“And the room was full”. Not one is missing!
28th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)
Matthew 22: 1-14
First Reading
Isaiah 25:6-10a
The Lord will provide richly for his people.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 23:1-6
The Lord is our shepherd.
Second Reading
Philippians 4:12-14,19-20
Paul tells the Philippians that God provides whatever he needs.
Gospel Reading
Matthew 22:1-14 (shorter form Matthew 22:1-10)
Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a wedding feast.
Background on the Gospel Reading
Immediately after criticizing the religious leaders through the parable of the tenants in last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus proceeded to tell another parable, again directed at the religious leaders. We hear this parable in today’s Gospel.
In the parable of the wedding feast, Jesus offers an image of the kingdom of heaven using the symbol of a wedding banquet. In today’s first reading from the prophet Isaiah and in today’s psalm, the Lord’s goodness is evident in the symbol of a feast of good food and wine. Jesus’ listeners would have been familiar with the image of a wedding feast as a symbol for God’s salvation. They would consider themselves to be the invited guests. Keeping this in mind helps us to understand the critique Jesus makes with this parable. The context for this parable is the growing tension between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem. This has been the case for the past two Sundays and will continue to be true for the next several weeks.
The parable Jesus tells is straightforward. The king dispatches his servants to invite the guests to the wedding feast that he is planning for his son. The listeners would have been surprised to learn that the first guests refused the invitation. Who would refuse the king’s invitation? A second dispatch of servants follows. Again to the listeners’ great surprise, some guests ignore the invitation. Some of the invited guests even go so far as to mistreat and kill the servants. The king invokes his retribution against these murderers by destroying them and burning their city.
We might stop here for a moment. Why would some guests kill the servants sent to invite them to the king’s wedding feast? It might be possible that the king was a tyrant, evidenced by the destruction of the city of those who refused his invitation. But if we follow this idea, then the allegory seems to be about something other than the kingdom of heaven. It is more likely that the destruction of the city would have been a powerful image corresponding to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70, which would have been an important event for Matthew’s audience.
With the invited guests now deemed unworthy to attend the king’s wedding feast, the servants are sent to invite whomever they can find. The guests arrive, but it appears that accepting the king’s invitation brings certain obligations. The guest who failed to dress in the appropriate wedding attire is cast out of the feast. We are reminded that while many are invited to the kingdom of heaven, not all are able to meet its requirements. God invites us to his feast, giving us his salvation. Yet he asks us to repent for our sins.
Jesus’ message in the parable cautions against exclusive beliefs about the kingdom of heaven. The parable also teaches about humility. Those who assume that they are the invited guests may find that they have refused the invitation, and so others are invited in their place. To accept the invitation is also to accept its obligations. God wants our full conversion in complete acceptance of his mercy.
GOD’S INVITATION
José Antonio Pagola
It seems that the parable of the banquet was very popular among the first generation of Christians, and got recounted in Luke, Matthew and even in the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas. The versions are so different and the applications that are extracted so diverse that we can only approximate the essential elements of the original story.
God is preparing a final celebration for all God’s children, since God wants to see them all seated, next to God, around the same table, enjoying forever a full life. This was certainly one of the images most beloved by Jesus to «suggest» the final end of human history. He wasn’t satisfied with just saying it with words. He seated himself at table with everyone, and even ate with sinners and the undesirables, since he wanted everyone to be able to tangibly see something of what God desired to bring to fulfillment.
That’s why Jesus understood his life as a great invitation in God’s name. He imposed nothing, pressured no one. He announced the good news of God, awakened trust in the Father, banished fears, lit up joy and the desire of God. His invitation ought to reach everyone, above all those most in need of hope.
Jesus was realistic. He knew that the invitation could be rejected. In Matthew’s version the various reactions are described. Some reject it consciously: «They didn’t want to go». Others responded indifferently: «They paid no attention». Their lands and businesses are more important to them. There were those who reacted hostilely against the servants.
There are many who no longer listen to any call from God. It’s enough for them to respond to themselves about themselves. Without being very conscious of it, they live a «solitary» existence, enclosed in a perpetual monologue with themselves. The risk is always the same: live each day more deaf to every call that could transform their life at its root.
Maybe one of the most important tasks of the Church would be to create spaces and facilitate experiences today where people could listen to God’s invitation proclaimed in Jesus’ Gospel in a simple, transparent and joyful manner.
“God never fails”: He invites all the peoples to his banquet!
Romeo Ballan, MCCJ
Today’s invitation is not just for working in the vineyard but for a wedding banquet, for a feast, for life! From the Lord’s vineyard to the banquet of the peoples: after three Sundays with the vineyard as a theme, today the message of the Scripture readings centres on the banquet of life to which God invites all the peoples. This project of the Father appears clearly already in the First Testament, from creation, where God was preparing a garden for his sons and daughters. The prophet Isaiah (1st Reading), using an apocalyptic language projected into the future, speaks of a banquet of fat foods and excellent wines, for all peoples (v. 6). Humiliations, death, tears, slavery will belong to the past! Is it only a dream, an illusion? No! It is the plan of the Father of life for all peoples (V. 7) that is gradually taking shape on the journey to the final Kingdom. It is therefore fitting to rejoice and exult because of the salvation that comes from God (v. 9). Even in the midst of life’s tribulations, He, the good Shepherd, provides everything: he provides food and water, he prepares an abundant banquet for all (Responsorial Psalm).
The icon of a banquet is a very familiar reality in the actions and the teachings of Jesus. He knew how to be fasting and be austere, but above all he liked to be with people and have a feast. His signs begin right at a wedding feast in Cana; he accepts the dinners offered by Matthew and Zaccheus, by Simon the leper and by his friend Lazarus; the multiplication of the loaves, the last supper, the table of Emmaus, the breakfast on the lakeshore… Then the teachings of Jesus on the places at table, the fasting, the vigil of the virgins wanting to enter into the wedding feast, and others such as today’s parable of the wedding banquet for the king’s son (Gospel).
In the icon of the banquet (the image and the reality) is revealed the project of the Father for the life of the world. His invitation is not limited only to working in the vineyard (see the parables of the previous Sundays), but to enter with joy into the wedding banquet of the Son: namely, to become sons through the Son, brothers and sisters of all, through baptism; to share in the banquet of the Eucharist; to play an active role in the project of the Kingdom and carry its good news also to others through a missionary sharing. All this, before being a duty, is a gift, a source of dignity, a feast. To be Christians, disciples and missionaries of the Gospel is much more than a ruling: it’s a reason for joy and hope, it’s a service to the Kingdom, it’s life.
The feast is ready (v. 8): the Son has come, he is present. The saving plan of God is for all peoples. His Kingdom has universal dimensions, without limits, as we can tell from the parable: the Father invites everybody, wants a house filled with his sons and daughters, “good and bad”, gathered from all parts of the world (v. 9). He resents the refusal of the first invited guests, but does not give up. “The plan of God is not suspended; on the contrary, it picks up intensity in view of the unusual individuals whom a Hebrew would most certainly not want to invite to his purified and ritually perfect table. It’s wholly a world of poor and suffering people, ostracised people scattered on the world’s roads. The proud self-sufficiency of those who felt they had the monopoly of election and salvation… is supplanted by the new community of the Beatitudes” (G. Ravasi). God never fails, he does not give up on account of our refusals but looks for new ways.
To belong to this community we need the wedding garment(v. 12). A requirement that appears to conflict with the breadth and hurry of that wide-ranging recruitment… It could be a parable told by Jesus in a different context. In any case, the message is consistent with personal freedom and the availability of each one in the face of the call of God. They are essential conditions: to get rid of the habits of the old man and to put on those of the new man (Ef 4:22-24), as St. Paul says (2nd Reading), who adapted himself to everything, “to be well fed and to go hungry”; he trusts only in God: “I can do all things in him who strengthens me” (v.12-13). The wedding garment is Christ, He is the new man: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ”, exhorts again Paul (Rom 13:14). And St. Gregory the Great comments: “Charity is the wedding garment, because our Redeemer was wearing it when he came to unite his Church to himself as bride. It is the love of God that prompts the only begotten Son to unite the elects to him. “Here we have a message that highlights the commitment of each Christian and of each community during this missionary month of October. We are the servants whom the Father of Life sends on the roads of the world to announce the Gospel of Jesus, so that all the members of the human family may be the invited guest at the banquet of the new life, in Christ.
INVITED TO DANCE WITH GOD
Fernando Armellini
Introduction
The Kingdom of God is the central theme of Jesus’ preaching. He begins his public life by announcing: “The Kingdom of God is at hand” (Mk 1:15). Then, using many parables, he gradually reveals ‘the mysteries’ (Mt 13). One of the workers who came at the last hour (Mt 20:1-16) is certainly the most puzzling. Jesus told it to emphasize both thegratuitousness of the call and the commitment required of anyone who enters the Kingdom of God. It cannot be denied that it is tiring to remain faithful to Christ. But if being a disciple involves considerable effort, how could the workers’ grievances hired at six in the morning and paid like those who arrived at five in the evening not be justified?
Suppose you set the relationship with God in terms of unequally remunerated work and regret that the reward received in heaven is not proportionate to the accumulated merit. In that case, you may think that those who set foot in the kingdom of heaven at the last moment and are lucky enough to ‘die in the grace of God’ after ‘enjoying life’ away from him are blessed.
This is the mentality that creates the careless (one who is indifferent to the calls tofaith), the latecomer (who puts off doing good as late as possible), the unruly (who keeps the commandments under stress and fear of hell), and the shabby (the baptized person who continues to act as a semi-pagan). Only those who understand that the Kingdom of God isa feast, a banquet, enter without delay because they do not want to miss even a moment ofjoy that is offered to them.
First Reading: Isaiah 25:6-10a
In ancient times only important people could afford a great banquet. Kings often organized them for political reasons: inviting those they wanted to form alliances orstrengthen bonds of friendship. The banquets celebrating certain recurrences or victory over enemies were particularly sumptuous (cf. Es 1:1-8; Dn 5).
In today’s reading, the prophet presents himself as the herald of a sensational announcement. Not a ruler of this world, but it is God will give a banquet, for which he lists the menu: rich food, all kinds of tasty meats, fine and choice wines (v. 6) … stuff to overload the imagination of the poor people of Israel, who used to eat only once a day andnot always.
Even the rabbis are delighted to quibble about the courses offered in this banquet.Starting from the fact that the Bible is reminiscent of a sea monster called Leviathan, who was killed by God and given “as meat to the people who lived in the wilderness” (Ps 74:14), they concluded that the main food of the righteous will be the meat of this mythicalfish. It is for this reason that in Israel, even today, at the Friday evening dinner, when the Sabbath begins, it is customary to eat fish, to remind all pious people of the heavenly banquet that awaits them.
Who will be the guests?—the eager listeners anxiously asked. All the peoples of the earth, without exception, is the answer. All of them will be called to the same table. The people who hated each other before, who committed violence, who struggled to subjugate the land and the goods, will rejoice together.
Not only will they eat. They will witness extraordinary events, and unheard-of things will come to pass. The Lord will drop the veil, he will destroy the pall cast over the people(v. 7), and everyone will be able to contemplate him, seated at the table next to them. Thenhe “will destroy death forever and will wipe away the tears from all cheeks and eyes …” (v. 8).
The prophet was not so naive as to think that one day biological death would no longerexist; instead, he announced the demise of what is human death and defeat: life without meaning or ideals, the mockery of failure and pain, hunger, disease, exclusion. Anything that is ‘non-life’ will be eliminated, “for Yahweh has spoken” (v. 8). In no other text of the Old Testament are such extraordinary promises found.
The banquet, of course, will be enlivened with music, song and dance. The readingconcludes with the text of a hymn seemingly composed to be rendered by the guests in chorus: “This is our God. We have waited for him to save us, let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. For on this mountain the hand of Yahweh rests” (vv. 9-10).
The prophet alludes to the Messianic times but does not realize the extent of the promises that he was making in the name of God. He never imagined that one day the Lord would indeed destroy death forever. Paul, enlightened by the events of Easter, will instead understand it. He will write to the Corinthians: “When our perishable being puts on imperishable life, when our mortal being puts on immortality, the words of Scripture will be fulfilled: Death has been swallowed up by victory” (1 Cor 15:54).
The seer of the Apocalypse will understand that, at the appearance of the new heavensand the new earth, God will wipe away every tear from their eyes (Rev 21:4) as Isaiah had predicted.
Second Reading: Philippians 4:12-14,19-20
With today’s passage, the letter to the Philippians concludes. There are a few moving lines from which profound feelings of friendship that bind Paul to that Christian community transpire. The apostle recalls first the hardship, deprivation, and the oppositionthat he endured for the sake of the Gospel: “I know what it is to be in want and what is to have plenty. I am trained for both: to be hungry or satisfied, to have much or little” (v. 12).
He is imprisoned in Ephesus, not for ordinary crimes, but for having served Christ.There, he received the gifts sent to him by the Philippians. Paul is an austere man and is accustomed to a hard life, persecution and starvation. However, in front of their generous gesture, he is moved and says: thank you for doing right in sharing my trials (v. 14).
Whoever risks his life for the sake of the Gospel remains a person with all emotion and feeling. He is hurt by ingratitude but rejoices in the expressions of esteem and affection. Above all, he who has given up everything for the sake of the Kingdom, to form his own family, feels this need for friendship deeply. Whoever appreciates the message of salvation that he proclaims must in some way manifest his gratitude. At the end of the letter, Paul ensures us that God loves and protects his envoys and will reward the gestures of generosity done to them superabundantly (v. 19).
Gospel: Matthew 22:1-14
In Jesus’ time, the Gan Eden—Garden of Eden—was fabled among the people as being where the righteous would enjoy every happiness. In the light of Isaiah’s well-known prophecy that we found in the First Reading, it is imaged as a sumptuous banquet where‘wine stored in the cluster of the six days of creation’ would be served as the beverage. It isrepresented as a place where there would be no need to spread the aroma of perfumebecause ‘a wind from the north and the south blowing between the aromatic plants of GanEden would spread its fragrance everywhere.’
The rabbis continued with promises of even greater joy. They asked: ‘Can a guest prepare a banquet for travelers without sitting at the table with them? Can a groom preparea banquet for the guests without sitting next to them?’ Their answer was: ‘In the afterlife, the Holy One, may He be blessed, will dance for the righteous in Gan Eden and will sit intheir midst, and each will point to him saying: behold, he is our God, as we expected him, we will enjoy his salvation.’
It is against this cultural background that the parable proposed to us today is projected.However, we immediately notice that the perspective of the Kingdom of God preached byJesus is considerably different from that of the rabbis. They announced a Gan Edenprepared for the afterlife, the banquet of the Kingdom of God, which Jesus speaks of asladen in the here and now. It is the new condition, into which he who welcomes the gift of his Spirit, who believes in his proposal of joy, who trusts his beatitudes, enters.
In the whole parable, the atmosphere is one of joy and celebration. Still, there are alsotwo unexpected, dramatic moments: in the center, there is a city in flames, and in the epilogue, a victim is thrown out into the darkness. We will try to grasp the meaning of these two scenes, but we begin first by identifying the characters.
The wedding feast is the biblical image of the encounter of love between the Lord and Israel. In the parable, the bridegroom is Jesus, he is the Son, and the bride is the whole of humanity. Although presenting many unattractive aspects (hate, war, injustice, tears of the innocent, and so on), Israel is madly loved by God.
The banquet is the happiness of the Messianic era. Whoever accepts the proposal of the Gospel and enters the Kingdom of God experiences the most authentic and deep joy. In the Bible, the Kingdom of God is not compared with a chapel where everyone prays devoutly and attentively. It is not imagined as a convent where not even the slightest noise is heard, where nobody disturbs the meditation and ecstasy of others, but it is a banquet, where people meet, eat and drink their fill and talk as they party.
In the First Reading, the prophet promised that God would organize a banquet to celebrate the victory over death. Easter is the time of God’s triumph and the day on which the indissoluble marriages between Christ and humanity are celebrated. From then on, they no longer sense sadness, mistrust and despair; all deaths were overcome; all the graveswere opened wide. The servants who have the task of taking the call are divided into three groups. The first two are the prophets of the Old Testament, up until John the Baptist. Theyhave carried out the task of preparing Israel to welcome Jesus, the bridegroom. They have not been successful. The third group indicates the apostles and all of us; their results are much better.
The first to be invited did not come to the party; they didn’t have the heart to abandontheir interests, the field and business enterprises (v. 5). They did not need a banquet; they felt satiated, believed that they already had what was necessary for a life without problems.They represent the spiritual leaders of Israel, satisfied with the given religious structurethat offered them security before all and before God. Those who are not aware of theirpoverty, who do not feel hunger and thirst for a new world, will never enter the Kingdomof God. They will adapt to the meanness with which they usually live. Only the poor canunderstand the gratuitousness of God’s love.
The guests, gathered along the streets and squares, are people of the whole world. It is no coincidence that, in the original text, the good and the bad are not spoken about—as inour translation (v. 10)—but of the bad and the good, without distinction. It gives priority to those who do not have merit. It is a subtle way of alluding to the complete gratuitousnessof God’s love and the fact that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly”(Rom 5:6).
The presence of good and evil in the Church is a theme taken up again by Matthew.Those who enter into the Kingdom of God do not immediately achieve perfection. Theybring with them all their miseries, weaknesses and moral infirmity. The people of God are made up of those who are bad and good. It is a field where they continue to grow with the wheat and tare, or a sea where a net brings together all sorts of marine life. It is an invitation to cultivate an understanding of human weakness and keep the doors open to allin our communities. The poor, the marginalized, those who feel rejected in the Churchmust find a place to feel accepted, understood and valued.
Before moving on to the second part of the passage, the detail of the city on fire (v. 7)should be clarified. It was certainly introduced to Matthew in the parable told by Jesus. In fact, the verse interrupts the story, and if we omit it, the story will flow more logically. It is difficult to imagine a banquet that begins in the middle, it then makes war, and at the end,the dishes are still ready on the table and the guests still waiting.
The evangelist wanted to make a theological reading of the destruction of Jerusalem, which had already occurred when he wrote his Gospel. The early Christians consideredthis tragic event to have been a punishment from God for the rejection of the Messiah by Israel.
We are faced with an interpretation that strikes our sensibility. We know that God is not responsible for the disasters caused by our nonsensical behavior. It is quite an archaic way for them to express themselves. It is derived from the language of the Old Testament,where it is often called a chastisement by God, but in reality, it is the consequence of sin.Here, for example, Isaiah explains the disasters with which Israel met: “For they have rejected the law of Yahweh Sabaoth and scorned the word of the Holy One of Israel. Therefore, the Lord, his wrath burning against his people, raises his hand against them and strikes them down” (Is 5:24-25). It would not be in fidelity to the sacred text to repeat these expressions today, which would have a completely different meaning in our culture; it would be foolish fundamentalism. It is, therefore, necessary to transpose and reformulatethe image to make it understandable to our contemporaries.
Here is how the message could be proposed today. Those who reject the Lord’spressing invitations to take part in the banquet of the Kingdom of God, condemn themselves to destruction, will see their lives reduced to ashes, and all that they have builtwill go unnoticed as like fuming waste. (1 Cor 3:13).
God always uses even the disasters caused by sin to bring forward a project of goodness. He lets them realize what his plan of salvation is. The destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and the rejection of the Messiah by Israel have facilitated the entry of theGentiles into the Church. “You did not belong to the community of Israel; the covenants of God and his promises were not for you; you had no hope and were without God in this world” (Eph 2:12). They now can rightfully sit as guests at the banquet. The conclusion is as simple as touching: “And the room was full” (v. 10). Not one is missing; all the childrenare gathered around the table of the Father; the party can begin.
The curtain could fall on this sweet and charming scene. Instead, here the parablecontinues with an episode that seems to ruin everything. The king enters the room, browses around at the guests, and gets angry with a victim who did not wear the proper attire. Hetreats him with unprecedented harshness, even unjustified, considering the venality of his sin (vv. 11-13). Those who joined the joyful feast cannot but be stunned. How do youexplain that?
It soon becomes evident that this part of the story is disconnected from the previous one. It does not agree with what has been said. Why wonder over someone without a wedding dress if the people were gathered on the street, in the fields or the squares? It would be more surprising to find someone wearing formal attire. But what is out of place is the split personality of the sovereign. He acts like a person with schizophrenia: at first, he is generous and kind to the most unfortunate, then, suddenly, he gets upset, becomes wrathful, even cruel.
The explanation is quite simple. The second part of the parable is not the continuation of the first. It is a new parable that is isolated and should be interpreted without reference to the previous one. The theme that the evangelist wants to focus on is the possibility, even for those who have accepted the invitation to enter into the Kingdom of God, to turn awayfrom the logic of the Gospel. They risk the same failure as those who declined the invitation.
The new life of the Christian is often compared in the New Testament with a new dress worn on the day of baptism. It is not enough to have received the sacrament; we need to assume the appropriate behavior. We cannot present ourselves in the rags of our old lives: adultery, dishonesty, disloyalty and moral evil. We cannot be content to put a new patch on the old garment. We need a complete change of kit. We must set our lives on analtogether new set of values.
As for the punishment inflicted on the guest without wedding attire, it should be noted, above all, that this rough way of expression is typical of Matthew. Only he uses theexpression “thrown out into extreme darkness” (Mt 8:12; 23:30) and “where there will beweeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mt 13:42-50; 23:30; 24:51 …), and he does it often. The other evangelists do not use such language.
Matthew is writing to the Jews, who are used to being encouraged and reprimanded bytheir preachers with these strong expressions. These images are linked to the time and culture of the people of Israel. This fact should be kept in mind to avoid having an absurd and even blasphemous idea of God, a God without heart and mercy. The evangelist’s purpose is to remind Christians—of his and our communities—of the seriousness with which they should assume and carry out their baptismal commitments.
The last sentence: “Many (i.e., ‘all’) are called, but few are chosen” (v. 14), is not related to any of the two parables that precede it. In them, the elect are many (almost all),and few are refused (only one).
We are faced with a saying that Jesus spoke in a different context. Matthew has inserted it here to shake some Christians of his community out of their lethargy and apathy with an affirmation. It is often interpreted as an indication of the limited number of those who will enter paradise. However, here Jesus is not speaking of heaven, but of the Kingdom of God, the new world into which we enter by adhering to his challengingproposal of life. All are invited, but few dare to take the decisive step. The majorityhesitates, dithers and slackens. They are uncertain, not entirely convinced that inside they will find a laden table. They falter at giving up the security that comes from what they already have. Jesus warns against the risk of losing valuable time. We could arrive latewhen others are already having their cake or their fruit.
READ: Jesus elaborates on the gratuitous banquet with the imagery of a wedding reception. The invited guests did not come preferring to attend instead to their own affairs.Some even did violence to the servants sent by the king and killed them. In anger, the king retaliated, and having annihilated the ungrateful guests, he sent his servants once again to invite anyone who cared to come. But one had to be in festal garments when entering or risk the chance of being thrown out of the banquet hall.
REFLECT: The invitation to the banquet of the Kingdom is freely offered to all.Everyone is invited. However, not everyone accepts it. And those who accept must play by the rules of the Kingdom. That is why the one without the wedding garment is thrown out. Sometimes we have an erroneous understanding of God’s mercy – that he forgives everything and, therefore, everything goes. It doesn’t.
PRAY: Today might be a good day to say a prayer of thanks to God who befriended us.Let us also pray for all people in the world to accept the invitation to the Kingdom.
ACT: What qualities should we develop to be more effective in the mission entrusted to us. Let us do something good to someone today as an act of gratitude to God.
