Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

          There are always so many layers to the parables of Jesus, and the parable of the “wedding feast” in the Gospel for this Sunday is no exception, as we consider who’s invited, who accepts, who declines, and who gets “bounced.”    As in the past several weeks, we are reminded (once again) that Matthew is writing primarily for his fellow Jews, and that he seeks to present Jesus and “the way” of His teaching not as an alternative to but truly the fulfillment of the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  And so, Jesus, born of the House of David, comes first for the “lost sheep of the House of Israel,” but He does not limit His scope to His fellow Hebrews.  Some who were first invited “ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business.”  Others met the invitation with violence; they “laid hold of [the king’s] servants, mistreated them and killed them.”  In the face of this rejection, others are invited—called from the highways and byways.  These are the non-Jews, the Gentiles.  We, my brothers and sisters, are all beneficiaries of this expanded invitation, and thanks be to God for that!

          And so, there is certainly this aspect of God’s invitation in the course of what we often call “salvation history” here, an invitation to covenant, first to our elder siblings in the faith, the Jewish people, and then to the Gentiles.  But, we know that this Gospel is not just about Jews and Gentiles.  There is yet another layer.  This is about a personal invitation that has been extended to each one of us and our response to that invitation.

I think a wonderful illustration of this can be found in Caravaggio’s famous painting of the call of Saint Matthew.  It’s one of my absolute favorite paintings.  I have used it in the past for our seminarian poster and have often used it as an illustration of “call and response” when I have done vocations presentations around the diocese.  I was privileged to see the original a few weeks ago when I was in Rome for the diaconate ordination of one of our seminarians.  The original is not in museum, but in the church of St. Louis of the French (the French national parish in Rome).  If you’re not familiar with it, or don’t quite remember the scene, allow me describe it. 

On the right side of the painting stands Christ with His hand outstretched, pointing (looking eerily like the reverse of Michelangelo’s hand of Adam in the depiction of the creation on the Sistine Chapel, as though to present Christ as the “new Adam.”)  Standing next to Christ is a figure of one of the Apostle.  I like to think it is Peter, a symbol that the Church is also involved (in fact, instrumental) in the call of Christ—and he too is pointing.  Then, if we pan over to left side of the painting, there we see a group of very well dressed characters sitting around a table, counting their money.  This is the tax collector’s post.  But what is really intriguing, and what Caravaggio depicts so well here, is their different reactions to Jesus, who is standing in the doorway, beckoning.  First, there is a young boy who looks totally dumbfounded, like he’s not quite sure what to make of this.  Then there is a young man with a sword on his hip starting to get up from his bench, as though he intends to violently confront to this “intruder.”  There is an older man with glasses, carefully going over the figures, totally engrossed in his work.  There is a younger man with his head down, counting money, seemingly oblivious to Christ’s presence, and yet with a look that speaks more of feigned ignorance, as though he knows that Jesus is there, but he’s pretending he doesn’t notice, so as not to be called upon.  Finally, there in the middle of this bunch sits Matthew with a look that is at once bewildered and concerned, gesturing to himself as if to say, “Who me?” 

          In this painting we see all of the various reactions present in the Gospel today. There are those who when summoned by the king to the wedding feast ignore the summons because they are too absorbed in their own business to notice or care.  Then, there are those who are hostile to the call (like the young man with sword, quickly getting up to confront the Lord in Caravaggio’s painting).  And then there are those who weren’t expecting the king’s invitation, and so were surprised, like Matthew himself. 

And, if we’re honest with ourselves, haven’t we exhibited at different times all of those possible reactions, sometimes within the span of a single day?  This is, I think, the deeper question the Gospels asks us today, “How do I respond to the call of the Master?”  With indifference? With feigned ignorance, like we’re pretending He’s not there?  With violence, because we know that this will mean we have to change?  With disbelief, because we know our own unworthiness?  Or simply with gratitude, and with humble acceptance of God’s will?  Yes, I think this parable is as much about the personal call of Christ as it is about the call of Jews and Gentiles alike to covenant relationship with God.

All right, but what about this whole troubling matter of the man who accepts the invitation of the king, but is then thrown out because he’s not wearing the right clothes?  What does this mean?  Why invite him and then kick them out?  After all, this man is not one who ignored the invitation, or attacked the messengers.  He said “Yes,” so what’s the problem?  I almost thought about reading the shorter version of the Gospel tonight, which leaves all of this out, just to avoid this issue.  But, if you haven’t begun to notice already in my preaching and maybe even in my ministry as chaplain, I like to take the hard questions head on.

When we read this parable we often assume that this is about heaven, the Kingdom of God in its final and fulfilled state.  But on closer examination, I’m not so sure.  After all, nobody gets “booted” from heaven—once you’re in, you’re in.  Also, we are told that the “bad and good alike” gathered and filled the halls of the king, but we know that heaven can’t be filled with the “bad and good alike.”  So, maybe this parable is more about the Church on earth than it is about the Church in heaven.  Each Sunday the “bad and the good alike” gather and fill the hall for the wedding feast of the Lamb.  All of us are still very much “works in progress,” striving to respond more perfectly, more generously to the master’s invitation.  As the saying goes, the Church is not so much a resort for saints as it is a hospital for sinners. 

But, at the same time, we know that it’s not just accepting the invitation that counts; it also about being, in a sense, “properly vested,” properly clothed, to enter the wedding feast, of which the Eucharist is a foretaste.  Clothed how? In what?  What is the “wedding garment?” 

Saint Paul gives us a clue when in his letter to the Colossians he writes, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another…And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection.”  Or when he writes his letter to the Ephesians, “Put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.”  This is the baptismal garment, which we are charged to bring “unstained into the everlasting life of heaven.”  It is no physical garment, but a re-clothing of the heart in the charity, in the love, of Jesus Christ.

We are invited.  We are called, and it’s easy to say “yes,” in one sense, but we need to come prepared as well.  We do this by our prayer, by our attitudes, by our charity, by our taking care to avoid sin and to rise quickly when, through weakness, we fall.  We do this by living “out there” what we celebrate and profess in here.  If we are attentive to these things each time we come to this “foreshadowing” of the heavenly banquet that is the Eucharist, then we have good reason to hope that we may enter the true heavenly banquet with baptismal garments unstained and hearts clothed in the love of Christ.