebrations themselves symbolised the universal salvation foretold by Isaiah, in which God wishes all peoples to participate.
The comment made at the end of the story: none of those fellows who were invited will taste my banquet need not be seen as an irrevocable edict, but a sad honouring of people’s free decisions. Until they changed their stance, they would continue to miss out on the good things God wished to share with all.
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