Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of Luke (14: 15-24), in which Jesus tells the parable of the great banquet.

Here is a third parable about dinner-parties, for Luke likes threes. Luke and Matthew treat this same story differently.

Matthew’s is a royal wedding-banquet and therefore is on a grander scale: the king reacts on a grand scale, destroying the city of those who refuse the invitation.

Again, in Luke’s version those who refuse the invitation win a little sympathy; one can see the difficulty in Luke’s characters because they are often like ourselves, part good and part not so good. Another Lukan feature is that he includes the conversations of the characters so we hear them chatter away, for Luke’s characters they like having their say in direct speech, even when they are making feeble excuses.

More importantly, the host offers salvation to the gentiles, those outside the city, as well as the Jews: the slave first gathers up the outcasts within the city, and then is directed to press those on the open road and in the hedgerows to come in.

In closing, Fr Paul asks us to reflect, Am I one of the ones who make excuses or do I accept the invitation.