Some of my best teachers are children. When I was a child I couldn't see the larger context in which my experiences were taking place. I just peered out of my own eyes and moved forward until I bumped into something and had to change direction. This is how all of us learn to navigate social situations, ride a bike, or add a column of numbers. And whether we grow up to drive an ice cream truck down quiet streets or we make our living negotiating peace with hostile nations on behalf of our whole country, we all learn from experience.

Children are easily engaged. They are also easily distracted. When I am the officiant for Academy Chapel I stand in the chancel and watch hundreds of students, full of animation, stream into the church. The students talk about hundreds of different things as they jostle in the aisles and pour themselves noisily into the pews. They are not consciously irreverent. They are simply completely unaware of the fact that they have passed through a doorway and into a place of worship.

There are many ways I could respond to their lack of awareness- outer darkness and gnashing of teeth come to mind - but my usual choice is to say "Good morning, my excited friends," then invite them to remember that when we are silent on the outside we make space on the inside for things that God may wish to give us. The volume usually goes way down at that point and the level of attention rises. We begin to get ready to be nourished by the Gospel.

When I was a child, I thought like a child, but now I get to be an observer and watch the actions of others through the lens of experience. Where I simply saw movement as a child, I can now search for the meaning in the motion and that knowledge modulates my future actions. I can, if I choose, learn from the experience of others rather than just peering out of my own eyes. So an important question is "whose experience is worth learning from?"

Just before I went to seminary I took a series of classes to round out my previous education. I needed to do so because two factors had molded the shape of my knowledge up to that point. I had been fascinated with science since I was a young child and was quick to choose the facts of chemistry over the fantasies of fiction whenever such choices presented themselves. I had also moved from one country to another about every three years. This meant that my education was a smorgasbord served up from my own interests and the annual intent of curricula from several continents.

On the one hand my sense of geography was good- I had traveled over a fair part of the globe, lived in several countries and experienced their cultures up close. On the other hand my sense of history was fragmented because history tends to be told from the perspective of the narrator, and I had experienced a lot of competing, and disconnected, narratives jostling around in my head. Finally, on the third hand - as we say in my family - my writing tended to be better when I was writing chemical formulas than when I wrote prose. So in my late thirties I sat in British and American history classes and took literature and creative writing.

When I accepted the invitation to feast on this new body of knowledge, my sense of the world and of myself was turned upside down. I suddenly saw everything in a different context. It was a joyous dislocation, and an awakening.

When I read Flannery O'Connor I saw that a table is not always a table, and that describing linen can transform bedside furniture into an altar. As I feasted on British history I became aware that ink and movable type had been tinder for the Reformation. I realized that there was an whole other world that had always been in front of me but that I had not been prepared to see. I also learned that in fiction, and in life, there are narrators one can trust and others that are untrustworthy.

In seminary these sensibilities expanded. Scripture became a lens through which I looked at my world rather than the other way around. It was like discovering I had been peering through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. Suddenly I had a perspective that allowed me to observe human behavior and divine action over centuries rather than simply seeing the details of my day against the light of my current culture.

The lens through which we look, the direction in which we turn, and the context in which we hold things, has the power to deliver us into darkness, or to invite us into the light that will save our lives.

All of this explanation is preamble to prepare us to see and hear the parable about the banquet in a deeper way. God is the giver of good things- things that nourish and support life. In an abundance of Grace, God gave his son to be married to our human nature so that, as one Second century theologian put it, Christ could redeem that which He had assumed.

But we are like children who are so lost in our own narratives that we do not hear the invitation to the best feast the world will ever know. We are busy and distracted, talking about many things even as we pass into places where we ought to fall on our faces in worship and gratitude, rather than chattering on about our farms or our businesses.

The table is set. We have received the invitation. Now what?
Here's where learning from the experience of others- even our imaginary and parabolic friends- is useful.

What happens to those who turn away from the feast? The obvious answer is that they do not get fed. They go hungry. And those who act in rebellion are, in the end, put down.

And what does the Giver of life do next in the story? He offers life to anyone who will accept the invitation. This is what God is still doing. This is the invitation to you, to me, and to the man and woman on the street.

But even those who hear the invitation and come to the feast need to prepare themselves. An invitation from a king needs to be taken seriously. In the parable the King calls the man "friend" but still asks him "where is your wedding garment?" Friend or not, the man is not ready for the feast and so is ushered back outside.

We know the value of washing our hands before eating. Should we not clean our hearts when we stand before God? Is it not wise to renew our mind and to care for the gift that is our body before coming to the feast?

What we do through out the week matters. It is all preparation for the feast. All day long we are thinking about something. Do those thoughts help us to get ready?

As we move through the coming week, competing narratives and alternative invitations will surround us like noisy children. Please join me in saying to them, "Good morning, my excited friends," then remind them that when we are silent on the outside we make space on the inside for things that God may wish to give us.

If we do so, we may discover that the volume will go way down and our level of attention will rise. We will begin to notice that we are hungry to be nourished by the Gospel. We will put on our wedding garments and turn our faces toward the feast even when it days away, for who would want to ignore the invitation of a King or miss the best feast the world will ever know? AMEN.