28th Sunday in Ordinary Time A.
October 9, 2011. Isaiah 25:6-10a. Our Lady of
Grace 11:30, 6PM. Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20.
Matthew 22:1-14.
A few days ago I went to the Apple Store at Southdale and asked one of the salesmen to convince me not
to buy the new Kindle that came out the day before. His sales pitch was very
simple. Buy the Apple I-Pad because it can do more things. There
are half a million aps or applications for sale for
the I-Pad and on it I can write or talk to the other side of the world in a few
moments. In fact, I already talked to my brother in
Whether or not you understand the wonderful technological
world in which we live, we all live in a world of endless possibilities.
We can spend hours surfing the TV channels on our remote control, watching
nothing and getting nothing done. Today Jesus tells us a very interesting
parable about having too many possibilities. Jesus said that a king sent
out his servants to invite guests to the wedding feast for his son – but the
invited guests refused to come. Some just ignored the king’s invitation.
One had to go to his farm and another person had to go to his business. Some
people were so angered by the invitation to the wedding feast that they
mistreated the messengers. We have probably all had the experience
of biting off someone’s head because they invited us to do one more thing when
we were already too busy. Jesus does not say that the people invited to the
wedding feast were evil people. If they were evil they probably would not
have been invited. They were just too busy to hear the invitation
and to come to the feast. It is very hard to hear God’s voice when it is hidden
in the busyness of every day life. It is hard even to hear the
deepest desires of our own hearts when they are submerged in the endless
intriguing possibilities of every day life. Endless possibilities can make us
deaf to the deepest meaning and purpose of life.
How does the evil one tempt us? C. S. Lewis wrote a
wonderful book called the Screwtape Letters.
In the book an old devil is teaching his young devil nephew how to pull people
away from God. The old devil said that the whole secret of destroying
people’s lives is noise. Devil Uncle Screwtape
explains that the effectiveness of noise has been tested over many
centuries. He tells the young devil to create so much noise that human
beings can no longer hear the voice of God. The old devil announces that
evil will win by filling the whole universe with noise.
The people invited to the wedding were not evil
people. There were just so many opportunities, so many possibilities, so
much noise and confusion in their lives that they could not hear what was best
for them. They could not hear the voice of God. They were ordinary
people, good people and people confused by the busyness of life. They
were people walking faster and faster through a maze, heading this way and then
that way, but not finding the way to the wedding feast of the great king.
Lost in their busyness they could not find the way.
We live in a society where it is very easy to get
washed away by the pace of life. We live in a culture that tells us that
if we keep moving we are really going some place. The truth may be that
we are good people with good intentions, but that we are not going anyplace at
all. When we do not hear the voice of God we can not take the invitation
of God seriously. The rat race robs us of our lives.
Because those who were invited first were too busy
or too confused to come to the wedding feast, the servants of the king went out
into the streets and invited everyone they found, the bad and the good
alike. One man said “yes” to the invitation to the wedding feast but he
was not prepared for what he had said yes to. He came to the wedding
feast not properly dressed for a wedding. The fact that he showed up for the
wedding was a very good thing. But much more was expected of him. Hearing
the invitation and showing up is not enough. We must come to the wedding
feast prepared to enter into the feast. Jesus tells us that hearing the
voice of God and coming to the wedding feast without being prepared to live as
Jesus empowers us to live also has bad consequences. If we think
that just showing up is enough the words of the king will seem very
harsh. “The king said, take the man who
came into the weddings feast without being properly prepared, bind his hands
and feet and cast him outside where there will be wailing and the grinding of
teeth.”
Jesus reminds us that many are invited to God’s
great feast, some refuse, some say yes, some come prepared and others do not.
“Many are invited, but few are chosen.”
What does it mean to be prepared for the great
wedding feast of God? The great prayer of St. Ignatius helps us
understand what coming to the God’s wedding feast demands. While I will
always struggle to live this prayer, it does point the way to feast and the
fullness of life. This is the prayer:
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my
memory, my understanding, and my entire will. All I have and call my own.
Whatever I have or hold, you have given me. I return
it all to you and surrender it wholly to be governed by your will. Give me only
your love and your grace and I am rich enough and ask for nothing more.
For the
grace to say “yes” to God’s invitation to the feast of life we give God thanks
and praise.