A homily for the Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Oct. 11, 2020
Is 25:6-10A, Phil 4:12-14, 19-20, Mt. 22:1-14
Every so often, the Lectionary — the book we use at Mass with selections from the Law and the Prophets, the Letters of Peter and Paul, the Gospels of the Four Evangelists, and other New Testament books — gives us a short version and a longer version of a reading, usually the Gospel. This is one of those occasions.
It’s notable this weekend because the impact of each of the versions can be felt in opposite ways, and that makes choosing between the two a head-scratcher.
As we read/hear in the Gospel, when the people originally invited to the wedding feast decline the invitation, or worse, the king has his minions gather anyone and everyone to be his guests.
All are welcome, as long as they say yes to the invitation. And so, the wedding feast — the metaphor for the kingdom of God, as Jesus tells the religious elders — is filled with joyful people who celebrate like many of them have never before whooped it up.
All are welcome! They’ve said yes to the king. They’ve said yes to God.
Eat, drink, and be merry! Hallelujah!
And that’s where the short version stops. Totally upbeat … except, of course, for the people at the start of the parable who took a pass. Said no to the king; said no to God. Their ending was a downer, as we’d expect.
However, in the longer version of the Gospel, those who took a pass weren’t the only ones whose ending was a downer. There’s the poor guy who angered the king by being improperly dressed. He got tossed out into the same streets where the king banished the original invitees who said no.
And this is the head-scratcher.
The king sent his staff out into the streets to scoop up everyone —
The servants went out into the streets
and gathered all they found, bad and good alike,
and the hall was filled with guests.
Now, if any of us were approached by the Secret Service and invited right then and there to a state dinner and — “Hey, your soup is getting cold; get a move on!” — we had to go right this minute, would we have a gown or tuxedo or even a nice polo and khakis in our back pockets?
So when the servants gathered the good and the bad alike, what did the king expect? And yet, he tosses out the poor guy, into an area where there’s weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth (to use the more classic phraseology).
Gnash, gnash.
Christ’s charitable and merciful life, ministry, death, and resurrection were about caring for all, redeeming all, opening the gates for all. Yes, with free will, some people can and have chosen not to follow, and our Triune God weeps for them. But someone’s turning their back on God doesn’t mean God ever stops loving them and hoping they will see the light. God’s love and light never fail.
So:
When many are called but few are chosen, who’s actually doing the choosing?
To hear the classic interpretation of this passage, God is. The man without the wedding garment — one or more of us — is someone who has not prepared to be in the presence of God. Perhaps has not repented for a sin or sins. Perhaps has not learned about God, and in this interpretation, God finds this man — one or more of us — unacceptable.
That seems harsh. Lacking in mercy.
But if we can get past God picking teams for celestial dodgeball, and instead we ponder all the ways we humans can turn our backs on God, then isn’t it we who are doing the choosing? Isn’t it we who choose to be unprepared, arrogant, sinful? Willfully ignorant? Isn’t it we who choose to procrastinate?
Everything we do is a choice. And we have the Holy Spirit and the Word to guide us, if we choose to follow.
We can actively choose to stay as prepared as possible to be in God’s presence because we always are in God’s presence. Always. We should have that figurative wedding garment at our fingertips.
That’s our first — our most obvious — call to action within this Gospel. Be ready, for you know not the day or the hour.
But there’s a subtler second call here.
The king said to him, “My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?” But the man was reduced to silence.
Why?
Why did this poor guy have nothing to say? Was he incapable of speaking truth to power? Was he tongue-tied in the presence of somebody rich and powerful or famous?
Hmmm.
I suspect a culture clash.
I suspect the man, snagged off the street and thrust into a regal setting, was totally out of his element through essentially no fault of his own. How many royal weddings had he attended before this? How many gold salad forks and silver gelato spoons had he twirled between his fingers?
Ignorance is not a sin; the system that keeps some people ignorant is. In modern times, that system keeps people not only ignorant but also poor and pushed to the margins of society.
So we have two calls to action today and every day.
The first is about our individual selves, to stay aligned with what it takes to be in the presence of God.
The second is about others. With the grace of God, we are called to evangelize through word and especially deed to, first, find those who do not know what Jesus has done for them and, then, help them understand that they, as children of God and brothers and sisters to us, are in God’s holy presence 24/7/365.
And that they should rejoice always.
