Only the clean of heart can enter into the Kingdom. The Kingdom is an eternal feast, and only those dressed for a feast can go there. There was a King who celebrated his son’s wedding, and those whom he invited did not come. Then the King called in the common people, the passers-by, the beggars, every one; but when the King came into the banqueting hall and saw one of the guests all filthy with grease and mud, he had him cast outside the door, to gnash his teeth in the coldness of night. At the banquet of the Kingdom if the first called do not come, all are accepted; even the wretched and the sinners. The King had invited first the chosen people; but one had bought a piece of ground, another five yoke of oxen, a third had taken a wife that day. They were all deep in their affairs, and some did not even trouble to send an excuse. Then the King sent his servants to pick up out of the streets the blind, the poor, the maimed and the halt, the lowest of the rabble; and still there was room. Then he commanded that those who passed in front of his palace should be forced to come in, whoever they might be; and the banquet began. It was a royal banquet, a rich and magnificent feast; but after all, it consisted in enjoying lamb and fish, in getting drunk on wine and cider. At the break of day the bonfire was burned out, the tables were cleared, every one had to return to his home and to his poverty. If some of those whom the King first invited preferred another material pleasure to this material pleasure it was pardonable. But the invitation to the banquet of the Kingdom is a promise of spiritual happiness, absolute, satisfying, perpetual. Something else than the passing amusements of terrestrial life: nauseating drunkenness, food that distends the stomach, sensual pleasures that leave a man bone-weary and defiled. And yet the men whom Jesus chose among all other men, and called first of all to the divine feast of the reborn, did not respond. They made wry faces, complained, slipped away and continued their habitual low actions. They preferred the rubbish of carnal goods to the splendor of high hope which is the only reasonable reason for living. Then all the others were called in their place: beggars instead of the rich, sinners instead of Pharisees, women of the streets instead of fine ladies, the sick and sorrowing instead of the strong and happy.