The Great Banquet (Luke 14: 15-24)
When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.”
Jesus replied: A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, “Come, for everything is now ready.”
But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’
Another said, “I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.”
Still another said, “I just got married, so I can’t come.”
The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, “Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.”
“Sir,” the servant said, “what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.”
Then the master told his servant, “Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.”
Sometimes we know it’s the last time but sometimes we don’t. Walking up the snowy walkway, pulling our sleds behind us, ice skates laden over our backs, she popped over the short, metal, glaringly green fence with another small boy. In a flash of recognition, her entire face lit up and she ran to me for a hug, Anna, Peter, and Evie chirping “привет, Лала! (Hi Lala!)” Everything as usual. We exchanged our practiced greetings, in a second language for both of us, but then she looked back at her companion and before we could invite her to sled and skate with us, she and the boy jumped back over the other side of the fence and sped off to an apartment building across the street. That was the last time I saw her.
She had needed something but there were always too many barriers to discover what that was. A third grader roaming our neighborhood alleys and paths all day, every day, Lala was not unusual in that sense; there are other children in our neighborhood out all day without supervision. It’s easy to detect the condemnation from other parents who didn’t know her yet, first scanning the playground benches for a parent or grandmother, then shaking one’s head in judgment. A proper Soviet household would never let a child play unattended, it’s a sign, perhaps the ultimate sign, of a parent’s love. But Lala was obviously not from a proper Soviet household, certainly not a Moscovite, she wasn’t even Russian. She’s part of the problem, Central Asians taking over, flooding into Moscow without documents or legal employment, living with 15 or more people in tiny apartments, making money in the city as long as they can before being found out or failing to make rent and moving to the next place. Their children play on our playgrounds, wandering all day, every day, without food, toilets, shelter, exemplifying the behavior modeled to them at home. But Lala was different. She was special, in every sense special. That’s part of what made her so surprising, so atypical to these cultural assumptions, but also so worrisome.
At first I couldn’t tell if it was language, mine or hers. She couldn’t understand even simple statements or questions. She nodded, she smiled, but a glaze of incomprehension remained on her face. It wasn’t until Sasha, Katya’s father, said to me, in front of the kids, “Это Лала, она… особая.” (That’s just Lala, she’s… special.) She’s special. A child with special needs, wandering all day, every day, without food, toilets, shelter… blissfully unaware of the dangers of city life. Though perhaps I’m the one who’s naive. Who knows where she came from, how safe Moscow seems in comparison… questions met by uncomprehending eyes and ears. I could never get more out of her than practiced answers to “how are you? How was school?”
But she was one of the nice ones. Never unkind, (unless duped to be so,) generous, thankful, overly affectionate. The kind that sits too close, holds on too long, grabs too hard, doesn’t let go, especially to Dan. Особая. Day in and out, waiting for an invitation to a banquet, though unaware and unable to respond to an invitation when it comes.
And then she was gone. On to the next place. And hopefully met by others who do more to get that invitation into her hands and heart, who don’t have such high boundaries, like me, who inconvenience themselves more than I do to include improper families with special children. But my hope is that this story doesn’t end in my failure, but in Lala’s promise. That smile, that naive goodness, the clear and compelling need for love. She’s not one to make excuses, not one to understand excuses. She’s ready for an invitation, she has already said yes in not so many words. And I pray it finds her out where she is and that at last she’s brought into a house that was made to be especially full.
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