Homily Ordinary 28A: Shocking us into righteousness

Homily for 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year A 2017 

Isaiah 25:6-10: Philippians 4:12-14.19-20; Matthew 22:1-14

Introduction 

The parable of today's gospel could be described as both strange and shocking.  The story seems unbelievable and excessively violent. 

• On the one hand, you have the invited guests, mistreating and killing the messengers who bring them the invitation to the wedding.  Who does that, except perhaps ISIS, the Mafia and the Ku Klax Klan? 
• On the other hand, the reaction of the King, also seems over the top.  We heard that he "destroyed those murderers, and burned their city."  One could ask: "Is our God as violent and vengeful as this king in the story?"  This is a valid question especially since later, when the king finds a guest without a wedding garment, he instructs the servants to "Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth." 

What are we to make of this parable, in which everybody, the king and his guests seem to have be nuts? 

Scripture and Theology 

Clearly this is hyperbole; Jesus is using exaggeration to drive home an extremely important point, even when this portrays his Father in such bad light.  If you recall, Jesus used a similarly shocking parable in last Sunday's gospel, when he suggested that the owner of the vineyard, God, would punish harshly the rebellious tenants, the people.  "He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants." 

That is what parents sometimes do, threatening their teenage children with extreme punishment, such as grounding them until they are thirty, something that would probably be illegal in many states.  But they do it to show that they are at the end of their tether. 

  

Flannery O'Connor, that great twentieth century Catholic writer explains why we must sometimes use hyperbole.  She says: 

When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal ways of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock – to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures. 

These shocking parables were Jesus' ways of shouting to the hard of hearing people of Israel; they were the large and startling drawings of Jesus to the almost blind chief priests and elders.  But what was their deafness?  What was their blindness?  They had rejected Jesus, the Saviour of the world. 

As we know, the image of a banquet is often used in the Bible to signify heaven, life with God, God's blessings.  That is why Isaiah in the first reading of today tried to give the people of Israel hope saying: "On this mountain the LORD of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines."  That prophecy of Isaiah and others like him would be fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the one who opens the doors to heaven.

But now the people and their leaders had rejected his teaching, had rejected the way to heaven that he was proposing.  In the parable, they are the people invited to the wedding, who refused to come.  Worse still, like their ancestors who had killed the prophets, the priests and elders are going to have Jesus killed; they are the invited guests who killed the servants that brought them the invitation. 

Although we don't have kings in this country today and even the nearest thing we have to royalty, Hollywood, Sports and Political celebrities have lost some of their shine recently, we can probably imagine how rejecting an invitation to a royal wedding would be considered a snub of the highest level.  How much worse would rejecting an invitation to the wedding of the King of heaven and earth, the Lord of Lords, the Prince of Princes be?

Christian Life 

I once saw a T-shirt with the words, "When mummy says 'No,' dial 1-800-GRANDMA."  Perhaps we also think of God as being only some nice grandma, a God of God of love and mercy, like we have heard in the gospels of the last several Sundays.  We forget that God is also a parent who dishes out both gifts and tough-love; he is also a God of justice and righteousness.  That is why this parable is fitting for us today, because we too need a reminder not to take the Lord's invitations for granted, either by rejecting them or worse, by attacking those who bring us the invitation to God.   

How have we rejected, how have we not loved God?  Let me count the ways. 

In the first commandment the Lord says: "I am the LORD your God: you shall not have strange Gods before me." But we respond by having other gods: money, politics, football, pleasure, physical beauty. 

In the second commandment the Lord says: "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain." But we disrespect the divine name in all manner of ways: false oaths, curse words, blasphemy. 

In the third commandment he asks: "Remember to keep holy the LORD'S Day." But only about 30% of Americans visit the Lord's house on the Sabbath, even fewer in Europe.  Many use Sunday to visit the secular temples of the other gods Football, Movies and the Mall. 

The fourth commandment enjoins children: "Honor your father and your mother."  But instead we attack the family, that basic unit of society, morphing it into all kinds of configurations, and leading to a breakdown of authority in society at large. 

The fifth commandment says: "You shall not kill," but kill we do, from unborn infants to the elderly and everybody in between. 

The sixth commandment asks: "You shall not commit adultery," but we have invented new ways to do just that. 

The seventh commandment says: "You shall not steal," but steal we do, especially from the most needy. 

The eighth commandment, "You shall not bear false witness" is today honoured more in its breach that in its observance.  Truth has become a casualty of ideological wars, of tribal allegiances, of pre-conceived notions.  We seem to live in a world were facts do not matter and if we need them at all, we just manufacture alternative ones that suit our point of view. 

The ninth and tenth commandments, "You shall not covet your neighbour's wife" and "You shall not covet your neighbour's goods" have been replaced by envy, which leads to materialism and consumerism. 

Is this how to respond to an invitation to the wedding banquet of the Lord?  That is a question that you and I have to ask ourselves and if we find that we have rejected the Lord in any of the above ways, go to him in confession! 

Conclusion 

Finally, do you remember the poor fellow, who actually came to the wedding, but had no wedding garment?  What is this wedding garment?  It is the garment of righteousness!  It is the garment we receive at baptism and the priest asks us to keep it spotless until we return to God in heaven.  How clean is our garment?

Like a patient who has gone into cardiac arrest needs a defibrillator, may the shocking parables of the Lord provide the electric shock we need, to restore the rhythm of our hearts, so that when the Lord calls us, we shall be found in good spiritual health, wearing the proper wedding garment.