<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The image of a wedding feast appears frequently in Scripture as a way of speaking about the fulfilment of God’s saving work. It is an image of abundance, communion and joy, of people gathered together to share in something that has been prepared for them. In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus takes that familiar image and tells a parable which begins with invitation and generosity, but gradually becomes considerably more challenging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A king prepares a wedding banquet for his son and sends his servants to summon those who have already been invited. Everything is ready, yet the guests refuse to come. The king sends his servants again, stressing the abundance of what has been prepared, but some of the invited guests simply return to their farms and businesses while others respond with extraordinary violence, mistreating and killing the servants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The refusal is striking because the invitation is not to something burdensome. It is an invitation to a feast. Something good has been prepared and offered freely, yet those invited are either too preoccupied with ordinary concerns to recognise its value or actively reject what is being offered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Within Matthew’s Gospel, this parable forms part of an increasingly serious confrontation between Jesus and the religious leaders. Like the parables surrounding it, it asks what happens when God’s invitation is repeatedly offered but not received. Yet Matthew does not allow us to hear this simply as a criticism of people in the past. The parable eventually turns towards everyone who has accepted the invitation, and that is where I find it becomes particularly searching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When those originally invited refuse to come, the king sends his servants out to the main roads and crossroads with a remarkable instruction: invite everyone you find. Matthew makes a point of telling us that they gather \u201call whom they found, both good and bad\u201d, until the wedding hall is filled with guests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is something wonderfully expansive in that image. The invitation goes beyond the people who might originally have expected to receive it. Those who were outside are brought inside. The banquet is not abandoned because some have refused it; instead, the invitation becomes wider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Matthew’s community, this would have spoken powerfully to the experience of the early Church. The Gospel was moving beyond its original Jewish setting and Gentiles were entering the Christian community. Those who might once have seemed distant from God’s covenant were now being gathered into the same community of faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matthew has already explored this reality through other parables. The net gathers fish of every kind and the sorting occurs later. Wheat and weeds grow together until the harvest. Seed is scattered widely, although it produces very different responses according to the soil upon which it falls. There is a consistent recognition that the community gathered by the Kingdom contains people at different stages of response and conversion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is important for the Church in every age. We are not a community composed of people who have already achieved holiness. The Church gathers people because God calls them, and the call is remarkably inclusive. The servants are not instructed to decide who appears worthy before extending the invitation. They are simply told to go out and invite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the parable does not finish there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second part of the Gospel has always been more difficult. The king enters the banquet and notices a man who is not wearing a wedding garment. He asks, \u201cFriend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?\u201d The man has no answer, and the judgement that follows is severe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At first sight we might sympathise with him. He has apparently been gathered from the street and brought into the banquet, so why should he now be criticised for not being properly dressed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If we remain at the literal level, the story can certainly seem unreasonable. But parables ask us to look beneath the surface. The wedding garment is not really about clothing. It points towards the response expected of someone who has accepted the invitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus began his public ministry proclaiming, \u201cRepent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.\u201d The invitation to the Kingdom is freely given, but receiving that invitation involves becoming open to conversion. The guest without the wedding garment has entered the hall, but in some sense he has failed to respond to what entering the banquet means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This distinction is important. God’s invitation is not a reward for people who are already good; the Gospel explicitly tells us that both good and bad are invited. Yet neither is grace something that leaves us entirely unchanged. We cannot earn God’s invitation, but we are called to respond to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is why the final words, \u201cmany are called, but few are chosen\u201d, should not lead us towards a theory that God arbitrarily decides whom to save. The parable has emphasised the breadth of the call. The issue is our response to what has been offered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On returning to the Gospel, I found myself particularly interested in the reasons some people did not come. They were occupied with ordinary things: one went to his farm and another to his business. There is nothing wrong with farms or businesses. The problem is that legitimate concerns have become so absorbing that the invitation of the king no longer matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I find that worth reflecting upon because our greatest obstacles to God are not always obviously sinful things. Sometimes they are perfectly good things which gradually occupy so much of our attention that there is little space remaining for the Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The question I find myself asking is whether there are invitations from God in my own life that I am simply not noticing or not taking seriously. Is the Lord inviting me to pray more deeply, to become reconciled with someone, to serve in a new way, or simply to come closer to him, while I remain preoccupied with everything else that needs to be done?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The tragedy of those first guests is not merely that they refused an invitation. They failed to recognise what they were missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is an old description of Catholicism that I find very evocative: \u201cHere comes everybody.\u201d<\/strong> Whatever its original context, it captures something of the scene Matthew gives us. The hall fills with people of every kind because the invitation has gone out into the streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I sometimes experience something of this when watching people come forward for Communion. There is something profoundly moving in seeing the variety of people approaching the Eucharist: people of different ages and backgrounds, carrying lives and stories known fully only to God, yet all approaching the same table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For me, there is an echo of the wedding feast there. The Eucharist is both a present encounter with Christ and an anticipation of the fullness of communion with God towards which Christian life is moving. We come not because we have established a claim upon God, but because we have been invited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet the Gospel also asks whether I participate fully and consciously in what I have been given. It is possible to be physically present while spiritually remaining somewhere else. The man without the wedding garment becomes an uncomfortable reminder that belonging externally to the gathered community is not quite the same thing as allowing the invitation of Christ to shape the way I live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is another interesting coincidence this year. This Gospel falls around the anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council on 11 October 1962. I find the connection rather suggestive. The Council sought a renewal of the Church’s life and a renewed engagement with the world, often described through the image of opening the windows of the Church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than sixty years later, the question of how we respond to that renewal remains with us. The Church continues to be called to carry the Gospel into the world in which we actually live, inviting people into an encounter with Christ while continually allowing the Spirit to renew the Church herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The wedding banquet is therefore not simply an image of being welcomed. It also asks what we do once we have heard the invitation. How am I contributing hope to the world in which I live? How am I serving the people entrusted to me? How open am I to those whom I might not naturally think to invite?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lectio Divina brings all of this back to a personal encounter. We begin by asking what the Gospel says, but eventually we must ask what Jesus is saying to me through it. Scripture cannot remain merely an interesting text to be analysed. Lectio begins in the Scriptures and ends in life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Gospel leaves me with a challenging question: How am I responding to the invitation I have already received?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps I have become comfortable with \u201cnear enough is good enough\u201d. Perhaps I assume that because I have been part of the Church for many years, attend Mass, pray and try to live a good life, there is nothing further being asked of me. Yet discipleship is never simply a matter of having arrived at the banquet. Christ continues to invite us into deeper conversion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Matthew reminds us elsewhere that it is not enough simply to say, \u201cLord, Lord\u201d; what matters is doing the will of the Father. The invitation is grace, but grace calls forth a life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This week, then, I want to listen again for the invitation. Where is Christ asking me to come closer? Where have ordinary concerns distracted me from something more important? Where am I being invited to become more generous, more inclusive, more hopeful, or more willing to serve?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The wedding feast has been prepared and the invitation has gone out far and wide. The question is not whether God is willing to invite us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The question is how fully we are prepared to respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n by Bishop David Walker<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Reflection on Matthew 22:1\u201314 \u2013 Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A The image of a wedding feast appears frequently in Scripture as a way of speaking about the fulfilment of God’s saving work. It is an image of abundance, communion and joy, of people gathered together to share in something that has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":29146,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bishop-david-walker","category-newsletter"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\tAn Invitation to Renewal<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Called to Respond<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n