Dressed for the Banquet, Twenty-Eighth Sunday (A), October 15, 2023

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
October 15, 2023
Is 25:6-10, Ps 23, Phil 4:12-14.19-20, Mt 22:1-14

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• One of the biggest challenges for the Church in every age is how to keep two priorities united. The first priority is to welcome everyone. The word Catholic means universal, and we’re interested in 100 out of 100, because Jesus Christ took on our humanity, lived, preached, suffered, died and rose in order to redeem every single one of us. The second priority is to help people conform their lives fully to Christ. Jesus’ first words were, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He came to help us begin to look at everything from his reality, to believe in him, to follow him, to imitate him, to love him, to love others as he loves them, and to be holy as he is holy. Sometimes these two priorities can be in tension. During the Synod on Synodality now taking place in the Vatican, there are many who are talking, rightly, about how the Church is not meant to be an elite club for saints, but a field hospital for sinners. They mention various groups that have felt alienated from the Church, indeed often judged by many in the Church, and urge that the Church must do more to make them feel comfortable and at home. But sometimes this advocacy stops at welcoming, as if it’s enough for others just to show up. If the Church is indeed a hospital for sinners, then the Church needs to do more than warmly embrace people with smiles and lollypops in the hospital lobby. Real care, true love, involves helping people receive the healing medicine they need from Christ the Divine Physician. We could say that the mission of the Church is two-fold: to welcome everyone, yes, but then help everyone welcome Jesus at the depth he desires and deserves. St. Paul wrote to St. Timothy, Jesus “wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4). He has died to save each one of us but he wants each of us to accept that gift of salvation, to know, love, and live the Truth he proclaimed and is. This two-fold reality is what today’s powerful readings are all about.
• In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks to us about the kingdom of heaven, the invitation he has given us to join him there forever, and about how we need to respond to that invitation. He does so within the context of a parable about salvation history in which he illustrates for us, basically, how not to respond. He concludes the parable by saying, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.” We are all here tonight because we desire and hope to be numbered among the “chosen few.” Those who are chosen are not those whom God somehow arbitrarily favors over others. Those who are chosen are the ones who respond fully to having been chosen by God. Therefore, it’s key for us to pay close attention to what Jesus tells us today so that we will respond to his invitation, choose him who has chosen us, and help the “many” we know and care about to learn how to become among the chosen, too!
• Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a wedding banquet a king is throwing for his son. This banquet will be the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah from the first reading: there will be a true feast where everyone present will say, “Behold our God, to whom we looked to save us! This is the Lord for whom we looked; let us rejoice and be glad for he has saved us!” God wants to invite all people to this feast, he wishes all people to come to the kingdom of heaven, but there are three parts of this parable that we need to ponder.
• The first is the invitation. Jesus says that the King sent his servants to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. It’s an unbelievable response. When there’s a royal wedding, like, for example, Charles and Diana or William and Kate, it becomes one of the hottest tickets of all time. People do everything they can to get on the guest list and be present. But not in the parable. The invitees refused. When they didn’t respond the first time, the hard-working King who wanted them there gave them a second chance. He sent other servants, saying, “Tell those who have been invited: Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and my fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the feast.’” But, again, they made light of it. Jesus says one went to his farm and another to his business, too busy to reprioritize their daily affairs for the once-in-a-lifetime royal wedding. They were too self-absorbed basically to care about the king. Other invitees, Jesus says, seized the king’s servants, mistreated them and killed them. They killed the king’s heralds who were doing nothing except inviting them to the royal banquet, because not only did they not want to change their priorities, but they couldn’t handle even hearing the invitation, and so they extinguished the messenger. The servants that Jesus has been describing up until then are the prophets who had been sent by God to invite his chosen people to this feast, but, as we talked about last week in the parable of the tenant farmers, basically all of the prophets were mistreated and killed by various of the religious leaders and elders of the people receiving the invitation to communion with God.
• But God kept inviting. As Pope Francis once said in an Angelus meditation on this Gospel, “Despite the lack of response from those called, God’s project wasn’t interrupted. Despite the refusal of the first invitees, he is not discouraged, he doesn’t suspend the feast, but enlarges the guest list.” The King therefore said to his servants, “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.” So the servants went out into the streets and “gathered all whom they found, both good and bad, so the wedding hall was filled with guests.” This is a key part of the mission of the Church. Beginning from the apostles down to our own day, we are sent out into the streets to invite all we find, both good and bad. Everyone is invited. The author James Joyce once described the Catholic Church with this famous expression: “Here comes everybody!” We don’t have a Church only for the good and the holy, for those of a particular economic class, for those of a special race or background. All are invited. We shouldn’t be surprised, therefore, that in the Church we find great saints and great sinners, the faithful and the hypocrites. Jesus gave two other parables — the Wheat and Weeds and the Dragnet — about this reality. All are invited; the only ones excluded are those who exclude themselves. But the invitation is supposed to change us. If we’re invited and we’re good, the privilege should spur us to become better; if we’re invited and we’re bad, the honor should provide the occasion to become honorable.
• It’s good to focus on the priorities of those in the parable who turn down the invitation and the priorities of us today. Why didn’t the ones first called come to the banquet? They all excused themselves from it thinking something else was more important. As St. Luke’s Gospel reinforces (Lk 14:16-20), one used his home as an excuse, another his job, a third his family. Some show indifference, others alienation, and others violent annoyance. Notice that none of those who refused the invitation said that they wanted to go out and engage in a life of crime. No, all of them were interested in good things — caring for the home, working, and spending time with one’s spouse or family — but things that became relative evils because they prevented them from something better. When it came down to a choice between the wedding banquet and these other tasks, the wedding banquet lost. The King lost. God lost.
• Earlier today in the Vatican, the Holy Father, commenting on this passage, asked, “Brothers and sisters, how many times do we fail to heed God’s invitation, because we are intent on our own affairs! Often, we struggle to havefree time, but today Jesus invites us to find the time that frees: the time to dedicate to God, that lightens and heals our hearts, that increases peace, confidence and joy in us, that saves us from evil, loneliness and loss of meaning. It is worth it, because it is good to be with the Lord, to make space for him. … Many, however, think that these things are a ‘waste of time,’ and so they lock themselves away in their private world; and … this generates sadness. How many sad hearts there are! For this reason: because they are closed. Let us ask ourselves, then,” he concluded, “how do I respond to God’s invitations? What space do I give him in my days? Does the quality of my life depend on my affairs and my free time, or on love for the Lord and for my brethren, especially those most in need?” Is God truly my priority, not just in theory but in practice. Does he come first? Do I sacrifice other things for him or sacrifice him for other things?
• Many saints and preachers throughout the history of the Church the saints have applied this parable to the Mass, not just because the Mass is a banquet with the choicest food of all — the Body and Blood of the precious Lamb of God — but because it is also the foretaste of heaven. Our attitude toward God, toward heaven, toward God’s kingdom, is often shown by how we respond to the invitation Jesus makes to us of the Mass. On Holy Thursday, Jesus said, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover meal with you.” Jesus always eagerly desires to share Mass with us each Sunday. More than the greatest saints have hungered to receive the Lord in Holy Communion, the Lord desires to feed us. He wants us present at Mass more than the most loving mother in the history of the USA wants all her kids present at Thanksgiving dinner. But very often we hear the same excuses for missing Mass as are found in the parable Jesus uses: people prioritize work over God, cleaning up the house or the yard over God, family over God, sleep over God, even Sunday cartoons, political talk shows or football preview programs over God. To come to the kingdom of heaven, to be not just the many invited but the chosen few, we first need to prioritize God, to accept his invitation, to treat it as the awesome privilege it really is. One confirmation that we’re doing so is by the way we prioritize Jesus’ eager invitation to the Mass. In the United States, one of the reasons why we are in the midst of a Eucharistic Revival is because of the sad fact that only one of six Catholics invited to the feast of God on the Lord’s day responds to the invitation and comes. Just like those in the parable, most Catholics today prioritize other things. The word “Church” comes from the Greek word ekklesia, which means those having been called! Those having been invited! The Church is supposed to be characterized by those who have responded to Jesus’ invitation. The first thing we learn from this parable is that God invites everyone but that each of us needs to prioritize God over the other good and important things in life. Without that prioritization, we may not enter God’s kingdom because we’ll be too busy trying to construct our own.
• The second thing we learn is about how we’re supposed to arrive when we respond to the invitation. In the parable, Jesus says, “But when the king came in to meet the guests, he noticed a man there who was not dressed in a wedding garment, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’ And the man was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”At first glance, it might seem that the King whom Jesus describes is both crazy and cruel: he commanded his servants to invite the man to the feast and then he’s picky about what he’s wearing? The truth is that in the ancient world, when kings would summon commoners to a feast, they, knowing that most would be too poor and would not have proper vesture, would normally send out the royal tailors to make proper clothing for everyone invited or otherwise provided fitting attire. It would be like a rich man today inviting homeless people to a black-tie dinner but then giving them free hotel rooms to shower and providing free tuxedos, shoes or gowns to wear. With this history, it’s not difficult to recognize why the king would be so upset about seeing this improperly attired man: he deliberated refused to wear the clothing that was required and made available. The lesson for all of us is that it’s not enough to show up. We, too, have to be properly dressed for the feast. But what clothing has been provided for us? What does God want us to wear? What apparel is fit for the banquet?
• Paul describes the proper vesture in two of his epistles. In his Letter to the Colossians, he wrote, “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. … Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col 3:12-14). In the Letter to the Ephesians, he talks about our clothes as a spiritual armor: “Therefore, put on the whole armor of God: … fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness.  As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph 6:11-17). It’s easy to get the picture: the wedding garments God wants us to don are weaved with acts of faith, love, hope, kindness, compassion, humility, patience, meekness, truth, holiness.
• To make the image even simpler, more concrete, and more specific, God wants us to show up with the garment he himself gave us when we became his adopted children. As we were vested with our baptismal garment, the baptizing bishop, priest or deacon said to us, “You have become a new creation, and have clothed yourself in Christ. May this white garment be a sign to you of your Christian dignity. With your family and friends to help you by word and example, bring it unstained into eternal life.” Christ himself is meant to be our garment! We are to be clothed in him, in his risen life. As long as we live in him and vest ourselves in his virtues, then we will always be ready and unstained for eternal life. To talk about arriving properly dressed means we’re adorned in our baptismal graces, we’re living the life with Christ that flows from our baptism, we’ve chosen a moral and holy life, rejecting Satan, his empty promises and evil works and living by faith in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in communion with the saints.
• So the Church is not only “Here comes everybody!,” in which all people are invited, but also a tailor that seeks to help everyone to dress appropriately, to “put on” and adorn ourselves with Jesus Christ (Rom 13:14). Everyone is both welcome and summoned to change clothes so that their soul sparkles with the brilliance of their white baptismal garment. Many are invited but not everyone chooses to take advantage of the Lord’s help through his Church to change their vesture. In the Book of Revelation, there’s an image of what it takes to get to the banquet of the kingdom of heaven. We see a “great multitude [of saints] that no one could count from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb.’” St. John is told, “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” The way God cleanses our garments and makes them white is through Jesus’ blood, which is, paradoxically, the most powerful bleach ever known. But we need to be humble to let him do it, and it’s in the Sacrament of Reconciliation that Jesus wants to bathe us in that cleansing detergent that can wipe out even the darkest stains. That’s what we need to do to clean the garment of our soul so that we are always ready for the banquet. To receive the invitation to eternal life but to respond without conversion, without change, without even wanting to show up with our baptismal garment full of Christ’s virtues, is to fail to acknowledge the dignity of the King, of the banquet and of the invitation. And there’s a very important reason for this: we’re ultimately not just meant to be guests at the wedding feast, but the Bride. That’s why the King so much wants all of us there for his Son. To refuse the invitation is equivalent to standing Christ the Bridegroom up at the altar; to show up improperly dressed, however, is like a bride showing up with sweatpants to her own royal wedding. God give us the clothing to wear and wants us to have the humility, dignity and love to wear it.
• The third and last lesson Jesus teaches us in this parable is about sharing the faith with others. Just like the prophets, just like the apostles, so we, too, have a role as God’s servants in calling everyone to the feast and helping them to get dressed for it. That’s our task in the world, the continuation of Jesus’ mission. We want our family members to get to heaven. We want our friends, neighbors, fellow students, coworkers, even strangers and those who persecute us to come to heaven. But we need to correspond with God’s work, let others know of the invitation, help them to say yes to it, and then assist them to get ready. The Lord does not just want us to respond to his invitation and show up properly vested, but he wants us to go out to crossroads to invite others.
• One clear application of the lessons of this parable is to the Synod on Synodality taking place in the Vatican. As Pope Francis has emphasized, the Synodal Church he seeks must live what the Church at her best has always sought to be, the continuation of Christ’s mission inviting everyone, including and especially those on the peripheries of existence. The King of Kings wants to exclude no one and invite everyone. But as today’s parable makes clear, the Church is not meant to be a come-as-you-go affair. As the King seeks to welcome everyone to the banquet — those who up until that point were good and others who were bad — he wants all to convert, all to get dressed, all to welcome him fully in return. There are some who dream of a Church that welcomes everyone but converts no one, who, rather than helping people become the saints to which their baptism summons them, just want to ignore their sins and even attempt to bless those sins. Because God loves each of us sinners, however, he wants to free us not just from the consequences of our sins but from our sins themselves. But we have to take off our dirty clothes and put on anew our baptismal garments, living in communion with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit who is holy, holy, holy. Let’s pray that the Synod will help the whole Church live out the full meaning of today’s parable in the great two-fold mission Christ has entrusted us.
• “Come to the Feast,” the King in the Parable tells us today. He says it both about the Mass and about heaven. If we put God first, respond to his invitation in life by coming to the new and eternal Passover he eagerly desires to eat with us, arrive well-prepared and well-dressed, and seek to invite others to join us, we can be confident that we will be ready to greet him whenever he comes to call us to the eternal nuptial feast. The more we arrive at Mass with readiness, joy and a clean wedding garment full of virtues and the love of God, the greater our preparation for eternity. It’s here that we say to Jesus, “Behold our God to whom we looked to save us. This is the Lord for whom we looked; let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us.” It’s here where he spreads the table before us and seeks to guide through through dark valleys on right paths. It’s here that we realize what St. Paul said in today’s second reading, that we can do all things in him who strengthens us, including pluck out eyes or chop off hands and feet if they separate us from Christ. It’s here we grasp that God indeed supplies whatever we need in accord with the glorious riches in Christ Jesus. The Eucharist is the greatest source of strength and wealth along our pilgrim way. Responding to Jesus’ invitation and receiving him worthily is the best means to be numbered among the “chosen few” who will say, in the words of King David from today’s responsorial psalm, “I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” Blessed, indeed, are those called to the Supper of the Lamb!

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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