A Homily for the Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings: Isaiah 25:6-10a Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20 Matthew 22:1-14
Kansas had its first frost warning last weekend. It was time for me to cull the potted flowers that I had planted outdoors last spring.
A fern, much too heavy for me to lift alone, was the first to come in. For several years now, it has made the shift, indoors and out. A hibiscus was left to its fate. The one I brought in last fall only filled my sunroom with dead leaves. Two new plants, which I had never seen, have been brought in. I am loath to lose them; they have been so lovely the entire summer. I also carried in a pot much larger than the eucalyptus plant it holds. The man at the nursery assured me that it could come indoors when the season ended. Its summer progress has been mixed, but I’m not willing to let it go.
The Fathers of the Church did not read St. Matthew’s parable of the wedding feast as an allegory of heaven. No, it was about culling for the winter to come.
Apollinaris wrote, “The wedding pictures the marriage of the church to the Word.” And Gregory the Great drew an important contrast between Matthew’s parable, a midday feast, and that of Luke, which is an evening dinner.
From Matthew we can infer that in this passage the marriage feast represents the church of the present time, and the dinner in Luke represents the final and eternal banquet. Some who enter the one will leave it, but no one who has once entered the other will later go out.
The king sends out servants to summon guests to his son’s banquet. As the Fathers see it, to have been called into the church is already to have made the cut, to have been called out of the world. Even on Earth, the Lord is ready to break bread with us, and those who serve the king must invite others to the feast that is the church.
Some might sense what the church is about, what the call to enter her fellowship means, yet not come to the feast. Gregory the Great understands why. “One person is concerned with earthly toil, another devoted to the business of this world. Neither takes notice of the mystery of the Lord’s incarnation. They are unwilling to live in accordance with it.”
We must vest ourselves in love if we are to remain in this sheltered feast and weather the winter to come.
Yet everyone is called into the church, all are invited to the feast of heaven on earth. For Gregory, the fact that there are two summonses rather than one is significant. “He sent his servants twice with the invitation, because he said through the prophets that his only Son’s incarnation would come about, and he proclaimed through the apostles that it had.”
One way or another, the invitation finds its way into the human heart. Thoroughfares and streets are equally scrounged. ἐπὶ τὰς διεξόδους τῶν ὁδῶν (Epi tas diexodous tōn hodōn) are the places where country roads meet highways. So, the call goes out to the peripheries.
And then comes the culling. Augustine notes that the man ejected did not sneak into the feast. Everyone called was unworthy of entrance so there was no need to guard the doors. Who will be found worthy to remain? That is the question, though we must be careful in judging others by their outward appearance. Love vests in virtue of the demands it faces. Augustine reminds us of who must do the judging.
Note that “the master of the house came to look at the guests.” See, my beloved, the servant’s business was only to invite and bring in the good and the bad. It is not said that the servants took notice of the guests, found among them a man who had no wedding garment and spoke to him. This is not written. The master of the house came in, the master saw him, the master of the house inspected, the master of the house hauled him off and threw him out.
Augustine cited another reason to distinguish between Luke’s heavenly banquet, which is yet to come, and Matthew’s high feast of the Lamb that is the church. There is a real danger of losing your place in the latter. That cannot happen in the former.
The holy scriptures teach us that there are two feasts of the Lord: one to which the good and evil come, the other to which the evil do not come. So then the feast of which we have just now heard when the gospel was being read has both good and evil guests. All who excused themselves from this feast are evil, but not all those who entered in are good. I now address you, therefore, who are the good guests at this feast. You are taking careful note of the words “For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.” It is to you I speak. I plead with you not to look vainly for the good apart from the church but to bear with the evil within it.
What a poignant corrective to our contemporary attitudes! As God’s initiative, the church is not one possible good among others, not an option to consider when time permits. No, it is God’s convocation, his call into our history, and, weathering within history, the church is subject to deprivation and drought. Weeds will grow in its midst, but it is not for us to judge how the summons should have been made.
We must remember the alternative. Winter is coming when nothing blooms. Our lives are but a single season. We must answer the summons and enter the sheltered feast, where we await a banquet under a sun that never wanes.
Will we be found worthy to remain in the Lamb’s shelter? That is not a question we should take for granted. Here again is Gregory.
What do we think is meant by the wedding garment, dearly beloved? For if we say it is baptism or faith, is there anyone who has entered this marriage feast without them? A person is outside because he has not yet come to believe. What then must we understand by the wedding garment but love? That person who enters the marriage feast, but without wearing the garment, who is present in the holy church. He may have faith, but he does not have love. We are correct when we say that love is the wedding garment because this is what our Creator himself possessed when he came to the marriage feast to join the church to himself. Only God’s love brought it about that his only begotten Son united the hearts of his chosen to himself.
Both St. Luke’s banquet to come and St. Matthew’s sheltered feast are wedding celebrations. They are all about love, offered and demanded: Love is made flesh in the Son who calls us to his feast, and love is required of those who answer the summons.
Love is the garment demanded. We must vest ourselves in love if we are to remain in this sheltered feast and weather the winter to come. Never doubt that love alone can clothe us.
