-----------------------------------------------------------
Homily:
28th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle A
This summer I had the blessing to witness seven marriages
here in our parish. These couples were
each unique in their mix of age, background, education, and life experience and
so each of their weddings was special for me.
The uniqueness of each of these couples was also displayed in those who
attended their weddings. One thing that
was common among these diverse groupings of people, however, was how they
dressed.
Of course, they didn’t all dress exactly the same, but they
did all concern themselves enough to “dress up” for the occasion. Now you and I could disagree about what
qualifies as “dressing up”—and surely there are some objective standards—but
given the fact that I had been around most of these people in ordinary
circumstances I could tell that they had, in fact, “dressed up” for the
occasion. These people all recognized
that a wedding is a special occasion and that for special occasions, special
dress is expected.
Our Lord Jesus seems to be speaking about this in our
Gospel reading today. But if we only
read it as that—that is, as an instruction about proper etiquette for clothing
for weddings—then we will have missed a lot of what the Word is trying to teach
us.
First, we have to recognize that Jesus is speaking allegorically. He starts by saying “The kingdom of heaven
may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.” Right there we are to recognize that he is
using this example of a wedding feast as a tool to help his hearers understand
something about the supernatural kingdom of heaven that was already “near at
hand”. Given all of that, it’s not too
hard to start to put “names and faces” with all of the characters in the
parable. The king is God the Father, his
son is Jesus, the wedding feast is the wedding feast of the Lamb—that is, the
eternal banquet in heaven that Isaiah prophesies about in our first reading—the
servants of the king who go out to summon the invited guests are the Prophets,
the invited guests are God’s chosen people Israel, and those pulled off of the
streets to fill the banquet hall in place of the invited guests are the
Gentiles—that is, all those who weren’t Jewish.
Jesus meant this allegorical parable to shame his own people into seeing
that they had been ignoring God’s invitation to the eternal wedding feast—brought
to them initially through the prophets and now standing before them in God’s
own Son—so that they might turn from their ignorance and enter into the joy of
the kingdom of heaven.
In many ways, though, this parable is also a word of hope
and promise to the Gentiles. As Jesus
made clear in other situations, He came to preach the Good News of salvation to
God’s chosen people, Israel.
Nonetheless, once it became clear that He was being rejected by His
people, Jesus began to proclaim—through parables like this one and the others
that we’ve been hearing in these past weeks—that the kingdom would be taken
from them and given to the Gentiles.
Thus, for God-fearing Gentiles this truly was good news. The kingdom of
the Most High God, whose access had initially been restricted to one race of
people, would soon be open to all people; and thus their hopes for eternal
salvation would be realized.
Now, imagine if initially you hadn’t been invited to a very
prominent banquet—let’s say, with the President of the United States (and
imagine any president you’d like, current or past)—but that, because some of
the invited guests had declined to attend, you were now invited; would you just
walk right in, wearing whatever it was you had on at the time? No, assuming that you felt honored to be
invited, you wouldn’t. Rather, you would
go home and quickly put on the nicest suit or dress that you had before presenting
yourself at the banquet. In other words,
you wouldn’t think even for a moment that the last-minute invitation gave you
any excuse not to dress up for the occasion.
This, in a sense, is the meaning of the man, not dressed in a wedding
garment, who is thrown out of the wedding banquet in Jesus’ parable: Jesus is
warning the Gentiles that, even though you are now invited, it doesn’t mean
“come as you are”; rather you must still leave off your “worldly attire” and
put on the special dress appropriate for this special occasion.
My brothers and sisters, the good news for us today is that
we are the Gentiles who have benefited from the rejection of the invitation
extended to the ancient Israelites. Even
though God still calls his chosen people and invites them to the banquet, once
he opened the doors to the Gentiles—that is, to all peoples—he will not close
them again, thus making it possible for us to receive and respond to God’s
invitation to join in the wedding feast.
Perhaps this “Gentile Church” has been around so long that we no longer
see ourselves as those who were “invited second”. And indeed, we see in this day many who have
received the invitation to the wedding feast of the Lamb (otherwise known as
the Eucharist)—baptized Christians—who take their invitation for granted and
thus reject it; choosing rather to be busy about their own affairs.
But what about us who respond to the invitation and who are
here? Do we still see the weekly
celebration of the Eucharist for what it is?—a participation in eternal wedding
banquet, prepared for us by God our Father in heaven? If so, do we “dress up”—both physically and
spiritually—for the occasion? “Oh Father,
God doesn’t care about what we wear to church.
He just cares that we’re here.”
OK, well what would a bride and groom think if you showed up to their
wedding in a pair of khaki shorts and a hoodie?
They might be kind of offended, right?
It might not be the clothes themselves that offend them, but rather it
would be the fact that you didn’t seem to care enough about their special day
to put on any special dress. The same
applies here. I think that God does care
about what clothes you wear to Mass; not because he needs to be impressed by
how well you dress, but rather because he wants to see evidence that you
acknowledge that this event is different than a casual dinner at Applebee’s:
that it is, indeed, special and so deserves special dress.
Still unconvinced?
Well, consider then what it means to be a sacramental people. The core belief that we hold about sacraments
is that what we do outwardly (or physically), effects something inwardly (or
spiritually). And so how can we show up
here, claiming to believe that this is the closest thing that we’ll get to
touching heaven on this side of eternity, wearing the same clothes that we wore
to the football game on Friday night?
The outward sign just does not match the claimed inward reality. Thus, the guest in Jesus’ parable who showed
up in his “street clothes” ended up in the same place as those who rejected the
invitation: he was cast into the darkness outside of the banquet—that is,
outside of the kingdom of heaven.
OK, what about the many of you whom I see here who do
acknowledge that Mass is something special and so do dress so as to give
evidence to it? Well, you’re not off the
hook either. While preparing physically
to come to this banquet week after week is the first step, we must also prepare
spiritually as well. Jesus’ primary
complaint against the religious elite of his day was that they were more
concerned about their outward appearances than they were about their inward
disposition. And so we must remember
that it is not enough that we simply “dress up” for Mass. Rather, we must also “dress up” our souls by
examining our consciences and ensuring that any unconfessed mortal sin is
absolved sacramentally before we enter the wedding feast. In this way our souls, too, will be adorned
in their “wedding garments” and thus will be fit to participate in this great
banquet.
My brothers and sisters, again, it is an incomprehensible
honor that God would invite us, his creatures, into the eternal banquet of
“rich, juicy food and pure, choice wines” that is the kingdom of heaven: the
banquet that we glimpse only dimly here in this Eucharist. As we approach this table of plenty today,
let us recommit ourselves (or, perhaps, commit ourselves for the first time) to
always demonstrate how thankful we are for having been invited by “dressing
up”—both physically and spiritually: adorning our bodies in a way that shows
how special we believe this banquet to be and our souls with the beautiful
flowers of a clean conscience and the fruits of our good works. For when we do, we not only honor God but we also
prepare ourselves to be received one day into that banquet prepared for us in
heaven.
Given at All Saints Parish:
Logansport, IN – October 12th, 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment