The Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time (2023)
“The king said to him, 'My friend, how is it
that you came in here without a wedding garment?'
But he was reduced to silence.
Then the king said to his attendants, 'Bind his hands and feet,
and cast him into the darkness outside,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.'
Many are invited, but few are chosen."
—Matthew 22:12-14
This is a season of invitations. As the end of October approaches, many of us will be invited to Halloween parties, even as parishes have begun sending out information about special services for All Saints’ Day and All Souls Day. Soon enough, our families and friends will begin making plans for Thanksgiving. Few of us will have a chance to take a breath before the invitations begin to roll in for the pre-Christmas parties. It seems almost natural, then, that that the Gospel proclaimed this Sunday would begin with an invitation to a party.
In this parable, Jesus tells the story of a king who is hosting a wedding banquet for his son. Even though the invitation is from the king, the invited guests, remarkably, decline to attend. The king tries again, but, this time, the servants are told to tell the invitees about the menu as a further enticement: “Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready; come to the feast.” And yet, the response is the same: “Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business.” Others of those invited took things a step further by manhandling the servants.
What was the king to do? The wedding was still going to take place and the banquet tables had been laid. First, he orders his troops to punish the people who attacked his servants. But then, more significantly, he told his servants to go out, “into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.”
It’s easy to imagine how shocking this story—with all its twists and turns—would have been for Jesus’ original audience, especially as Jesus tells of how the king defied cultural expectations and prepared to welcome into the royal banquet hall anyone who would accept the invitation! This is Jesus using parables to their full effect, as he told a tale that subverted the expectations of that time and place. But Jesus doesn’t stop there…
In an instant, however, this tale in which all the rules seem to be turned upside down takes one more turn: This king who knew that the rich and the poor, local people and foreigners, the healthy and the sick would have been in the banquet hall, he still singles out a man whom he feels is not appropriately dressed for the occasion and he has him thrown out of the hall into the dark of night!
This certainly doesn’t seem fair. After all, didn’t the servants invite anyone and everyone at the king’s instruction. There were no conditions given and the servants did exactly what they were told to do. Here, just as he does in other parables, Jesus pulls the rug from beneath our feet. Then again, we have to remember that this isn’t just a nice story. Parables are intended to throw us off balance.
What’s at stake in this Sunday’s Gospel are the same themes of the end of time and judgment that we found in the Gospel proclaimed last Sunday. And, like last week’s Gospel, this parable was originally intended for the religious leaders of Jesus’ day. But there is a message here for all of us: by accepting the invitation, the guests are still expected to ready themselves for the feast. And, as our First Reading demonstrates, this is God’s feast and the banquet is the Kingdom of Heaven. This is a feast to which all are invited, rich and poor, local people and foreigners, the well and the sick. But, by accepting the invitation, the guests—that is, each of us—are expected to clothe to be dressed appropriate for the celebration: in garments of virtue and right living (cf. Colossians 3:12; Romans 13:14; Galatians 3:27). As Jesus says, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.”
And what is this wedding garment? Here we can learn from the words of Saint Augustine of Hippo:
“For an answer must go to the Apostle, who says: The purpose of our command is to arouse the love that springs from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and a genuine faith (1 Timothy 1:5). There is your wedding garment. It is not love of just any kind. Many people of bad conscience appear to love one another, but you will not find in them the love that springs from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and a genuine faith. Only that kind of love is the wedding garment.”— Sermon 90
Although the invitation to come together into the banquet hall is extended to people of all times and places and ways of life, this Sunday’s liturgy reminds us that we are being asked to do more than just “show up” at the banquet to which we have been invited. We are being asked to prepare ourselves for the feast by living lives of faith, hope, forgiveness, humility, and love—lives worthy of the Kingdom.
May your grace, O Lord, we pray,
at all times go before us and follow after
and make us always determined
to carry out good works.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-Collect for the Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
