Why would people refuse an invitation to a feast?
In this Sunday’s reading, Jesus tells a parable about a king who invites a select group of people to a wedding feast but they refuse, even becoming murderous when the invitation is repeated. On the face of it, the story seems absurd; why refuse an invitation to a feast, and especially why turn violent in our refusals?
And yet, we do this all the time in our own ongoing feasts, our marital relationships. One partner reaches out to the other in overt or subtle ways, and they are ignored or rejected by the other.
Psychologist John Gottman calls these invitations “bids.” A bid is any gesture – verbal or nonverbal – that invites some sort of positive connection with your partner. When your partner issues such a bid, you can turn toward them, or you can turn away.
In his research, Gottman observed newly married couples interact, and watched how often they turned toward one another when one made a bid, and how often those bids were ignored or rejected. Six years later they discovered that those who were still married had turned toward one another an average of 86% of the time, while those who were now divorced had turned towards each other only 33% of the time.
But you can not only turn toward, or turn away; you can also turn against. You can turn against your spouse by responding with criticism, contempt, belligerence, negativity, and defensiveness. And while these responses may seem less violent than what happened to the servants carrying the invitation in the parable, it can still lead to death, the death of the relationship.
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