KAALAGAD Gospel Reflection – October 11th 2020
28th Sunday in Ordinary Time Matthew 22:1-14 The Parable of the Wedding Banquet
Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come.
Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them.
The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’
Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’
And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”
Let us be clear from the outset: the heart, the meaning of this scripture text is summed up in a few words: “Your faith is dead … without good works”. The question for all time is: “How do we define good works?”
But let us go back to the scripture text for today.
In my younger days, I read this story with some consternation. It seemed extremely harsh upon the man who was invited like many, both good and bad, to this wedding feast. Then thrown out, bound hand and foot, into some terrible darkness. Because he didn’t have the right wedding attire? Surely very unjust treatment?
We need, as always, to look at the context.
We know it is not a story, as in a real-life story. It is a parable, one with the structured parables Matthew lays out for us in the middle section of his gospel and which we have been reading and reflecting upon over the past few weeks. Jesus used these as a method of teaching, building a meaning into a fictional story to relay his message. In this case, a very hard-hitting message for all, especially for the Scribes and Pharisees who sought to kill Jesus. Hard -hitting as well for those seeking to follow Jesus in faith. That includes us.
The evangelist Matthew was a publican, one of the many in the Jewish community contracted by the Romans to do their dirty work of collecting taxes in perhaps the most oppressive tax regime the world has known. Tax-collectors were regarded as traitors to the Jewish people and known to be overly corrupt. (A very interesting side-story to today’s gospel is the very fact that former-tax- collector-Matthew is the one relaying this parable which among other things condemns the Pharisees. This causes us to recall the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican in Luke chapter 18.)
Matthew wrote his gospel for the Jewish people who had chosen to follow the new way, the Christian way of belief in Jesus. With this specific target audience Matthew has an even more specific objective or focus of his gospel: Jesus is the one promised down through the ages in the scriptures, he is the one waited for, in Jesus the Scriptures are fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is revealed … for all those who have ears to hear and eyes to see!
The parable we reflect upon today forebodes the rising storm of conflict between Jesus (the Fulfilment of God’s Promise to His People) and the Pharisees and Scribes (the Jewish Religious leaders). In the chapter 23 following, the full condemnation by Jesus of the Pharisees and Scribes is unleashed.
But let us not think we are left off the hook. We are not just interested bystanders and spectators in this parable. We are all called to a reckoning.
The Kingdom of Heaven is compared to a wedding feast.
The King sent out his servants – not once, but twice – to bring in the invited guests. That is, the Jewish People, including and specifically the religious leaders in the Pharisees and Scribes. Not only did these not respond to the invitation, some of them killed the messengers. Consequently, the King destroyed them and their town. This foretold the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70AD.
The King then invited all those the servants could find in the town, at the crossroads, wherever.
This was EPOCHAL. The beginning of a whole new era. It brings us into the picture, into the frame of God’s Plan of Salvation and Redemption.
The Kingdom is now opened to non-Jewish people and to sinners. Reference publicans like Matthew and Zacchaeus, sinners such as prostitutes, outsiders such as Samaritans. The covenant made through Moses to the People of Israel was now opened to all, including pagans.
If Twitter and Facebook were available in those days, they would have lit up like the heavens with activity over this change in God’s Plan. We can hardy even begin to imagine how revolutionary this message was to the audience of Matthew, Jewish people who had faith in Jesus but who were also coming to terms with the reality of erstwhile pagans in the same worshipping community.
What about the man without the wedding garment?
This could be all of us, as individuals and as communities, who profess faith in Jesus, but are without good works.
The Apostle James states it bluntly in his letter: “Faith is like that: if good works do not go with it, it is quite dead” (2:17)
The Apostle Paul offers no compromise: “If I have faith in all its fullness, to move mountains, but without love, then I am nothing at all” (1 Corinthians 13: 2)
Each individual believer is challenged to examine what are the good works they do that justify their saying they have faith. It is not sufficient to attend to daily prayers, whether this be novenas to the saints, rosaries or quiet mediation upon the scriptures. Piety, though it be good, does not directly express good works. Living a moral life, while being good, does not automatically carry the burden of care for others. Keeping the commandments, while being good, does not necessarily bring us to obey the Second of the Greatest Commandments “ …..to love your neighbour as you love yourself”. (Mark 12:31)
Even more so, communities of Christians are challenged to “wear the proper garment”, because the Kingdom of God is essentially about God’s People, not individual people living an individual faith.
We may have great liturgies, beautiful choirs praising God, elaborate rituals that honour God and the saints; we may have great churches both new and ancient and wear elaborate clothing when we enter them. But if the Christian community has no good works, all the above are for nought.
In current times across the world innumerable people are suffering, often at the hands of the State, but not solely. People are discriminated against, imprisoned without cause, knocked down as they seek justice and equity and a fair share and standing in their own society. Shame upon some (so-called) Christians – individuals and groups – who actively support violence and discrimination against their own people as well as sectors in society they do not identify with.
Christian churches and communities are in a privileged position to advocate strongly in favour of those subject to all and any form of violence. Such advocacy has many forms, all of them “good works” done in the name of the Father who invited us to the Wedding Feast of his Son.
Worldwide, Christian churches are well known for their charity and charitable work. Such are excellent “good works”. At the same time in our age, there is an urgent work that needs to be done in the name of God: the calling out of State violence and State-supported violence against specific sectors in society as well as against the broad masses of people living in poverty or seeking to have their voice heard and their work remunerated.
Pope Francis is a church leader who has held the torch of advocacy high, both for the peoples of the world and for the natural environment of our planet.
We look to all church leaders to follow the example of the Pope who in turn follows the example of Jesus who called out the Pharisees and Scribes of his time.
In our own way and ways, we all, individually and in community, are called to be leaders in the undertaking of good works that are the only means of justifying our claim to have faith.
