2014-10-11 10:27:00

28th Sunday of the Year – October 12, 2014


Is 25:6-10a; Phil 4:12-14, 19-20; Mt 22:1-14

A small boy was consistently late coming home from school. His parents warned him one day that he must be home on time that afternoon, but nevertheless, he arrived later than ever. His mother met him at the door and said nothing. His father met him in the living room and said nothing. At dinner that night, the boy looked at his plate. There was a slice of bread and a glass of water. He looked at his father's full plate and then at his father, but his father remained silent. The boy was crushed. The father waited for the full impact to sink in, then quietly took the boy's plate and placed it in front of himself. He took his own plate of meat and potatoes, put it in front of the boy, and smiled at his son. When that boy grew up, he said, "All my life I've known what God is like by what my father did that night." Our sin is serious business. God's grace is a costly gift. Jesus explains it today through the parable of the wedding garment. 

Introduction: Food is used in all three readings today as an image of God’s favor and presence with His people.  In the first reading Isaiah describes the Messianic banquet on the Lord’s mountain.  The prophet sees the mountain of the Holy City transformed into a grand banquet hall full of life and good things. He paints the picture of “a feast of rich food and choice wines.”  The 23rd Psalm describes how, like a totally committed shepherd, God spares nothing in order to provide nourishment for His flock.  In the second reading Paul says that he lives like a guest invited to the Kingdom of God, enjoying vast spiritual benefits as a man of faith.  So will God provide for us, he assures us, and we can do all things in God who strengthens us.  In the Gospel, Jesus describes the eschatological banquet of Heaven in the parable.  He characterizes the reign of God as a wedding feast, a banquet of “calves and fatted cattle.”  When the banquet is rejected by the chosen guests, it is offered to all and sundry.  Thus, all the readings suggest that God loves His people and provides for their eternal salvation.  Today’s Scripture gives us the strong warning that if we do not accept God’s love, if we reject His gift, we can have no place with Him. We have to get prepared for the freely-offered Heavenly banquet by wearing the freely-given wedding garment of grace as we cooperate with God’s grace in doing good and avoiding evil. We have to respond to God’s love by lovingly sharing our blessings with others. The parable warns us that membership in a church does not guarantee our eternal salvation.

The first reading (Isaiah 25:6-10): The prophet Isaiah (742-700 B.C.) describes, under the image of a great banquet, the blessings and happiness that the Messianic kingdom will bring.  Isaiah is referring to Heaven, the second and final stage of the Messianic kingdom.  He gives a graphic description of the great banquet that the Lord will prepare for his people, expressing a grand prophetic vision of the universality of Salvation.  The imagery Isaiah uses is that of a great banquet on the Lord’s mountain, Mt. Zion: a feast for all people, doing away with death, wiping away tears from every face, and removing their reproach from the earth.  Isaiah announces "good news and bad news."  The banquet is certainly going to take place, but Yahweh is planning to invite not only His “Chosen People" but “all peoples."  “Let us rejoice and be glad that He has saved us.” It took a courageous prophet to speak of a God Whose loving care extended beyond the Jews, who prided themselves on their status as the only Chosen People. In some ways, Isaiah's ideal state parallels Jesus' parable about the King's wedding banquet (Mt 22:1-14).  Let us remember that Heaven with its great banquet is ours for the receiving.  God the Father intends it for us, God the Son has earned it for us, and God the Holy Spirit is ready at every moment of our lives to assist us to obtain it.

The second reading (Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20): On several occasions, Paul has received generous financial support from the Christians at Philippi.  So his words are a “thank you" note to them from prison.  In today’s lesson, Paul emphatically proclaims, "In Him who is the source of my strength, I have strength for everything.” When the Apostle thanks his friends for their kindness toward him, he does so in these words: "My God in turn will supply your needs fully, in a way worthy of His magnificent riches in Christ Jesus."  Paul claims that his strength comes from Jesus and his future hope revolves around Jesus.  Referring to the vast spiritual benefits he enjoys as a man of faith, Paul tells his friends in Philippi about the contrasts in his life: He knows the experience "of living in abundance and of being in need."  Because of his faith, it makes no difference to Paul whether he lives "in humble circumstances or in abundance."  His whole existence has been transformed by his being joined to Jesus in His death and Resurrection.  "I have learned," he writes, "the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry."  Paul reminds us of our need for a complete and unquestioning trust in God, and for the firm conviction that He is regulating the affairs of our lives.

Exegesis: The context: The parable of the royal banquet is a parable about the Kingdom of God and about the people who will eventually belong to it.  It is also the first of three parables that challenge the legitimacy of the Jewish leadership. The parables all contrast the true Israel with the attitudes and lives of the Pharisees, demonstrating the claims of the Pharisees as false.  In addition, the Parable of the Royal Banquet and the Wedding Garment is Jesus’ interpretation of the History of Salvation.  It is also one of the three parables of judgment or “rejection parables” Jesus told in the Temple of Jerusalem during the last week of his public life, addressing the "chief priests and elders of the people", i.e.,  the religious and civic leaders.  This parable was delivered by Jesus on his last visit to the Temple on the Tuesday of Holy Week and was part of his last confrontation with his enemies before his arrest.  The actual parable is the disturbing story of a King Who celebrated the wedding feast of His Son.  When the VIP guests who had been invited refused to come, He brought street people in to take their places.  Here, Jesus combines the parable of the marriage feast with another rabbinic parable, the parable of the wedding garment.

The objective: Along with the parable of the landlord and the wicked tenants, this, too, is an allegory unfolding the whole of salvation history.  The parable was intended to be a fitting reply to the accusation that Jesus was unfit to teach because He was mingling with the publicans and sinners.  It also answers the question of Jesus’ authority to teach in the Temple of Jerusalem.  Jesus hints in the parable that he is befriending the sinners and preaching the Good News of God’s salvation to them because the scribes and Pharisees have rejected him and his message, while the sinners have accepted him wholeheartedly.  That is why he compares God to a King who gives orders to invite the ordinary folk from the waysides as guests for his son’s royal banquet.  Jesus also declares that the source of his authority is God his Father Who has sent His Son to preach the Good News of Salvation.  In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells this parable in reply to the statement made by one of his listeners: “Blessed are those who are invited to take part in the Messianic Banquet in Heaven.”  This parable is based on the Jewish marriage customs of Jesus’ day and contains both a local and a universal lesson.

The Jewish wedding customs and political overtones: Since accurate timepieces were unavailable and preparation for a banquet was time-consuming, invitations to such events were sent and accepted well in advance.  Once the banquet was ready, the host would send notice -- rather like our custom of making medical appointments in advance and receiving a reminder call a day ahead.  Attendance at the royal prince’s wedding by prominent citizens was a necessary expression of the honor they owed the king and an expression of their loyalty to the legitimate successor to his throne.  Even at ordinary weddings, it was insulting to the host if someone refused to participate in the wedding feast after agreeing to do so at the first invitation.  Hence, “refusal of a king's invitation by the VIPs, without any valid reason suggested rebellion and insurrection” (The Interpreter’s Bible).  That is why the king sent soldiers to suppress the rebellion. Thus, the parable of the wedding feast has major political overtones.  Another approach to the parable is that it is a prophetic allusion to the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., which is interpreted to be a sign of God's judgment against the unbelieving Jews.  In royal banquets, special wedding dress would be provided by the host and given, outside the banquet hall to those who could not afford proper dress.

The code words and their direct meaning in the parable: The King in the parable is God and the King's Son is Jesus.  The marriage is symbolic of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the union of Christ's Divine and human natures in one Person (St. Gregory).  During the 2000 years between Abraham and Christ, God sent Moses and the Prophets to call His Covenant people to the great wedding feast of the Gospel.  The invited guests were the Jewish people.  At first, Christ invites the people of the Old Covenant, the Jews, to join this great marriage feast which is now ready -- but they fail to respond.  The messengers the King sent to invite the people are the Hebrew prophets.  The second and third sets of messengers are the Christian missionaries.  The burned city (v. 7) is Jerusalem.  A few VIP invitees offer flimsy and insulting excuses, implying that tending to their business is much more important than the wedding of the crown prince. The other invited guests challenge the king's honor directly by seizing his slaves who bring the invitation, beating, and killing them.  Clearly this action demands reprisal, and the King obliges.  Matthew 22:7 tells how the King sent His armies against those who refused the invitation, and burned their city.  Later, Christians tended to see the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. as a similar judgment of God upon the people who had rejected the invitation by Christ to the eschatological banquet.

The universal call and rejection of the Jews: The "good and bad" (v. 10), in the parable constitute the mixed memberships of the Church: the sinners and the righteous.  The people in the highways and the byways stand for the sinners and the Gentiles, who never expected an invitation into the Kingdom.  God’s invitation includes an offer of the correct dress for the feast, namely, the robe of Christ's righteousness of which Paul speaks in Philippians 3:7-11.  Since this parable was directed to the chief priests and elders, Jesus contrasts their rigid observance of the law with the open-hearted generosity expressed by the king: "Invite everyone you find."  This is obviously more than a story about a king and a banquet.  It is the story of Salvation History in which God sent prophets and Christian evangelists with Good News.  The first-invited are now rejected, but strangers are accepted.  In other words, the Gentiles have replaced the Jews who refused to respond to Yahweh's call.  This was the way that first-century Christians looked at the Jewish rejection of Jesus.

The extended meaning or universal lesson of the parable: Christians are invited to the endless joy of the Heavenly banquet.  If, in our preoccupation with temporary pleasures and duties, we refuse this invitation, our greatest pain after our death will be the realization of the precious things we have forfeited.  The invitation to the ordinary people from the byways tells us that God’s invitation to each one of us is purely an act of grace and not something that we deserve by our good works.  The parable also warns us that God will judge those who refuse His invitation.

The Parable of the Wedding Garment: This parable is a modification of two rabbinic stories well-known to Jesus’ audience.  In those days, participants in a banquet were expected to dress in clothes that were superior to those worn on ordinary days.  Guests who could afford it would wear white, but it was sufficient for ordinary people to wear garments as close to white as possible.  It was customary for the rich hosts to provide their guests with suitable apparel. For royal weddings, special outfits were given to any guests who could not afford to buy their own.  Hence, to appear in ordinary, soiled working clothes would show contempt for the occasion, a refusal to join in the King's rejoicing.
The parable means that when one freely accepts Christ as the Lord and Savior, one must dedicate his life to Jesus.  In other words, the Christian must be clothed in the spirit and teaching of Jesus.  Grace is a gift and a grave responsibility.  Hence, a Christian must be clothed in a new purity and a new holiness.  In other words, while the Church opens wide its arms to the sinner, it expects him to respond with some effort to repent.  It is not enough for one simply to continue unabated in one’s sinful ways.  Although Jesus accepted the tax collectors and prostitutes, he demanded that they abandon their evil ways.  The permanent and universal lesson taught by the parable has nothing to do with the clothes in which we go to Church.  But it has everything to do with the spirit in which we enter God’s House.  It is true that church-going must never be a fashion parade or an occasion of scandal for others, but the garments of the mind and of the heart we wear when we go to worship God are more important.  They are the garments of penitence, faith, and reverence.  The parable ends on a slightly pessimistic note: "For many are called, but few are chosen."  It is a sad fact that, although everyone is called to experience the love of God, relatively few will really try to follow His teachings. 

Life messages: 1) We need to be grateful to Christ for the invitation to the Heavenly banquet: Ever since we received Baptism, we have been invited to the Heavenly banquet and provided with the wedding garment of sanctifying grace.  These great privileges and blessings are freely given to us by a loving God.  But the same obstacles which prevented the Pharisees from entering the Kingdom –-pride, love of this world, its wealth and its pleasures –- can impede us too.  Hence, we must be prepared to do violence to our ordinary inclinations and offer ourselves in love and service to Jesus and to his people.  That is how we will make our wedding garment clean and bright every day.  Receiving these gifts of God also demands that, instead of remaining marginal members of our parish community, we bear visible witness to our beliefs.  Let us have the consoling conviction that, while as Church members we are expected to contribute actively to its life and witnessing, the forgiveness of God and of the community is always available whenever we betray its ideals in our weak moments.  Therefore, let us pray that we may keep our wedding garments pure and spotless and that we may become disciples who really practice the teachings of Jesus, rather than remaining mere Sunday Catholics.  Let us pray for a deeper faith and love and a better spirit of responsibility to our community.

2) Are our “banquet halls” full and vibrant?  What do we do to make sure that the "banquet halls" of our churches are filled with people on Sunday mornings? Are we concerned enough to do something about it if they are not full or lively? The first part of the parable has some strong connections with our worship services.  Does not God invite us there?  Aren't we also called to be the Lord's messengers who are instructed to go and tell the invitees (the whole world) that everything is ready?  Or do we absent ourselves because we have other "pressing" business that we think is more important?  Do we remain mired in oppressive attitudes and discriminatory relationships even if our bodies are in Church?   Do we ever prefer revenge to forgiveness?  Do we see victimization of others and blame the victim?  We must all work with God to rid ourselves of such attitudes.

3) We need to wear our wedding garment for the Eucharistic banquet: God Incarnate waits for us in His House of worship, offering Himself for us on our altars and inviting us for the sumptuous banquet of His own body and blood for the nourishment of our souls in the Holy Eucharist.  According to St. Gregory, men and women who come to the wedding feast with hatred in their hearts do not wear the acceptable garment spoken of in the parable.  Men and women whose faith and love are cold, who attend Church for social reasons, to show off their clothes and jewelry, or to visit with acquaintances  are not dressed in a wedding garment pleasing to the King, Christ Jesus.  Our wedding garment is made of our grace-assisted works of justice, charity and holiness.  Let us examine whether we have fully accepted God’s invitation to the Messianic banquet and remember that banqueting implies friendship and intimacy, trust and reconciliation.

“A few years ago that wonderfully creative Christian sociologist, Rev. Tony Campolo, traveled to Honolulu, Hawaii, for a speaking engagement. He flew all the way from Pennsylvania to Hawaii and had an awful case of jet lag. Therefore, at 3:00 AM, he was wide awake. Tony found a donut shop near his hotel. As he sat there sipping coffee and glancing at a newspaper, the door to the diner swung open and in marched eight or nine provocative and boisterous prostitutes. Their talk was loud and crude. Tony was just about to make his getaway when he overheard one of the women say, "Tomorrow's my birthday. I'm gonna be thirty-nine." One of her friends responded in a sarcastic tone, "So, what do you want from me, a birthday party?" "No," she said. "I've never had a birthday party in my life. Too late to start now." Suddenly, Tony Campolo had an idea. As soon as the women had left, he said to Harry, the owner of the diner, "Do those women come in here every night?" "Yep," he said, "about this same time. Hope they weren't bothering you." "No," Tony said, "but I have an idea. The one sitting next to me is going to have a birthday tomorrow. I'll pay the bill if we can have a little birthday party for her." A smile spread across Harry's face. "That's a good idea. Her name is Agnes." He called his wife out of the kitchen area and told her about it. They agreed to bake the cake. The next morning by 3:00 AM Campolo had decorated the diner with crepe paper and had made a big sign reading, "Happy Birthday, Agnes." Word had gotten around somehow because by 3:00 AM every prostitute in Honolulu was in the place. Wall to wall prostitutes and Tony Campolo. At 3:30 AM on the dot, Agnes walked in and confronted the cake with burning candles and the crowd singing loudly, "Happy Birthday." She was flabbergasted, stunned, shaken. Her eyes moistened. Then after she blew out the candles she completely lost it and openly cried. After the party was over, Tony asked the group if he could say a prayer. He prayed for Agnes and everyone else in the group. Then after everyone was gone, he thanked Harry for going along with the party. Harry said, "Hey, you didn't tell me you were a preacher. What church do you belong to?" In one of those moments when just the right words came, Tony answered, "I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:00 AM." Today’s Gospel describes a King’s party for the ordinary people.

Source: Homilies of Fr. Anthony Kadavil








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