Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Is 26: 6-10, Phil 4: 12-14, 19-20, Mt 22: 1-14

Banquets and parties-and yet the invited don’t show up. Today’s readings are about God’s invitation to you and me. Will we answer his invitation? The prophet Isaiah announced the Lord’s invitation. ‘On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for his all peoples a feast’ (Is 25: 6).

In the parable of the wedding feast, we again read of a banquet open to all people, a feast from which no one is excluded (Mt 22: 1-14). Isaiah and Jesus both emphasized that the Lord’s invitation was not an exclusive, high-society event. All are invited regardless of state of life, position in the community, material wealth, race, age, or handicap. The mixing of social groups was just as radical a concept in Isaiah’s and Jesus’ time as it is in ours. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day for example neglected tax collector and sinners-but these sinners often accepted Jesus before the self-righteous Pharisees did (Mt 9: 10-12). Today, the educated and financially secure often ignored the gospel, while the poor and humble embrace it eagerly.

The second reading is from the Letter to the Philippians. Here Saint Paul is teaching us: “I know how to live in humble circumstances; I know also how to live with abundance.” The challenge is for us to live the same way. Whether we have power and might and money or whether we have nothing, we must know how to live for God’s glory and not for our own purposes.

Today’s Gospel from St. Matthew brings us back to banquets! Now the king, God Himself, is giving a banquet. Jesus uses this image as an image of the kingdom of God. We are all invited! Are we going to respond to the invitation of Jesus? God wants us. God also invites us to live in a way given to us by Jesus himself. Some people no longer believe that Jesus is Lord, that Jesus is God, that Jesus is Savior.

But when we acknowledge that Jesus is Lord, God is Savior, then we can understand how important it is to respond to his invitation and to live as he has shown us.

In the sacrament of the Eucharist, God invites all people to taste his great love. As we participate in the liturgy of the Eucharist, God increases our desire and readiness for the heavenly bequest that is to come. How will we respond to the Lord’s invitation to the wedding banquet of his son?  Will we be too preoccupied with worldly affairs to accept it humbly? Or will we respond with hearts overflowing with love and gratitude for the Lord’s gift of refreshment and the opportunity to dwell in his house forever (Psalm 23: 3,6)?

Jesus said: “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Mt 22:14) The king rejected the improperly dressed man because he did not regard his invitation as a great honor, Consequently, he did not bother to clothe himself with “the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4: 24). The guests who were dressed in wedding garments recognized God’s abundant mercy and love as their only source of strength and hope, and so they ‘clothed’ themselves with this mercy.

We are invited not merely as individuals but as a community. It is the banquet of the new people of God, namely, the Christian community. The invitation challenges us to give up our isolationism, our exclusivism, our self-sufficient. To accept means to admit our need and willingness to receive from others, to share with others, to associate with others, and to collaborate with others.

Let us embrace God’s gift of love and grace in the Eucharist. By so doing, he will enable us to accept wholeheartedly his invitation to join in the celebration of wedding of the Lamb.

Peace and All good!

Fr. Valery Burusu

Parochial Administrator