The Called and the Chosen

A Sermon for the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers

Come, for all things have already been made ready (Lk 14:17)

Today’s Sunday is called, in the Church’s order of days, the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, because in anticipation of the feast of the Nativity of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ the holy Church finds it right to honor the memory of His forefathers according to the flesh: Adam, Seth, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and others; and the Sunday following this one is called the Sunday of the Holy Fathers, that is, His kinsmen according to the flesh who were nearest to Jesus Christ in time (and especially the holy Ancestors of God Joachim and Anna). For the present day the Church has appointed the reading of the Gospel about those called to the supper, because Jesus Christ, whose coming to earth in the form of a slave, or His nativity, we shall soon be celebrating, is the Servant sent by God in His humanity, who unceasingly invites us to the great supper. By the great supper is meant the future blessed kingdom, of which very many saints have already been counted worthy; it is called a supper, or an evening meal, because it will arrive after the end of this brief and changeable age, and great, because the blessedness then will be ineffably great; and by those called to this supper we must understand, brethren, Christians, because all of us, from the time the Mystery of Baptism was performed upon us, are inscribed in the book of life, from which, however, we can be crossed out very quickly if our deeds prove out of keeping with our calling.

But let us recount this fearsome and instructive parable in the words of the Gospel. «A certain man gave a great supper and invited many. And when the hour of the supper had come, he sent his servant to tell those invited: Come, for everything is already ready. And they all, as if by agreement, began to excuse themselves. The first said to him: I have bought a piece of land, and I need to go and look at it; I ask you, excuse me. Another said: I have bought five pairs of oxen, and I am going to try them out; I ask you, excuse me. And a third said: I have taken a wife, and for that reason I cannot come. And that servant, when he returned, reported this to his master. Then the master of the house, in anger, said to his servant: Go quickly out into the streets and alleys of the city, and bring in here the poor, the disabled, the lame, and the blind. And the servant said: Master, what you commanded has been done, and there is still room. The master said to the servant: Go out to the roads and the hedgerows, and persuade them to come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you, not one of those invited shall taste of my supper. For many are invited, but few are chosen»[1]. There you have the fearsome parable of those invited to the supper, of the multitude of the invited and the small number of the chosen. By the man who gave the supper is meant God the Father, while the servant who was sent is the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who took on the form of a servant. The excuses of the invited signify the various pretexts for avoiding the fulfillment of Christ’s commandments on account of various worldly attachments. The poor of the city are the simple folk, who in their simplicity are better able to heed and follow the Gospel. The people whom the master sent to seek along the roads and hedgerows are those being joined to the Church from among the pagans and from various tribes and faiths. The meaning of the parable is that God calls all people to His heavenly kingdom, but very many will be deprived of it for their attachment to worldly goods, for their unbelief, for their lawless and unrepentant life.

Now let us apply this parable to ourselves. Do not very many of us in one way or another, under various pretexts, refuse the supper of the heavenly kingdom—if not in word, then in deed? The image of the visible kingdom of God on earth is the Church of God and the divine services in the temple of God with its Mysteries. Do not many Christians abandon the churches of God and the services of God—some out of various worldly vanities, some simply out of laziness, some out of unbelief and free-thinking, some out of various attachments, for example to the theater, to gambling, to feasts and merriment, and so on? And indeed, among Christians, even in our God-protected city, how many there are who precisely justify in themselves the words of the Gospel read today; and to the Lord’s call to the great supper they respond in deed: I cannot come; I ask You, excuse me—and even, as it were in opposition to the Lord Himself, who invites His servants to the great supper, they send invitations, printed ones at that, to Christians and during the fasting season no less, to a worldly, vain supper—to horse races, for example. Where here is even a shadow of reverence for His saving institutions on earth? Where is respect for the Church’s rules? What is there in common between preparation for a great Christian feast and these spectacles?

But let us leave them. Let us turn again to ourselves: do not all of us, you and I, sometimes refuse the great supper in one way or another? Do we not resist the Lord, who calls us into His kingdom to enjoy blessings that are spiritual, eternal, perfect? Ah, how often we oppose the Lord, who longs for our salvation! Which of us keeps His commandments perfectly? Who guards himself carefully from every sin? Who strives to practice every Christian virtue—or which of the Christians labors at least in some one virtue with special diligence? We all slumber and sleep spiritually. And when shall we awake? Shall it be when the voice sounds: Look, the Bridegroom is coming; go out to meet Him[2]? Let us rouse ourselves, rouse ourselves, my brothers and sisters, from the heavy sleep of sin, and let us keep watch, keep sober vigilance, continually testing our faith and our deeds: is faith in Christ alive within us, or has it long since died? Are our Christian deeds good and thoughtful? Can we give a good account of them at the Judgment of Christ? Above all, let us guard against being attached to worldly, so-called goods, for attachment to them extinguishes the lamps of our souls, cools our hearts toward God and our neighbor, and becomes the cause of a multitude of sins.

So then, be attentive: in a short time the Envoy of the heavenly Father, His only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, will come to us from heaven to earth in the form of a servant, in poor swaddling clothes. Why will He come? To invite us to the great supper prepared by the heavenly Father in His kingdom. Do not be ashamed of His poor swaddling clothes, and when He invites you—to forsake, for the sake of His kingdom, your attachment to wealth, to luxury, to worldly amusements—let no one say: Pardon me, I do not want to listen to You, I do not want to give up my attachment, I do not want Your poverty, I do not want to be merciful, I want to live in luxury, I want to grow rich for myself; for that will mean renouncing God and eternal blessedness, and offering bold defiance to God.

So then, soon there will come to us the Servant sent by God through His incarnation, the Son of God, to call us to God’s supper: Come, everything is already ready. Then let us all answer Him in word and in deed: We are coming, Lord, we are coming. Our hearts are ready! Amen.