St. Matthew 22:1-14
Dear Friends, Today’s gospel highlights the call, the invitation to the heavenly wedding feast. In the Bible, the theme of the invitation or call is repeated often. Abraham is the first, then Moses, David and the prophets. In the New Testament it is Peter and the Apostles and finally, Paul.
We all join that very prestigious group in our own lives. We are invited to the wedding feast. All are honored guests with whom God will share the heavenly banquet. Everything is ready. Therefore, it is urgent that we attend to God's invitation and respond with hungry hearts right now. Otherwise, we will find ourselves outside looking in at the feast of our salvation. Today’s gospel message is clear. There are responsibilities with the divine invitation. The message of today's liturgy also challenges us about our attitudes and biases here and now.
Jesus’ invitation, like his life, is an unending, unmeasurable and relentless act of love. The feast that Jesus hosts is open to all at all times. Our task is simple yet profound. We need to recognize that accepting the invitation demands the wedding garment of living according to the gospel values. The wedding garment means producing good fruits of reconciliation, service, welcoming the stranger and all the demands of the gospel. These good fruits will ensure the believer’s place at the table.
The banquet is beyond anything one could imagine. It awaits our arrival. Our seat is reserved for eternity. The story of the wedding garment helps us to understand this reality. When God calls, and He does so often, we need to take action. We have to accept the message of Jesus. We want to make our yes express itself in a new way of living. The wedding garment is a witness to the gospel message. The demands of Jesus’ wisdom are not met by a token effort or just following the crowd. It demands a change of heart, a conversion meaning a radical change of values. Our invitation is a call to move away from the standards of the consumer world to the liberating message of the gospel. This is a life of simplicity and humility. This is a call of service to the least among us.
The wedding garment tells us that just showing up is not enough. We need a commitment that goes deeper. The fact is that God is never finished with us. God always wants more. The Christian life asks us to constantly choose Jesus who, indeed, is the wedding feast. The Christian life is never satisfied with just following the routine.
We need to work at reconciliation to keep on forgiving not just seven times but seventy times seven times. We need to hear the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth not with a casual effort but with true sacrifice and generosity. We need to be open to all, not just our parish or our group, but to the stranger and the ones that are different.
Jesus really meant it when He said if we want to save our life, we have to lose it. If we are to be the leader, we need to be the servant of all! He has loads more of these upsides down and inside out changes of reality that never let us forget to put on the wedding garment so necessary for the wedding feast. All of this is so because God’s love has no limits. God wants us to share in the fullness of the feast of that love. We must die relentlessly to our self-love. As always, we do this by walking in the footsteps of Jesus.
