The 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time, October 15, 2023

Matthew 22, 1–14

Jesus again in reply spoke to the chief priests and elders of the people in parables, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast, but they refused to come. A second time he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those invited: “Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready; come to the feast.”’ Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. The rest laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come. Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.’ The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to meet the guests, he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment. 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.” 

St. Matthew devotes a little less than a third of his Gospel to the eight days between Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday.  Only John dedicates more of his Gospel to these days: nearly half of it.  According to St. Matthew, the Lord’s preaching to the crowds in those days centered on two themes: beware of the Jewish leadership, which God had rejected, and the end of the world.  The themes are linked in that those who believe in him are now also separate and distinct from the Jews in the Church he has established on St. Peter, and it is in this Church that they will be saved from the tribulations and savage persecution that will erupt against them in the last days.

In the parable which is used for today’s Gospel Reading, we see these themes together.  “The Kingdom of heaven” is the Church at the and the same time on earth and in heaven.  The “wedding feast” is the glory in which believers begin to share on earth and in which they share fully in the world to come.  The “king” is God the Father.  The “invited wedding guests” are the Jewish leaders and their adherents, who style themselves as “the chosen people”.  But when the time comes for the fulfillment of all things, they choose not to accept the invitation.  At repeated urgings to come, that the King of heaven is at hand, they make clear that they were rejected their invitation by attacking and even killing the messengers — the Apostles and others sent to preach the Gospel to them.  These invited guests, for whom the wedding feast had been prepared and laid out, subsequently experience the consequences of their actions.  They chose destruction to life and they receive destruction.  With the rejection of the Gospel by the bulk of those for whom it was first meant, the Father calls the Gentiles, who dwell not in Jerusalem, the holy city, but in their lesser cities, polluted with the temples and worship of their very earthy gods.  “Bad and good alike” are gathered together by God through his missionaries.  That is, the noble and the ignoble together, and, converted to the Lord Jesus, they fill the Church and from the Church enter heaven.

The one who is found “not dressed in a wedding garment”, off by himself and not partaking of the joys of grace, is a Gentile who has not repented.  He is put into the parable to show that while not all the Jews will be saved, not all the Gentiles will be saved, either.  The guest must wear the “wedding garment” of baptism, and it must be clean — free from sin.  It must be washed and made white in the Blood of the Lamb (cf. Revelation 7, 13-14).  The Lord teaches here that even if an unrepentant sinner did enter heaven, he would not be happy there, for none of the things and people he loved so much on earth are there, and all the things and people he hated are.  Most of all, the sinner cannot stand the sight of God.  In a way, he prefers to be bound and cast into the darkness, where he will wail in his agony and gnash his teeth at his many wasted opportunities to repent.

“Many are invited, but few are chosen.”  That is, all human beings are invited to believe in the Gospel but relatively few, as a percentage, will do so.  There are those who reject the invitation out of hand, preferring evil to good.  There are those who dither and do not make up their minds about accepting.  There are those who make a big show about accepting but do nothing to prepare for the event.  All these are lost on the last day.  But those who spend their lives washing their robes — doing the hard work of repentance and perseverance in their faith — will be welcomed with gladness by the Son, standing at the golden doors of his Kingdom.