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From the Romanian Press Office ~ December 16, 2012, the Orthodox Church celebrates the 28th Sunday after the Pentecost. The Gospel parable of Saint Luke the Evangelist Apostle, chapter 14: 16-24, the Parable of great dinner, was read in all churches, during the Divine Liturgy.
In his sermon delivered in the chapel of St. Gregory the Enlightener in the Patriarchal Residence, His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church emphasized the teaching of the Gospel parable, showing the invitation that the master of the houses extends to those invited to dinner is very significant: “First of all it is an invitation of preference, of priority.
The closest ones are invited, the best known ones, those who know somehow the will of the master of the house. According to the interpretation of the Holy Fathers, these are the spiritual leaders of the Jewish people, namely the scholars, those who teach the laws. They refuse the invitation to dinner finding various excuses. The second category of invited people is the poor and sick.
These answered the call of the Savior and gathered any time He came out in public to preach the Gospel of salvation. This is why he fed crowds of poor people by making the wonder of the multiplication of the bread and fish, and healed lots of sick people. The third category of the invited ones, those staying on the roads and at fences, is represented by the pagans who have winding ways in the history, with no fixed target, those with confused faith, with no precise purpose of salvation.
These are also invited in the Kingdom of God which they reach converting to the Christian faith, accepting Christ as their ruler and King. Very significant indeed is the way in which or how the first invited ones excuse themselves. But the polite excuse covers, beyond appearances, a selfish existence because every excuse means remaining in a state of seclusion or of existence focused on oneself.”
http://stmichaelorth.org/the-holy-eucharist-is-the-foretaste-of-the-kingdom-of-heaven/
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