Isaiah: 25:6-10; Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20; Matthew 22:1-14
Many
Are Called, But Few Are Chosen!
Today’s gospel tells a parable about a man who
prepared a wedding feast for his son and invited people to it. A feast is only
worth celebrating with family, friends, and the community. But the participants
in this banquet will not be who you’d expect on a royal wedding list. Those
invited declined, but the unwilling and the uninvited came. They shared the
Lord’s life and love. The first reading describes a banquet of feasting: rich
food and choice wines, prepared by the Lord for his people on the mountain of
the Lord. Isaiah describes, in rich imagery, what is commonly called the
eschatological, or end-time, meal. He brings the people home to the exquisite
joy of the final day, when they will be united with the Lord forever. Death
will be destroyed forever; there will be no sadness, no sickness, no pain, no
suffering, and no misery. We will see God as he is and say, “Behold our
God, to whom we looked to save us! This is the Lord for whom we looked; let us
rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!” (Is. 25:9).
On the night before his death, Jesus had a dinner with
his apostles. In that supper, Jesus gave his apostles a meal of greater
significance. He gave them his body and blood. “The Lord Jesus took
bread, and after he had given thanks, broke it and said, ‘This is my body that
is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after
supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as
you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and
drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.” (1
Cor. 11: 23-26). The banquet is therefore the Eucharist, the greatest act of
thanksgiving to God. It is a foretaste of the great banquet of heaven, prepared
by God for his people.
Lessons from today’s readings: The invited guests in
the gospel who refused the invitation were the Jews. They were the chosen
people of God, the covenant people, but when Jesus, the Son of God, came into
the world, they were invited to follow him, but they contemptuously refused. Because
of their refusal, the invitation went out directly to the highways and byways;
the people there were sinners and Gentiles who never expected an invitation
into the kingdom but responded with enthusiasm. They repented and were accepted
into the Lamb’s wedding feast. Through Baptism, we became God’s chosen sons and
daughters. Unfortunately, we do not always accept Christ’s invitation to be his
disciples. We accept the invitation through our way of life, our prayer, and
our service to one another. We cannot profess our faith only with our lips; we
must also profess it with our minds, our bodies, and our lives.
These readings remind us to serve the Lord in joy. The wedding feast celebrates joy. To think of Christianity as a gloomy giving up of everything that brings laughter and sunshine, and happy fellowship is to mistake its true nature. Christians are invited to a joyful fellowship with one another, and they miss joy if they refuse the invitation. Jesus had many opportunities to celebrate. He participated in the wedding feast at Cana (Jn. 2:1-11) and prompted several joyful celebrations throughout his earthly ministry. An angelic decree of immense joy marked his birth (Lk. 2:10); he rode triumphantly into Jerusalem amidst great joy (Mk. 11:1-11), among many other celebrations. A Christian must always show joy in serving God. We should always be joyful in God, no matter what happens around us. St. Paul exhorts us to “Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again; rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4).
Again, we learn that what makes a person deaf to God’s
call may not be bad or immoral. Those who refused the invitation had good
reasons. One went to his farm; the other went to his business. They went to administer
the business of life. Hence, life’s tragedy is that the second best so often
shuts out the best; things good in themselves shut out the supreme. We can be
so busy making a living that we forget to make a life. Our priorities in life
should be our willingness to sacrifice it all to attend the everlasting banquet.
We should do whatever it takes to partake in the feast prepared for us. May we never
work so hard for the Lord that we forget the Lord of the work! We will not be
punished for our refusal, but we will miss the joy of the feast. If we refuse
Christ’s invitation, someday our greatest pain will not be what we suffer, but
realizing the precious things we missed. God’s invitation is the invitation of
grace. Those gathered from the highways and byways could never have expected an
invitation to the wedding feast; they did not deserve it. It came to them not because
of anything they had done, but because of the king’s wide-armed, open-hearted,
generous hospitality. Grace offered the invitation, and grace gathered them in.
On our own, we are indeed undeserving. We
are who we are by God’s grace and mercy. So let us accept his loving invitation and say ‘Yes’ to it with our lives. Amen.
Rev.
Augustine Etemma Inwang, MSP