Today, 15 December 2013, the 28th Sunday after Pentecost, the Evangelical pericope which presents the parable of those invited to dinner in the Gospel according to Luke, chapter XIV, lines 16-24, was read in all the places of worship of the Romanian Patriarchate. His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel delivered a sermon in the chapel of Saint Gregory the Enlightener of the Patriarchal Residence in which he showed the teaching of the evangelical fragment:
“The first meaning is the one referring to the history of salvation, to the preparation of the coming of Jesus Christ, our Saviour, and to the salvation through Him. The second significance means a reference to the Christian life of every one of us. The parable of those invited to dinner refers not only to the history of salvation but also to the spiritual life, to the temptations that may often come across in the man’s life as excuses, as obstacles not to answer the call of God to dinner.
The delays, hesitations, neglect, divisions, all these ways of postponing the answer to the call of God are temptations that must be known and overcome with the help of God”, the Patriarch of Romania explained.
Today’s Gospel also remembers the man’s freedom to answer the proposal of God, as well as the freedom of God.
“The Gospel of those invited to dinner is a Gospel of the man’s freedom to answer God or not, but the Gospel also shows us a freedom of God to change His own plan. His plan was to invite certain types of people but when those considered friends and acquaintances did not answer, the Gospel tells us that the master of the house got angry. Having seen their refusal, He focused His kindness on other people. Nobody and nothing can change the plan of God to fill His house with saved ones, but if the first invited have not answered, He looked for some other ones”, the Primate of the Romanian Orthodox Church said.
Next Sunday, the Orthodox Church will be on the Sunday before the Nativity of the Lord.
