A Tale of Two Parties

Matthew 14: 13-21

August 6, 2023

 

In chapter 14 in Matthew we get the story

of two different parties.

Two very different celebrations,

Christ Feeding 5000
Eric Feather

two very different feasts.

 

The party that we hear about first is Herod’s party.

The second is Jesus’s party.

I think Matthew purposely shows us

those parties together so we can see the difference in the two.

So let’s look at them.

 

The first party is a royal party. King Herod’s party.

An official party of the ruling class.

King Herod, the king of the northern region of Judea,

appointed by the Roman Empire,

has thrown himself a party for this birthday.

He has an exclusive guest list for the party,

Just the officers and the leaders of Galilee.

I’m sure they had the best food and wine.

The best décor, the best of everything.

 

Surely, John the Baptist was not invited to the party.

But John was very much involved.

 

Herodious who is King Herod’s current wife, is angry with John.

 

Herod had married Herodious,

Herodious was Herods’ brother’s wife,

which wasn’t too odd in itself at the time,

except that Philip, Herods brother Herodious’ husband,

was still alive and so was Herod’s wife.

  

Most people were probably pretty upset with

this arrangement and how the king had left his wife

and taken up with his brother’s wife,

but still no one said anything about it.

People in power seem to get away with stuff like this.

 

But John the Baptist said something about it.

and he had mentioned it publicly

that Herod and Herodious’s marriage was a sham.

 

So Herod has John thrown in prison,

but he doesn’t want to kill John.

it says Herod is even afraid of him

and afraid of what the people would do if he had him killed.

 

But back to the exclusive dinner party,

the birthday bash for Herod.

Their entertainment was a dance by Herodious’s daughter.

It says the dance pleased Herod and his guests greatly.

 

Herod wants to show off to his guests how generous

and wealthy he was.

He swore to the girl that he would give her

anything that she asked for – half his kingdom even.

Right in front of all these important people.

 

I’m sure he thought that maybe she would ask for a pony,

or a new dress, or a chariot,

or whatever the first century equivalent of a cell phone was.

But the girl knows an opportunity when she sees it,

and she consults with her mother Herodious

who’s been steaming about John the Baptist.

And Herodious tells the girl

to ask for the head of John the Baptist.

Having it on a platter was the extra flare of the girl.

Now Herod is stuck.

Stuck in that awful place that so many politicians are.

Between doing what he wants to do,

doing what he should do, what he knows is right,

and what the rich and powerful around him expect him to do.

What he promised to do.

So forced by his oath, his honor, his fears, his pride,

and his need to be respected by his high-powered guests,

Herod has John the Baptist beheaded.

And, just as the girl asks, at the banquet,

he gives her his head a serving platter.

 

That is the feast of Herod.

The feast of the empire.

A party thrown for his own honor.

The feast that is a feast of wealth and power.

The feast that’s governed by greed and gluttony.

Where children are paraded around for entertainment

The one that’s governed by misplaced oaths.

It’s a feast that’s exclusive, where just a few eat too much

and most everyone else gets nothing.

 

This is the feast of the market,

of politics, and commercialism, even of religion.

And if you stay until the very end, you see that this

is a gruesome feast.

It’s a feast that always ends in violence and death.

A feast that ends with the truth being slayed and killed

and served up on a platter for someone’s spite and enjoyment.

This feast is a feast that ends with death.

 

We know this feast.

We live in this feast every day.

Whether we’re the guests or the victims or,

for most of us, somewhere in between.

It’s the world we live in. It’s the empire all around us.

It’s the one that is comfortable sacrificing people to save the economy.

The one that has plenty to spend on parties and luxuries

but not enough to spend on hungry, desperate people.

It’s the party that votes raises for itself, but votes down

funding for food stamps and food banks.

It’s the party that has housing for a select few,

but not enough for everyone else.

It’s the party that has enough to fill our own comfort and excesses,

but doesn’t have enough for other people’s needs.

I don’t have to dwell on describing this feast.

We eat at this table every day.

Or the world tells us that this is the table we need to hope and strive for.

John the Baptist is just one of its victims.

 

And when Jesus hears about this feast

and the death of his cousin and friend John,

he goes off by himself to grieve, and pray

But the people find out where he is,

and they invite themselves to the next party.

 

Which brings us to the next party.

In this next feast, Jesus is the host.

Jesus doesn’t throw this party to honor himself.

He gives God the honor, he celebrates the people there.

And unlike Herod’s party, there is not an exclusive guest list,

everyone is invited to come,

they can come even if they haven’t been invited.

 

At this party, people are healed and cured, not harmed.

People are left more alive not dead.

 

At this party, there is enough for everyone.

When the disciples try and get Jesus to send everyone away

to get their own food, Jesus tells the disciples to

give them something to eat.

 

Now the disciples haven’t yet learned all the lessons of Jesus table.

they are still used to eating at other tables.

They’ve eaten at the empire’s party so long

and they know it’s mantra, “there isn’t enough for everyone”.

So they try to convince Jesus that its true.

 

“Jesus you know, there’s just too many people,

There’s just five loaves and two fish. The math doesn’t work out.

It’s complicated, Jesus, distribution and all that.

Supply and demand, the economy, Jesus.

If you give the people something for free,

then they won’t want to work for it. Yada, yada, yada.”

 

But Jesus won’t hear it.

Jesus knows that at his table, there is enough for everyone to get fed.

So everyone is invited to eat and enjoy.

And so he takes what he has and he blesses it, breaks it,

and gives it away.

 

And at this party, Jesus feeds five thousand men.

And besides, even the women and children were invited.

Not just for entertainment, but to eat with everyone else.

Not just to serve, but to be served too.

 

And at the end of the meal, everyone is satisfied.

And there are even twelve baskets of food left over.

More food to feed more people. The abundance doesn’t end.

This feast doesn’t end with a death, it ends with more life.

 

At Herod’s party, he makes an oath –

half the kingdom to one select person.

But Jesus makes a promise:

The whole kingdom to everyone.

 

In Chapter 14, Matthew presents us these two meals.

These two options:

The feast of the world, of greed and want and scarcity,

where some eat and some go hungry.

Or the feast of God. The feast of abundance, of plenty,

of gift, of grace, where the everyone eats.

The question is, which party do we want to join?

At which table do we want to eat?

 

For Lutherans, we believe that we don’t

decide whether or not to have faith.

God’s grace is ours no matter what.

 

But we do believe that we have a choice

what to do with that grace.

We make a decision every day at which table we want to eat.

 

We make that choice in how we treat others,

how we work, how we spend our free time,

how we use our money, how we raise our children,

how we talk to other people,

how we treat those who are poor and less fortunate

and how we treat the rich and powerful.

How we, as a church, represent God to the world.

 

At churches all around the world we have eaten meals

like at tables like this for a couple of thousand years.

We eat it to take away our sin and

for our own spiritual nourishment, yes.

But we also eat it every week to remind us of this meal of God’s grace

and that there is enough for everyone.

We eat it to remind us of the party that we want to

be invited to and a host of.

We eat it every week to help us to remind us of that choice every day.

 

Jesus Christ has set this table of abundance, and healing and life,

in the middle of this world that keeps defaulting back

to scarcity, and division, and death.

 

We are all invited to eat at Christ’s table.

There is enough for everyone.

And everyone is invited to come and eat.