October 12, 2014 Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Lectionary: 142 Gospel MT 22:1-14 Jesus again in reply spoke to the chief priests and elders of the people in parables, saying, The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast, but they refused to come. A second time he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those invited: “Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready; come to the feast.”’ Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. The rest laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come. Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.’ The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to meet the guests, he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment. The king said to him, My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment? But he was reduced to silence. Then the king said to his attendants, Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’ Many are invited, but few are chosen. ******************************************************* REFLECTION Dale Carnegie wrote the earliest and favorite self help book of all time: How To Win Friends And Influence People. By its insightful understanding of human social dynamics and individual egos many readers have become greater leaders than they could have been otherwise. Many readers of the certain gospel passages, such as the one above, could imagine that Jesus of Nazareth needed a copy! Jesus has continuously alienated the religious professionals he could well have used to promote his message. In the gospel account (last weeks Sunday Mass Gospel) just before this one Jesus tells the leading figures of first century Judaism that they are like tenant farmers who abused the farm owners servants and son. In this (the following) passage Jesus tells the same people that the national elite who were invited to the wedding of the Kings son abused and even killed the messengers who bore the invitation; and that they and their city would be destroyed. It seems that Jesus anticipated that the irresolvably tense relationship of the Jews of his time with Imperial Rome would lead to the destruction of Jerusalem, a city which had been devastated or destroyed many times before Christ, and would be many times after him. The destruction of their city was a kind of trope of Jewish historical reflection, and it was inevitable that Jerusalems catastrophes would become Judaisms morality play. The prophets before Jesus had, for instance, interpreted the destruction of the capital city and temple as Gods judgment on Israels infidelities. Now, Jesus was following that pattern of didactic interpretation of the citys violent demolition in terms of the leading Jews of his time rejecting his God-given religious credentials to renew the Covenant. When the city was horrifically destroyed forty years after Jesus, his words were remembered into the emerging gospel accounts of Christs ministry. If the religious officials of Jesus time were meant to thoughtfully reflect upon Christs credentials to renew Gods Covenant with Israel, Jesus did not make their task any easier by the tone he took with them. Maybe Jesus like John the Baptist, had approached the Pharisees and Sadducees more amicably in an earlier moment of their public ministries and had been rebuffed? Maybe his hostility to these officials was simply reactionary; maybe it was all unavoidable given the remarkable persona Jesus was ascribing to himself? In any case the kind of treatment Jesus gives these leading figures in his parables indicate that the breach between Jesus and the authorities of the religion of Israel was already operative in his public life. When he would come himself into the City so triumphantly in the last days of his life, he would seem to have been momentarily in arms reach of becoming some kind of king (Hosanna to the son of David); but by his own gestures immediately thereafter in the Temple he would irrevocably ruin the priestss view of him. And years later, once their city was destroyed, that breach with Jesus would become an unbridgeable gulf with his disciples. Maybe there is something about religious leadership in the monotheistic tradition that makes most of them that seek it something that is loathsome to God? Jesus is constantly upbraiding his own disciples and sometimes quite strongly, for their own exhibition of faults we otherwise hear Jesus criticize in the Pharisees. Even after the resurrection, the gospels tell us that Jesus reproved his disciples severally. And in the Acts of the Apostles or letters of St. Paul we can still see from the apostles motives and ambitions that the gospels expose as so unworthy; the same kind of attitudes Jesus condemns in some Jewish leadership. Pope Francis must cause certain prelates to swallow their tongues when he speaks forcefully against the transparent cult of prestige, money, power and pleasure rampant in the episcopacy and monasteries. But on second thought, these sorts never swallow their tongues. Since destructions of our city are always on their way (thats what history is!), we would probably do well to perceive the violence coming as somehow commensurate with the crimes and sins we tolerate among those religious leaders we reverence and bankroll. After all, the crimes of disbelievers and followers cannot possibly afflict the world and offend God like the sins of religious leaders! Some cynical politician has recently popularized the adage that no serious crisis should go to waste. (Actually Churchill may have said this too). Cynics would exploit the crisis to better manipulate voters and campaign donations. Jesus would see the crisis as a moment to teach the gravity of lifes choices. And the ultimate choices of life are always related to Gods Covenant. For Christians, the ultimate choices are always relate to the Covenant that Jesus has forged with us in his body. The first and larger part of the parable above obviously put the chief priests and elders of the people on notice. They were refusing the invitation to rally to the conspicuous moment of Covenant Renewal, occasioned by the miracles, message and authority exhibited by Jesus. They were simply not going to come to the wedding feast, just as their forebears had not come into the covenant renewal occasioned by the prophets of old. But what are we to make of the second part of the parable; about the poor guy who had not dressed appropriately and who got expelled from the wedding feast? Any hearer of the gospel will immediately be uncomfortable with the ill-dressed mans fate. After all, it is entirely possible that he has not dressed rightly because he does not have the finery of the wealthier classes. The messengers were sent into the back roads and hedge rows... where the poor would live. Apparently the ill-dressed man must be interpreted as one of the guests who were morally suspect, for the parable states: The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests. His unworthiness is simply reflected symbolically by his poor clothing. Yet, the reader of the text may have motive to probe more deeply. If the elite recipients of the original invitation are symbolic of the chief priests and rabbis, then the matter of their fine garments is of interest to Jesus. Already Jesus has criticized these officials for their extraordinary taste in liturgical adornments. Their finery of clothing for worship was apparently extravagant and self aggrandizing; God was not praised in it. And these officials of ancient times are all too familiar to congregations in modern cathedrals and abbeys. The garment of the poor man in the parable may refer then to the clothing supplied to the poor in a liturgical setting. The liturgical setting to which the parable may be referring then is baptism. Coming up from the water of baptism the earliest Christians, perhaps following the customs of John the Baptist or the Dead Sea monks), were clothed in white. White was the color of their robes to match the new purity of their souls, forgiven and restored. Even till today the newly baptized is robed in white and the priest says, See in this white garment the outward sign of your Christian dignity. May you bring it one day unstained to the wedding feast of heaven. In this case, the poor man ill-dressed is symbolic of the layman who fails to bring his baptismal garment unstained to the wedding feast. In fact, some Bible commentators have observed that ancient Near Eastern potentates might indeed throw great feasts, wedding or otherwise, where the king might well have outfitted all his guests in the appropriate robes, in advance of the party. If someone was given a fine robe to wear when he got the invitation, surely he would have no excuses to give when the king confronts him about his shabby appearance. Nowadays a newly ordained priest may arrange that all the con-celebrating priests at his First Mass will wear matching stoles. If a priest comes and wears a tattered ill-matching stole, the inviting priest would have cause to exclude him from the Mass. We may interpret the case of the ill-dressed wedding guest by such analogies. All of us have been invited to the Feast of The Covenant with God, to the Communion of Christ. All who accepted the invitation were baptized into the Covenant and clothed with the robe of our holy fellowship. We have been outfitted in grace and mercy. Should we live ungraciously and unforgiving lives, we will not be welcomed at the eternal banquet anymore than we belong in the Sunday Eucharistic line. The sobering words of Jesus remind each hearer that the possible destruction of the city is analogous with the jeopardy of every soul: Many are invited, but few are chosen.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 11:04:30 +0000
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