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

God Invites And Invites And Invites 

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

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

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, October 15, 2023

What can we compare the kingdom of heaven like? Jesus says it is like a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. On the actual day of the feast, the king sent his servants to summon the invited guests. Unfortunately, they refused to honor the invitation. But rather than give up, the king sent other servants with more enticing news to the 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 ignored his invitation and went away to their different enterprises. Others manhandled his servants and had them killed. Upon hearing what had happened, the king responded with extraordinary anger. He killed them and burned down their city. Thereafter, the king instructed his servants to go to the streets and invite whomever they found to the feast. The banquet hall is now filled up. As the king was making his way into the banquet hall, he noticed a man who was not properly dressed in a wedding garment and ordered that he be thrown out of the hall. 

What’s the point of this parable called the parable of the wedding feast? In this story, Jesus is using a very exaggerated narrative, exaggerated descriptions, exaggerated fictional characters and emotions to wake us up to some indispensable spiritual truth. So, the way the king in this story behaved is not the way God behaves. If that’s how God behaves, then new atheists are right to say that the biblical God is a psychotic tyrant. But we know that our God is patient, kind and merciful. Like other parables, that is, fictional and invented stories, this one is also meant to teach us a deep spiritual truth. What spiritual truth? Jesus the Mashiach, the very incarnation of the Yahweh, wants to marry the human race. He wants to unite the human race to God. And God, the Lord of host, is organizing a great banquet, a wedding banquet for his Son. The food offered in this wedding feast is the best breakfast, the best lunch, and the best dinner. God invites his special people through the prophets and teachers in Israel. Sadly, they were ignored, resisted, opposed and killed. Think of the many prophets and emissaries of God who have been murdered. This is why the king’s reaction is excessive. What we are supposed to see in this story is our consistent refusal to honor God’s invitation and not the king’s extreme response. It is utterly strange to refuse the invitation of our Creator. This story is meant to grab us by the shoulders and shake us up to the reality of the kind of invitation we have been given and from whom it is coming from. The invitation from God is the best possible invitation and it makes absolutely no sense to refuse it. 

As the human race consistently refuses God’s invitation, how does God respond? How do we read God’s anger in the Bible? The Bible, especially the Old Testament is filled with lots of examples of God raging in anger. Yet again do not read it in a strict and actual sense. God does not have emotions the way we do. God does not fall in and out of an emotional state. God is not erratic and unstable. God is love! The eternal God is unchangeable. So, do not say, “God is now in a good mood” or “Now he is in a bad mood.” Sometimes I hear people say, “God is angry with me because of…” If you believe that, it means you have power over God. It means  you can control God. But God does not fall in and out of state. How do we now read his anger? Read his anger as expressed throughout the Bible including this parable as a metaphor for God’s desire to set things right. The destruction of the city as we see in this parable indicates the spiritual destruction that follows from refusing the divine invitation. I tell you, there is no greater misfortune in life quite like refusing to listen to God’s invitation. If people are asked the simple question, “What is the greatest calamity in life?” The majority including some of you listening to me now might say things like abject poverty, homelessness, substance abuse, injustice, genocide, etc. And don’t get me wrong, all those are bad. But from a biblical standpoint, the greatest misfortune is saying no to God. It is rejecting God’s invitation. This invitation from the King to the wedding feast of his Son is being sent out through the Church, through the Sacraments, through the preaching, through the witnessing of holy people, through our religious icons etc. But how many people are receiving it? How many people are willing to attend it? 

Everyone is welcome to the feast. God is lavishing his grace upon the whole human race. God is relentless. Do we refuse? Sometimes! But when we refuse, God does not tire or give up, he invites more and more and more. As the party commences, the king comes to join the party. Then he finds a man without a proper wedding dress. He confronts him and eventually throws him out of the banquet. What’s going on here? Is the King suddenly in a bad mood? Has his dysfunctional side reasserted itself? From our human justice, this is unfair. How do we read this? Our invitation and admission into God’s household is grace. God invites and we comply. God gives grace and we cooperate. But then we must live according to the rules of God’s house. We must dress appropriately so as to live and act in divine house. What does the wedding garment stand for? What does the man lack in the wedding feast? In Isaiah 61:10, the prophet speaks about being clothed “with the garment of salvation” and being covered “with the robe righteousness.” If you take this image of Isaiah and move it to the New Testament, the man without the wedding garment seems to be lacking the righteousness that fits the Kingdom of God. He does not have a developed moral and spiritual life. And without it, we are not better than those who refused the invitation from the very beginning. In this parable, Jesus wants to wake us up from any spiritual slumber.