Twenty Eighth Sunday Ordinary

Twenty Eighth Sunday Ordinary
October 9, 2005

"On this mountain the LORD of hosts will provide for all peoplesa feast of rich food and choice wines," (Isaiah 25:6-10) "The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son." (Matthew 22:1-14)

The prophet Isaiah envisions a messianic age when all the earth's people gather in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount at a great banquet of abundance, peace and unity. This is one of many passages in the Torah and Prophets in which Yahweh's chosen people are the instrument of a transformation of all human history. There is only one God, known by many names. The human family is the family of God. God is going to be there for all of us. Everyone will be invited to the banquet.

Jesus uses another parable, a royal wedding feast, to describe the kingdom of God. The king (the Most High) invites worthy guests to the wedding of his son. But they either ignore the invitation or kill the messengers. So he destroys their city and invites the "unworthy" homeless from the highways, "the good and bad", and the wedding banquet is filled. Even then, someone appears who is not suitably dressed and he is promptly tossed out on his ear. This seems like a contradiction. Why would someone be considered unworthy just because he or she is wearing the wrong clothes? Isn't that part of being unworthy, not having the "right" clothes?

Jesus seems to be saying that in the kingdom of God as we know it right now, the "good and bad" are not so clearly distinguishable. For now we must live with that ambiguity. Maybe this is less a reference to good and bad people than it is to the paradoxical mix of right and wrong, beautiful and ugly, good and bad in every human soul. The two will be separated only when the kingdom reaches its final destiny. Nevertheless, even now we do have a choice about whether to put on the right garments so that we can be recognized as belonging to God's people.

What are the right clothes necessary to be admitted to the banquet of the kingdom of God? Perhaps they are the appropriate state of mind, What would this state of mind be? Surely it would be an attitude of grateful acceptance that everyone has a place at the banquet. Certainly it would include a perception of our own unworthiness as a condition of being worthy. This is perhaps the way we are to take the closing statement, "many are called but few are chosen". The paradox is that few of us can embrace our own unworthiness and are quick to declare the unworthiness of others. We are admitted to the banquet unless we steadfastly refuse to wear the garment of unworthiness.