The wedding banquet is prepared and you're invited!

Homily: 28^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A

          Friends, in this reading that we have just heard, Jesus is once again using a parable to demonstrate an important point; and we remember that these parables are really allegories: symbolic stories using familiar images to reveal a hidden reality.  In this particular allegory, Jesus is attempting to teach the Jewish religious elite that they are about to lose the favor they had with God because of their failure to respond to his call.  Let’s take a closer look at this parable.

          The king who prepares the wedding feast is obviously God and his son is obviously Jesus, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity: God’s “only begotten Son”.  The wedding feast is obviously the banquet of the Eucharist (although the Jewish religious elite of the time would not have known that as we know it: they would have only thought of a great, continual feast that would be celebrated when the Messiah would come and conquer all of their enemies; still they would have understood the wedding feast/banquet imagery).  The invited guests are God’s chosen people, the descendants of the ancient Israelites: the Jews.  The king’s servants who go to call the invited guests are the prophets; and the “bad and the good” who were then invited in the place of God’s chosen people are the Gentiles: that is, the people of all the nations that weren’t part of the ancient Israelite ancestry.

          The parable, of course, is a warning to the Jewish religious elite that their pride in their religious authority, which led them to ignore, at best, and mistreat, at worst, God’s prophets, would soon be their downfall.  Not only would their enemies come and destroy them and burn their city (which really happened, by the way, in 70 AD when the Romans sacked Jerusalem), but their status as a chosen people would no longer be exclusive; rather, it would be extended to the Gentiles: peoples who would gratefully receive it.

          While it certainly would be easy for us to sit back after hearing this parable again and say “Haha, those guys sure messed up didn’t they?” I think that it would be foolish for us not to take it as a warning for ourselves, here and now.  Yes, we, who are sitting here, are the “Church of the Gentiles”, who are the beneficiaries of the complacency of the ancient Jews, but I wonder if we haven’t become complacent, ourselves.  One of the most disturbing statistics about Catholics in recent years has been that less than 25% of those who declare themselves Catholic attend Mass on a regular basis.  Notice that we’re not talking about all baptized Catholics, because many baptized Catholics no longer declare themselves to be Catholic.  Rather we’re talking about those who still consider themselves to be Catholic and that 75% of these persons are so complacent about what it means to be Catholic that they no longer consider it a necessary part of their Catholicism to attend Mass.  Not to mention the fact that many Catholics who do attend Mass with some regularity feel little remorse for having missed Mass on any given occasion (I sit in that confessional, so I know).  Couple this with the fact that I’ve already discussed—that the wedding feast described in Jesus’ parable is an image of the Eucharist that we, as Catholics—the Gentile Church—celebrate—and all of a sudden this parable looks like it might be aimed squarely at us.

          My friends, the Eucharist—the wedding feast that God, our king, has prepared for his Son, Jesus, and to which we have been invited—is the greatest and most generous gift God has (and will) ever offer to us.  It is both the source of our entire Christian life (that is, the “spring of living water” from which all Christianity flows) and it is its summit of that life (that is, the end to which all Christianity leads).  To deny this is to deny the Christian faith.  And, thus, to disregard the Eucharist as something “disposable” in the Christian faith is to offend God at the level that the king in Jesus’ parable was offended when his invited guests all greatly disrespected his son by finding excuses for not attending his wedding feast.  Please tell me, who among you would not exclude from your friendship a so-called “friend” who offended you in such a great way?

          My brothers and sisters, if we, in any way, hold this attitude (that is, that the Eucharist is a “disposable” part of our faith), then we must purge that idea from our minds and our hearts we must and ask God for the grace to receive this gift of the Eucharist as the most precious gift we have ever received in our lives.  And if we know someone—especially someone who still considers themselves to be Catholic—who has so discarded this gift that he / she doesn’t attend Mass, then we must find ways to express to that person what a great gift the Eucharist is, and, thus, invite them back to this source and summit of their Christian faith.  And why?  So that God does not decide to treat us like he treated those ancient Jews and turn from us in order to invite those who will truly be grateful for the gift he is offering.

          My friends, if we need any evidence that the Eucharist is the greatest gift that God has (and will) ever offer to us, we should look no further than to those who have converted to the faith.  While the desire for the Eucharist may not have been the thing that brought them to the Church, I have found that, once they understand it, it becomes the thing that keeps them in the Church.  They are signs to us that God continues to “send his servants out into the streets” to invite the “Gentiles” and reminders to us that God will not tolerate our complacency when it comes to his generosity.  Therefore, as we welcome our sister Patty to share in this Great Wedding Feast for the first time, let us renew in our own hearts our gratitude for being among the invited so that we might give worthy thanks to God, our Father: both here in this Mass and by our lives of faithful discipleship in the world.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – October 15^th, 2017

Dressing up for Mass

             As a sacramental people, we believe that what we do outwardly is an indication of what is happening inwardly (sacraments are "visible signs of invisible realities").  Therefore, Jesus' admonition to the man who comes to the wedding feast not dressed in a wedding garment should be a reminder to us that the Eucharist, which is the wedding feast of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, demands the same attention from us.  Remember: God became man so that man could become God (St. Athanasius).  Our dress when we approach the wedding feast of the Lamb ought to be a sacramental sign that we are anticipating entering into the glory of our Lord.

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Homily: 28^th 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 12^th, 2014