October 11, 2020
Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
First Reading: Isaiah 25: 6-10
Second Reading: Philippians 4; 12-14, 19-20
Gospel: Matthew 22: 1-10
The first reading today and the Gospel are united in the theme of end time and people of all nations coming into the banquet of the Lord. Jesus presents the parable of the wedding banquet, a parable that is rooted in common everyday life. This parable continues from the parable of the wicked tenants. Jesus is still addressing the chief priests and leaders in Jerusalem. He is alluding to His rejection. Just as in the parable of the wicked tenants, the vineyard was taken from the tenants and given to others so the invitation to the royal banquet will now be given to others.
We are all familiar with being invited to a wedding reception. But there are aspects of this parable that are weird and unexpected, twists that help us to understand the message. Why don’t those invited accept the invitation to the wedding? Think for a moment, if you are invited to a royal wedding ceremony by Charles, the Prince of Wales. You know it is going to be a huge ceremony. All the world media will be there to cover it. You can also trust that the food will be rich. Will you turn it down, especially if you were given an advance invitation? But the invitees turn it down to do things like going to farm, attending to one business or another. It doesn’t make sense.
Notice again, some of the reactions of the invitees. Some of them seized the servants, those who came to remind them of the invitation, they maltreated and killed them. That is an unexpected response to a wedding invitation. Will you maltreat or kill somebody because he is inviting you to a wedding ceremony? But that prepares us for the unexpected response of the king. If you are a king and you invite your friends to a wedding ceremony and they fail to come, what will be your reaction? Kill them and burn down their houses? Probably not. But that’s what this king does. He was furious and dispatched His troops to destroy those murderers and burn down their houses. The point here is to inform the chief priests and elders of the people and indeed all of us, how tragic it is to refuse to accept the invitation to come to the banquet of salvation provided by Jesus Christ. To be outside the banquet is to be in the place of darkness where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.
Next, he sent for everyone who is available, the good and the bad alike. Here is an important message of this parable. It demonstrates the total gratuity of salvation and the Lord’s ardent desire to save all peoples and to invite them to the eternal banquet of salvation. It is free and completely undeserved. What is required of us is a joyous and grateful response which will show itself in doing our best to be worthy of this generous and gratuitous invitation.
There’s yet another surprise. All are invited – sinners and righteous alike, but not all are allowed to stay. Although the Kingdom is open to all, accepting the invitation means accepting the responsibility and the challenge of Christian discipleship. The wedding garment we must wear is our life of virtue.
This parable is also an invitation to give priority to things of God over everything else. God must take the first place in our lives.
In the second reading, St Paul thanks the Philippians for their generosity during his time of need and gives them assurance of God’s abundant blessings. He says something very important. “I know how to be poor and how to be rich, in all circumstances, I have learned the secret of facing full stomach or empty stomach, poverty or plenty. There is nothing I cannot master with the help of the One who gives me strength.”
The first thing you will notice in this passage is that Paul does not just think we need to know the secret of navigating through difficult times alone, he also thinks we should master how to navigate through abundance, through prosperity. This will strike us as odd because our natural disposition is to simply relax and enjoy times of abundance, have fun and then buckle up when difficulties come. We must remember Paul is a learned Jew. He would have known a lot of Jewish history and scriptures. Anyone familiar with the Old Testament knows that there is a pattern you will see, a pattern which is especially clear in the Book of Judges – the people will find themselves in a period of suffering, God will send them a Judge who will rescue and save them. Then they will enter into a period of prosperity and abundance, there will be peace and everything will be going on well. Over and over again, once the enter into a period of abundance, they will fall back into sin and forget about God. This is a pattern we see over and over and over again in the Book of Judges and throughout the history of Israel.
Proverbs 30: 8-9 says, “give me neither poverty nor riches, … that I may not be full and deny you and say, ‘who is the Lord?’ or that I may be in want and steal, and profane the name of my God.” So, prosperity or abundance is good but it is dangerous. It is spiritually dangerous because it can make us to forget God. That is why Jesus said, it will be easier for the camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. So, there is real danger in riches.
Paul says, ‘I have learned the secret of abundance and want, I have learnt how to navigate both.’ What is this secret? What is this secret that makes Paul to say, ‘I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me?’ This is one of the most famous verses of Paul. It is important to understand that Paul is not saying, ‘I can do all things in the sense that I am able to do all things I like, without any limitation. What he is saying is this, ‘as long as I remain in Christ and abide in Him, I can navigate both the spiritual danger of abundance as well as poverty. The point is that it is only through the grace of Christ that I can navigate poverty and riches without offending God.
Our prayer is that we may master both riches and poverty while attending to the things of God who is the source of all things.
Happy Sunday
Fr Chidi Onwuka MSSCC