Homily for the Twenty-Eight Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

God Gathers the Unworthy to Himself 

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-Eight Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

St. Pascal Baylon Catholic Church, St. Paul, MN

Sunday, October 11, 2020

In today’s Gospel taken from Matthew 22:1-14, Jesus spoke in parables to the chief priests and elders of the people that the kingdom of heaven may be likened to the situation of a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. Weddings were celebrated with banquets; a king would be expected to invite several guests and to throw a great feast for the wedding of his son. On the actual day of the feast, the king sent his servants to  summon the invited guests to the feast, but they refused to come. Rather than give up, the king, for the second time sent other servants with a more enticing news to his invited guests: Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready; come to the feast. But despite the king’s best effort, some still ignored the invitation and went away to their different enterprises; others maltreated the king’s servants, and had them killed. Upon hearing what has happened, the king furiously sent his army to wipe out the murderers and burn their city. Thereafter, he said to his servants: The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come. Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find. The servants went to the streets and invited everyone, ‘the bad as well as the good.’ The banquet hall was filled up. But when the king came into the banquet hall to greet the guests, he saw a man who was not dressed in a proper wedding garment, he challenged him: “My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?” Surprisingly, the man had nothing to say. So the king ordered his guards to throw him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.

In this parable, the king is mostly certainly God the Father; the son is Jesus himself; the servants represent God’s messengers or prophets. The initial guests invited represent the Jews. The second outreach of the king represents God’s persistent and untiring outreach to the Jews and to each of us. The refusal of the invited guests to attend the wedding banquet without any reason points to the refusal of many to accept God’s invitation of love. The king organizes a sumptuous feast for his son, unfortunately the invited guests turned him down. The Mass is also a sumptuous meal where we are fed with the Word of God and with the Food for the journey— the Body and Blood of Christ. The Eucharist, according to St. Thomas Aquinas is Alimentum Spirituale (spiritual food). Yet, so many of our brothers and sisters stay away, some for flimsy excuses, and others, for no reason at all. The refusal of the invited guest to attend the banquet is inexplicable; and going on with our lives as usual and ignoring God’s invitation to us is also inexplicable. Even more inexplicable is the action of those who maltreated and killed the kings’s servants. The parable reached it pinnacle when the enraged king sent his troops to destroy the murderers of his servants and to burn their city. Jesus is issuing a warning to those who will be responsible for his death and also sending the message that God will punish those who do evil.

Now, the good news of this Gospel passage can be found in the action of the king after all the invited guests turned his invitation. He asked his servants to go to the streets, gather anyone they can possibly find, and bring them into the hall of the banquet. The new plan was hugely successful as the hall was filled with guests. God’s outreach was first made to the Jews, unfortunately, many of them rejected it. Without feeling frustrated, God reached out to the nations of the world. The Gospel of John says, “He came to to his own, but his own people did not accept him. But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God…” (1:11-12).  In this parable, Jesus warned the Jewish leaders that they face God’s judgment and that their places in the banquet will be filled by others. God is gathering all people from different race, different ethnicity, difference language, different color, different background etc. to himself. God’s grace is for all, his salvation is for all people. He is inviting you, he is inviting me, he is inviting everyone; he is inviting the unworthy. Do you feel unworthy? You are precisely the one that the Lord is looking for. But as you come to God, do not come empty; do not come with no expectation. Come with faith no matter how little it is. Come with your filth. Come with your unworthiness. Come with your shame. Come with your dysfunction. Come with your sadness. Come with your emotions. Come with the expectation that God is able to do great and astonishing things in your life. Come to the Father’s wedding feast for his Son, Jesus Christ. At this feast, your thirst, hunger, and deep yearning will be met and satisfied.