Thursday of Week 20 in Ordinary Time (Year II)
Ezekiel 36:23-28 | Psalm 50:12-15,18-19 | Matthew 22:1-14
Today’s Gospel describes a wedding feast that’s easily interpreted in a modern context:
- recalcitrant invitees – “no, I don’t want to know God, you Christians are so anti-fun, go away! I said GO AWAY!”
- surprise invites – “yes, I know you’re a serial murderer, but God is inviting you to repent and believe anyway, so what say you?”
- a unkempt guest.
Wait, what?
I’d been glossing over the “guest without a wedding garment” for many years, but now that I think about it, this could be the most interesting part of the parable.
Since the king in the parable asked his guards to pull random working-class strangers in off the street, we can presume that he also instructed his staff to prepare the necessary finery for them as well. None of the guests had to run back home to wash off the day’s filth and look for their special suit; all they had to do was to say “thank you, your Majesty” and don the proferred garment.
Similarly, we are all called to true conversion, to shed the stain of sin and don the white “wedding garments” of holiness given to us by God through Jesus Christ and Holy Mother Church. We don’t have to do anything ridiculously inconvenient; we just say “thank you, Lord” and turn away from Satan.
So the guest in question actually rejected the garment offered to him out of the king’s largesse, and therefore deserved to be ejected from the wedding feast. Similarly, if we choose to continue our sinful ways, we have no one else to blame when we are locked out of heaven. “Weeping and grinding of teeth” will just be the start of our eternal sorrow.
And as Jesus reminded us, “the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect,” (Matthew 24:44) so what are we waiting for?