Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Isaiah 25:1-9
Philippians 4:1-9
Matthew 22:1-14
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Today’s gospel is a collage of contradictions and inconsistencies: a wedding banquet and a blood bath; messengers of good news, and killers of those messengers; an enraged king who sends troops to destroy his own citizens; an open invitation to all and the exclusion of one who accepts the invitation. This parable is so outrageous, so shocking, that it begs to be taken seriously not literally. It just does not fit with the God revealed by Jesus Christ throughout the gospels. It’s a mirror holding before us all the contradictions and inconsistencies of our lives, our country, and our world. Jesus, in today’s gospel, is challenging our preconceived ideas and expectations so that we might see, hear, think, and ultimately, become something new. Every text invites us to struggle not just with the text itself but with the text in our life, and to work out our faith in light of that struggle.
My first thought on reading the Gospel was Jesus was not describing God’s kingdom but the one we have created for ourselves. We have more than enough leaders and groups throughout the world who are abusing their power, where violence is perpetrated on a daily basis, where people’s lives are being destroyed, where cities are bombed and burning, where many are excluded and told they don’t belong. Over the centuries we haven’t needed God’s help to bring this about. We’ve gotten very good at it ourselves. The contradictions and inconsistencies in our lives, country, and world are telling us that we are betraying ourselves, one another, and God.
No doubt, this is a parable of judgment, but it may not be the judgment we think it is. We tend to get nervous and fearful when God begins making judgments. It leaves us wondering whether we are in the right group. Are we unworthy or worthy? I suspect our nervousness and fear about God’s judgments arise from the assumption that God judges us in the same way as we judge others. More often than not our judgments of others are judgments of exclusion. What if it’s just the opposite with God? What if Jesus is trying to shock us into seeing that the kingdom of God is not business as usual according to our standards? What if God’s judgment on our lives is one of grace, acceptance, and invitation; a judgment of inclusion?
What separates or distinguishes the first guests from the second in the parable isn’t that one was more deserving than the other. Both the first and second guests were the recipients of the king’s invitation and favor. And so was the person who showed up without a wedding robe. They were all invited. They were all favored. None of them had done anything to earn or deserve an invitation. The king‘s sole motivation is to share his banquet, to join in his joy and celebration. Both groups were given the same opportunity. There’s no distinction made based upon behavior, beliefs, attitudes, or morals. To the contrary, with the second round of invitations the king sends his servants into the main streets with the instruction to “invite everyone you find.” And they did. They “went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad.”
The only thing that distinguishes the first guests from the second is that the second guests showed up. The first guests did not. The key to our life in God is to show up, to be present. That’s a lot easier said than done. To be present is difficult work. I’m reminded of how true this is whenever I make a visitation to one of our houses. To be present to another requires establishing the other as a priority, seeing them for who they are and not who we want or think they should be. It means opening ourselves to vulnerability. It means listening, letting go of our own agendas, distractions, fears, and prejudices. If we’re not doing that with others we’re probably not doing it with God. Instead, we too often go our separate ways. We’re too busy, too tired, too distracted. To be present. We’re convinced we have better things to do and better places to be. That’s what the first guests did.
To show up and be present is to be worthy before God. We don’t earn or prove our worthiness as a prerequisite to entering the banquet. We show up and discover for ourselves the worthiness God has always known about us. But what about the one who showed up without a wedding robe? This is about more than just a dress code. I think that something else was missing. “He was speechless”, we are told. It was as if he wasn’t really there. There are times when we show up but we’re not really present. Our body is there but we’re not. Jesus is telling this parable hoping to shake us up, hoping to wake us up. When we are present, we will know his Presence. It is that simple and that hard. God is always inviting; Christ is always present. It’s we who are not!
To ignore and gloss over the contradictions and inconsistencies in today’s gospel is to ignore and gloss over the contradictions and inconsistencies in our lives and world. Showing up comes not from willpower but from a wholehearted acceptance of the invitation. And it is the task of a lifetime. +Amen
God of Love who holds all things together in yourself. Draw us ever
nearer to you and to one another, that all may come into the reach of
your saving embrace. Amen.
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