Tuesday in the 21st Week of Ordinary Time, August 26, 2026

Matthew 23, 23-26

The four priests here at Blessed Sacrament continue to feel pretty well.  We are awaiting the results of our tests.  Maybe we will hear something in a few days.

Jesus said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. But these you should have done, without neglecting the others. Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean.”

In today’s reading from the Gospel of St. Matthew, we see the Lord pressing hard against the Pharisees and the scribes.  We might wonder why he would do this.  It is true that large numbers of them tried to steer people away from Jesus and to impede his ministry by explaining away his miracles and accusing him of breaking the law of Moses, but the crowds came and listened to him despite this, and very many of the people believed in him as the Messiah.  We must understand though that the Pharisees had become widely influential, so much so that for the ordinary Jew, the Pharisaic teaching on the law amounted to the only teaching on the law.  And yet the Pharisees took liberties with the law, upholding an oral tradition which sought to adapt the law of Moses to present circumstances.  In practice, this resulted in an unwritten code more or less equivalent to the actual law, and which went beyond it.  It is this that Jesus condemns when he cried out, quoting Isaiah: “And in vain do they worship me, teaching doctrines and precepts of men” (Mark 7, 7).  Jesus condemned the Pharisees and the scribes because they taught the people their sect’s doctrines and not God’s.

An example of these precepts of men is found in “tithes of mint and dill and cummin”, which were used as spices.  Inasmuch as they were herbs, they should not have come under the law of tithing, which said, “Every year you shall set aside the tithes of all your fruits that the earth brings forth” (Deuteronomy 14, 22).  Tithing mint would be the equivalent of tithing grass or weeds.  According to the Pharisaical oral law, however, even these things must be taxed for the benefit of the Temple.  Jesus does not condemn this interpretation so much as he points out its triviality, particularly when compared with other matters: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law.”  Jesus spells out what he means by these: “Judgment and mercy and fidelity.”  That is, rather than teach the doctrines of their religion, they concern themselves with the technicalities of sustaining the Temple.  Again, Jesus does not take a position against this support, but puts it in the context of what the Pharisees and scribes fail to do.  The question should arise for them: Are we teachers of God or are we collection officers?  The Lord goes on to illustrate what they are doing: “Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!”  People who throw themselves at the enforcement of details often lack the confidence to do actual work.  It is as though through their own actions the Pharisees and scribes admit that they have no divine authority as the basis for their teaching and interpretation of the Scriptures.  Jesus calls them “blind” because they do not have the ability to see this for themselves, and yet they put themselves forward as “guides”.  And the message to the people is that they would be foolish to listen to them because no one in his right mind follows a “blind guide”.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.”  Here again, the Lord says to them, “Woe!”  The use of the word here indicates a warning of an imminent disaster.  The Lord is warning them to open their eyes and see what they are really doing and to repent.  He cried out this warning vocally two thousand years ago, and he cries it out to all sinners who are running out of time — not merely to their ears but from the midst of their hearts, from deep in their consciences.  

“You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence.”  The Pharisees and their followers had a great concern for washing various items that is not found in the law.  This is an outgrowth from the cleansing that were commanded in order to make a person or a thing ritually pure.  The Lord uses this practice to point out that they worked very hard at appearances: “And all their works they do for to be seen of men. For they make their phylacteries broad and enlarge their fringes. And they love the first places at feasts and the first chairs in the synagogues, And salutations in the market place, and to be called by men, Rabbi” (Matthew 23, 5-7).  But they were not known for their virtue: “But according to their works do ye not. For they do not practice what they preach” (Matthew 23, 3).  “Inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence: plunder through tithes, but also through the stealing of souls by their callous neglect of their duty to preach about God, his judgment to come, his mercy, and our duty to fidelity.  Self-indulgence, such as we find in Luke 18, 11: “The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: O God, I give you thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican. I fast twice in a week: I give tithes of all that I possess.” 

The lesson here for us as faithful Christians is to have ever before us the Cross of Jesus Christ and to be mindful of his love.  “What does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6, 8).

The Feast of St. Bartholomew, Monday, August 24, 2026

John 1, 45-51

Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law, and also the prophets, Jesus son of Joseph, from Nazareth.” But Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Here is a true child of Israel. There is no duplicity in him.” Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.” Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this.” And he said to him, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

In the lists of the Apostles contained in the other Gospels, Bartholomew is always linked with Philip, and so from ancient times the Church has understood the names “Bartholomew” and “Nathanael” to indicate the same person.  Indeed, “Nathanael” is a typical Jewish first name, meaning, “God has given”.  At the same time, “Bartholomew” is a proper Jewish surname, meaning, “the son of Tholomai”.   He came from the town of Cana and was a friend of Philip, who was called by Jesus before him.  After hearing Jesus preach, Philip went and found Bartholomew even as Andrew had gone to tell his brother Peter about him.  We hear little of Bartholomew during the Lord’s ministry.  St. John does tell us that he joined six other Apostles in going to fish in the days after the Lord’s Resurrection and assisted in a miraculous catch of fish.  Some of the Fathers and later writers held him to be a rabbi or a philosopher.  Certain traditions tell us that he preached the Gospel in India, though he might have been confused with Thomas, who did preach there.  The Armenians claim him as well as St. Jude as having brought Christianity to them, and consider both Apostles their patrons.  According to an ancient tradition, Bartholomew was skinned alive and beheaded by a king in Armenia.

St. John tells us that after his Baptism in the Jordan, the Lord lived an acetic life near the river and that John the Baptist pointed him out as the Lamb of God.  Andrew and John spent that evening talking with him, and the next day the Lord “found” Philip, and Philip, in his own excitement, went to his friend Bartholomew and announced to him that, “We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law, and also the prophets, Jesus son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”  Philip is referring to Deuteronomy 18, 15-19, where Moses says to the Hebrews, “The Lord your God will raise up to you a prophet of your nation and of your brethren like unto me: him you shall hear, as you desired of the Lord thy God in Horeb, when the assembly was gathered together, and said: Let me not hear anymore the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see anymore this exceeding great fire, lest I die. And the Lord said to me: They have spoken all things well.  I will raise them up a prophet out of the midst of their brethren like to you: and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him. And he that will not hear his words, which he shall speak in my name, I will be the avenger.”

Bartholomew famously asked Philip the rhetorical question, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”  Not that Cana had any greater importance than Nazareth.  This reminds us of how the chief priests said later, “Search the Scriptures and see that the Prophet does not arise out of Galilee” (John 7, 52).  But Philip is insistent and so Bartholomew goes to see for himself.

“Here is a true child of Israel. There is no duplicity in him.”  The Greek word here translated as “duplicity” has the meaning of “treachery” and “deceit”.  The Lord may have spoken ironically here, for the original “Israel” — the name given by an angel to Jacob, the son of Isaac — was deceitful in gaining the blessing of his father.  This would be in answer to, “Can any thing good come from Nazareth.”  Bartholomew would have gotten the Lord’s point, but he challenges him further: “How do you know me?”  The Greek verb here means “to know” in the sense of “to discern”, “to make a judgment”, and “to perceive”.  This may be Bartholomew’s come-back to the Lord’s observation, that he is a true Israelite.  To this, the Lord answers, “Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.”  This astounds Bartholomew as well as tops the exchange.  While it was true that he had been sitting under the fig tree when Philip called him, presumably some distance away, perhaps even out in Cana, the fig tree was an image of Israel in the way that the bear signifies Russia and the eagle signifies the United States.  A man sitting “under the fig tree” would be seen as an image of a son of Israel.

“Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”  Bartholomew identifies Jesus as a rabbi, and then as something much more, “the Son of God . . . the King of Israel.”  Probably he did not mean “the Son of God” as possessing the divine nature but rather in the way that in former times judges, kings, prophets, heroes, and angels were styled “sons of God”.  When he calls him “the King of Israel”, he is acknowledging him as the Messiah, the son of David.  The Lord, for his part, answers Bartholomew with, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”  In revealing to Bartholomew that he will see these things, he speaks of his future blessedness in heaven.

Likewise, the Lord says to us, who have come to believe in him as the Apostle Bartholomew did: “You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

The 21st Sunday  in Ordinary Time, August 23, 2026

Matthew 16, 13-23

Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. 

Caesarea Philippi was a large city in the region of the Golan Heights, outside of Galilee, in a region ruled by Philip II, son of Herod the Great.  It was an old city, renamed by Philip in honor of Caesar Augustus.  Not many followers of Jesus — or many Jews, for that matter — would be found there.  Perhaps this is why Jesus chose this place to ask his disciples this particular question: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  The disciples have a chance to think, reflect, and answer away from the noisy crowds.  But what does the question “Who do they say that I am” really mean?  What is Jesus asking?  Not for them to say his name, or to identify him from his family, or to say what his former occupation was.  These were the ways in which a person was known in ancient times.  Jesus, though, is asking another sort of question.  He is asking the disciples to say how the people understand him based on his preaching and miracles.  “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”  These are interesting answers.  The Prophets, particularly those whom they named, were known for their fiery preaching and for their challenging authorities.  Of them, however, only Elijah was known to perform miracles.  But how could he “be” one of these unless one of them had come back from the dead?  It would seem that what the people meant was that the power — rather than the person — of one of these had returned and set upon this man, Jesus.  There was precedent for this, as a “double portion” of Elijah’s spirit was granted to his disciple Elisha upon the former’s ascent into heaven in a fiery chariot.  Thus, the people were saying that the spirit or power of one of the Prophets, even of the lately beheaded John the Baptist, rested upon the Lord Jesus.  

“But who do you say that I am?”  By speaking in this way, the Lord establishes what the people, those who were not Apostles receiving special instruction, believe, and so leads the Apostles to give the full answer, building on the insightful answer they had reported.  He is in fact asking his Apostles to consider the level to which their faith had reached.  It is the zealous Peter who answers: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  The way Matthew tells the story, it sounds as though Peter responded right away, impulsively.  He may have paused with the other Apostles in order to think about his answer, conviction filling him each second he held back until he could not contain himself.  Hearing his reply, the Lord said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.”  Peter tells Jesus who he is, Jesus tells Peter who he is.  “The gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against [the Church]. I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  Peter would not have understood any of this at the time.  All he and the other Apostles could have grasped from the words of the Lord was that Simon’s name was now Peter — Jesus had changed his name just as the Father had changed Abram’s and Jacob’s names almost two thousand years before.  Jesus was the Son of God, exercising his divine prerogative.  Simon, now called Peter, had been changed and was elevated, and his new name accorded with and explained this elevation.  “Rock”, in the sense of a lofty mountain.  Earthquakes might shake the rock on which the Church was built, but it would not fall because of them, and hell would crumble before it.

When we tell Jesus he is our Lord, he tells us we are members of his Body.  We are able to tell Jesus who he is because this has been revealed to us, and in the same way the Lord reveals to us who we are: we are “rocks” in the Rock.  

The Memorial of Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth, Saturday, August 22, 2026

Matthew 23, 1-12

Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’ As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Christ. The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

In paying the tax to Caesar, the tax to the Temple, in teaching the people to respect the authority of the scribes and the Pharisees, and in denying to Pilate that he was establishing his own kingdom on earth, the Lord Jesus shows that he does not intend to overthrow the political and social orders of the time.  In fact, he manifests a certain contempt for them, as if they were practically beneath his notice.  The Kingdom that he did come to establish completely surpasses these, and exists whether or not they exist.  The Christian belongs to this heavenly Kingdom regardless of what country he lives in or what type of government it has.  In living virtuously according to the Kingdom, the Christian ought to obey the just laws made by that government.  As St. Peter writes, “Be subject therefore to every human creature for God’s sake: whether it be to the king as excelling, or to governors as sent by him” (1 Peter 2, 13-14).  The Lord Jesus does make the distinction between lawful authority and the humans who possess or wield it: “Do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example.”  The example that we follow is that of Jesus: “Be imitators of me as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 4, 16).  

There are those who see authority and think, “Power.”  But the Christian sees it and thinks, with the mind of Jesus Christ, “Service.”  For this reason, the Lord says to his Apostles, “Do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers.”  That is, Do not seek for people to call you “Rabbi”.  In the days of the Apostles, any man who went about teaching might be called a “rabbi”.  It was not a formal title bestowed after years of sanctioned study, as today.  A successful rabbi would start his own school and interpret the Law and the Prophets according to his own ideas.  He was his own authority in this.  The Apostles were not to go out and preach the Gospel in this way, but to preach the Gospel of Christ.  Similarly, “Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Christ.”  Do not strive for authority so as to exercise it according to your own best interests.  Authority is for service to others, not to oneself: “The greatest among you must be your servant.”  Some Protestants argue that the Catholic custom of addressing priests as “Father” violates this injunction of the Lord.  That is not so, for the Lord is making a greater point than the petty literal one they think he is making.  (They conveniently overlook the fact that since they believe everyone can interpret the Scriptures as they wish, each Protestant becomes de facto his own “rabbi”, “teacher”, and “father”).  However, even if the Lord meant this to be taken literally, St. Paul did not feel constrained from understanding himself as a “father” (cf. 1 Corinthians 4;14-15).

“Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”  This is both a warning and an exhortation, in light of the above.  We note that whoever exalts himself will be humbled.  This is not, Whoever is exalted will be humbled.  That is, one who is exalted by Almighty God will not be humbled, for he or she is already humble.  The Blessed Virgin, calling herself God’s handmaid, yet rightly says, “From henceforth all generations shall call me blessed” (Luke 1, 48).  She, and everyone who follows Christ, exalts him in their praise, and lowers themselves in their own sight. Her own majesty, celebrated today in the memorial of her Queenship, was dedicated not to the use of her authority for her own pleasure but in service to her Son; her greatness arises from the lowliness in which she sees herself before her Creator. May we practice her virtues in service to him so that we might deserve to have her as our Queen.

Friday in the Twentieth Week of Ordinary Time, August 21, 2026

Matthew 22, 34-40

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law, tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

“When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.”  It frustrated and confused the Pharisees and the Sadducees that this carpenter from Nazareth had struck out on his own and had not sought to align himself with either group.  Beyond this, he had poked holes in their most important teachings and shown that these did not originate in the Law at all.  Nor could these purported teachers of Israel show anything irregular in his way of life.  No individual renegade should have withstood their combined force, and this one had, and he was gaining a large, enthusiastic following.  People even began to acclaim him as the Messiah.  But he was not one of them, and they could not control him.

“One of them, a scholar of the law, tested him by asking, ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ ”  We should note the enormous patience the Lord Jesus shows with his enemies — for they had made themselves his bitter foes.  The Lord allows them to approach him, to challenge him, and to question him.  He does not drive them away or threaten them.  He teaches.  He urges repentance.  He warns, but without malice.  He praises, when he can.  Only his concern for their salvation motivates him.  As he does with Judas, he gives them more than sufficient chances to draw back and to reconsider.  As with Judas, they will have no reason to complain at the final judgment.  With his question, this particular Pharisee is laying the foundation for an argument which he hopes will end up showing some contradiction in Jesus’s doctrine, or even some heresy.  The question might also lead to Jesus unmasking as one favoring the Pharisees, which would result in a loss of favor from his followers.  The Lord answers this very basic question on which all Jews could agree: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment.”  Here is the Son of God, the Beloved of the Father, reciting the great commandment.  It would be thrilling to hear his voice as he pronounced these words, with all his infinite love for the Father pouring through them.  At the same time, we know how limited human language is, and that it can express only so much.  He says these words here, and he shows the extent of his love for his Father as he hangs on the Cross.  In heaven, we shall know the fullness of his love for the Father and of the Father’s love for him.  It is truly a love beyond all telling.

“The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Perhaps the Lord paused before uttering this second law, allowing the power of his cry of love for the Father to echo in the hearts of his hearers that they might be moved by it.  In going further than the Pharisee had asked, the Lord seizes the initiative and also jumps ahead in the argument in order to conclude it properly: “The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”  It is an impossibly wise answer.  The Mosaic Law, as anyone can see from a reading of, say, the Book of Leviticus, is a vast collection of commandments, laws, rules, prescripts, rituals, and guidance.  It is not presented in any particular form, though at times several verses at a time pertain to the same subject.  To say that the Law depended on any one of its commandments was hazardous.  The Lord attesting to the love of God and the love of neighbor as the Law’s grounding, as its cornerstone, shows a far greater understanding of it than any mere carpenter from Nazareth could have.  This surpassing wisdom indicates his divinity.

St. Mark adds in his telling of this conversation that the Pharisee praised Jesus for his answer, at which the Lord looked him in the eye and said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12, 34).  The Pharisee, who has embraced the Lord’s teaching, shows that he can change.  He can be saved.  He needs to walk just a little more, with his eyes, mind, and heart open.

The rest of the Pharisees, who had pressed forward to see what they eagerly thought would be knock-down fight between their champion and this carpenter, lost their heart altogether.  Mark tells us, “And no man after that dared ask him any more questions.”  Were the Pharisees in awe of the Lord’s wisdom or were they just a little afraid that they might be wrong?  When we study Church doctrine and the Holy Scriptures, let us gaze upon the wisdom which brings us closer and closer to the Kingdom of God.

Thursday in the Twentieth Week of Ordinary Time, August 20,, 2026

Matthew 22, 1-14

Jesus again in reply spoke to the chief priests and the 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 the king 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. He 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.”

Whereas the Parable of the Generous Landowner in yesterday’s Gospel reading speaks of the mystery of God’s generosity, the Parable of the King’s Feast, our Gospel reading for today’s Mass, tells of the mystery of man’s lack of generous response to God’s invitation.  

“He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast, but they refused to come.”  The wedding feast had been announced well in advance and the guests had already received their invitations.  The summoning here is a formality.  The servants making the summons were attired in festal clothing.  The guests consisted of lesser nobles and wealthy landowners.  The invitation to the son’s wedding feast provides the local gentry an opportunity to demonstrate their loyalty to the king as well as their good wishes for the newly married couple.  The invitation is also a sign of the king’s favor.  All of this apart from the food, the entertainment, and the chance to renew relationships with neighboring nobles and landowners.

“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 behavior the Lord describes here is outrageous.  In its way, it is as bizarre as the Lord’s telling of the half a billion dollar loan a king made to his servant, in another parable (Matthew 18, 22-35).  The outlandish nature of the actions of the invited guests tells us that the Lord wants us to pay close attention to it.  This is the central point of the parable.  

“The king was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.”  While the king’s reaction may seem extreme, in the context of the Ancient Near East, it is perfectly logical and foreseeable.  The invited guests — important, wealthy, and influential people within his realm, sent a message to him with their behavior: they spurned him, held him in contempt, and showed disloyalty.  The next step for them would be open rebellion, perhaps inviting a neighboring king to invade the land.  This disloyalty presented a threat to the king’s reign and to his life, and he immediately sends out his army to destroy his enemies.

“Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.”  Now begins what is almost a second parable.  In it, the king dispenses with the idea of inviting his fellow rich friends to the wedding feast and now simply wants to fill his hall.  He will take anyone in: “The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests.”  The Lord notably describes the guests in moral terms: “bad and good alike”.  “When the king came in to meet the guests he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.”  The king, having made his official entrance and words of welcome to the guests, makes his way among them, “the bad and the good alike”, and he meets up with a bad guest, one not wearing the wedding garment — either his own or one provided for him by the attendants.  This is an insult to the bride and the groom as well as to the host.  The king could throw him out at this point but instead he engages the fellow in conversation, as though to draw him into awareness of his improper dress: “My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?”  The Greek text does not have the king addressing the man as “friend” but as “comrade” or “companion”.  We should note here that the king is addressing in this manner someone gathered from the highways and byways, treating him as an equal.  Perhaps it is this generosity that causes the man “to be silenced”, as the Greek says.  That is, the man knows full well that he is without a wedding garment.  He is showing contempt through this.  And yet the king speaks to him, and speaks to him in this way, as though they had been on terms of intimacy for some time.  The silence, however, is the final sign of insolence, and the king has him put out.  And not just put out: “Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”  Harsh though the punishment may be, it is commensurate with the crime.

The actions, in the parable, of the invited guest and the guest without his wedding garment defy reason.  When a person desires to do another a good turn, it is not natural to insult him for this desire.  To do this is indicative of great hatred within the person.  Even so, a person ought to see that it is in his own best interests to receive the good, whether or not he cares for the person that offers it.  It is simply perverse to do otherwise.  The incandescent hatred of God and of religion, especially in our society today, is a mystery, but it is very real.  What drives a person’s hatred of God?  Ultimately it is pride, but it is still hard to understand the level of pride that results in such fury.  We should take great care in our lives not to give in to the temptation to see ourselves as independent, “autonomous”, and masters of our own destiny.  This can begin with such a petty thing as vanity or coveting an object possessed by another, and this can spin out of control very quickly — even so that a person is unaware of it — into a ferocious pride that can hardly abide any other individual, and God least of all.

The Lord concludes his parable, saying, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.”  That is, all are invited, but few choose to go.  Let not pride bind us and keep us in the darkness outside.

 This is the link to the first session on Hebrew.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HEWRoM7-vZO1qIUrAtyiC6Yi2eBzk6Ge/view?usp=drivesdk

Handouts:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12B7Fj3eEUiTGgt3VYlD8Gm0aQtFL8Tyv/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HIztlfpB0KfA8lpw1hbWVd5q_c9HYiCC/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nq1CWPjICfFJMrmChYPowfvCYIt8knh0/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HhMtvh2j1KlgC1vo0xncang5Qasfj5im/view?usp=drivesdk