This Sunday’s Gospel, the Parable of the Wedding Feast (Matthew 22:1–14), gives us a lot to chew on, and too much for one post. So, we’ll have to settle. The passage begins with Jesus “responding” or “replying” again to the chief priests and elders of the Jewish people. This is interesting simply because they aren’t reported to have said anything to Jesus after the previous parable, that of the wicked tenants (which we read last Sunday). However, after last Sunday’s parable, we hear that “when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was speaking about them. And although they were attempting to arrest him, they feared the crowds, for they regarded him as a prophet” (Matthew 21:45–46). Jesus isn’t replying, then, to their words, but to their actions and the unspoken intentions of their hearts. And he replies with yet another parable, again showing his patience and merciful attempts to bring them along. He doesn’t retaliate; he tries to creatively persuade.
The last few weeks, the parables have centered on labor. These highlight that in the Kingdom, we’re invited to work, to be co-workers with God. This Sunday’s Gospel, however, highlights joy — that in the Kingdom, we’re invited to share in the King’s joy. “For joy and celebration were we created,” Leiva-Merikakis says. “And so this parable will be a test of how much each of us is still in touch with the vocation to joy native to our deepest being.”1
In the parable, the king sends his servants to summon those who had already been invited to his son’s wedding feast. Note that. These people had already been invited and now they’re being told: “it’s time!” They refuse. The king, instead of simply rejecting the A-List guests and moving on, sends different servants and with a longer message that details all the details of the feast. He’s trying to entice them. Some of the invited guests simply ignore the second wave of servants, and the rest mistreat and even kill the servants. This is a rather shocking overreaction to a persistent persistent invitation to come to a party. But, the shock is not over. Out of Jesus’ mouth comes a rather “God-of-the-Old-Testament” line: “The king was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.” This is no saccharine and soft Jesus. No sentimental or ersatz Jesus. This is Jesus talking about hell-fire. Again, we have a kind of indictment against those who rejected the message of the prophets — the king is going to destroy their city, Jerusalem (and this does happen in 70 AD). In last week’s episode, the parable foretells the future death of the wicked tenants. This week, things are heating up and there’s an immanence to the death and destruction.
The king is moving on. He now instructs his servants to “go out…into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.” They go to the highways and gather the poor and sick, presumably, along with any non-native visitors in the region — a nod to the prostitutes and tax collectors and Gentiles. The good and the bad alike are welcome to come to the feast — the king’s invitation now extends this far. B-List and C-List and D-List guests. He wants people to share in his joy so badly he’ll take “whomever they find.”
Then, we come to the final part of the parable and it’s about as shocking as what precedes it. The New American Bible (NAB) says “when the king came in to meet the guests he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.” A tighter translation would replace “meet” with “see” or “behold.” The king comes in to behold the guests. Leiva-Merikakis points out that this is to say “he was looking on them with love and seeking to become enthralled with their beauty.”2 It’s odd the king’s focus isn’t on his son, but on the guests who were to be dressed in wedding garments — which would have been clean, white garments — as if they were brides. The Church, comprised of men and women alike, is the Bride of Christ. So, the king (i.e., the Father) comes in to behold the guests and one stands out like a sore thumb because he doesn’t have wedding garment. He doesn’t have the correct attire. But, like the rest of the parable, the wedding garment is symbolic. What does it symbolize? What does it mean? Here are a few notes in this regard:
The NAB says this in its footnotes: “A wedding garment: the repentance, change of heart and mind, that is the condition for entrance into the kingdom (Mt 3:2; 4:17) must be continued in a life of good deeds.”
The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible says the wedding garment is “a symbol of righteous deeds that accompany faith (Rev 19:7–8). These deeds are outlined in Matthew as almsgiving (6:2–4), prayer (6:5–15), fasting (6:16–18), and works of mercy (25:34–40).”
The Navarre Bible says, “The wedding garment signifies the dispositions a person needs for entering the Kingdom of heaven…These dispositions essentially mean responding to grace.”
When confronted by the king about his shabby appearance, the man is reduced to silence, bound, and cast out into the darkness where there is wailing and grinding of teeth. This is an image of hell. So, the whole thing takes on an eschatological flair, with the heavenly banquet (wedding feast of the Lamb) on the one hand, and hell for a “party of one” on the other.
That many are invited but few are chosen highlights that all are called to the kingdom, but not all are found worthy to possess it.3
Prayerful Reading
The last few days, I’ve been reflecting on this line from Sunday’s Gospel:
HESAWAMANTHEREWHOWASNOTCLOTHEDINAWEDDINGGARMENT
With all of this, my mind goes to Baptism and the white garment. Msgr. Pope picks up on the same theme: “Whatever the debated cultural parameters of the story, the theological parameters are more clear. The wedding garment is provided by the king (God the Father), who clothes us in righteousness at our baptism.”4
In the Baptism rite at the Easter Vigil, for example, the priest says the following when clothing the newly baptized with the white garment:
N. you have become a new creation and have clothed yourselves in Christ. Receive this baptismal garment and bring it unstained to the judgment seat of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that you may have everlasting life.
The new clothing signifies a new identity. We receive this in Baptism. St. Paul articulates it in Galatians 2:20, in his line “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” He brings this up elsewhere:
“But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh” (Romans 13:14).
“For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:27).
“Put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth” (Ephesians 4:22–24).
Putting on the clothing means living in it, breaking it in. When I was a kid, my mom always bought me clothes that were about two sizes too big. “Because you’re still growing,” she said. Consequently, I always looked misshapen or like fabric was eating me. But this notion of growing into it applies nicely when it comes to putting on Christ. We have a lot of growing to do till the “fit” is right. So, we try. We put on the new man, put on the mind of Christ (see Philippians 2:5). This is metanoia, a change of mind, a conversion. It’s not one and done. It’s an ongoing conversion. It’s gift and task, already but not yet. For those of us who are “on the way,” enduring the pilgrimage of life, we have to admit we haven’t arrived yet. Our sin makes this clear enough. Sin is like tarnishing the garment, or taking it off altogether. So we need ongoing transformation, like we hear from Paul in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”
Many are invited. Few are chosen. Maybe it’s simply because few choose to receive the gift being offered. That seems to be the case in the parable, anyhow. No special skills required, just humble receptivity and faithful wearing of the garment.
I’d like to end this reflection with an excerpt from a homily given by Pope Benedict XVI that touches on both these elements (i.e., receiving the garment and wearing it):
Why did this man accept the king’s invitation, enter the banquet hall, find the door opened to him but not put on the wedding garment? What is this wedding garment? At the Mass of the Lord’s Supper…this year I mentioned a beautiful commentary on this parable by St Gregory the Great. He explains that the guest had accepted God’s invitation to take part in his banquet, that in a certain way he had faith which opened the door of the banquet hall to him, but he lacked something essential: the wedding garment, which is charity or love. And St Gregory adds: “Therefore each one of you in the Church who has faith in God has already taken part in the wedding feast, but cannot claim to wear the wedding garment unless he jealously guards the grace of love” (Homily 38, 9; PL 76, 1287). And this garment is woven symbolically on two looms of wood, one above and one below: love of God and love of neighbour (cf. ibid., 10: PL 76, 1288). We are all invited to be the Lord’s guests, to enter his banquet with faith, but we must put on and take care of the wedding garment: charity, to live in the profound love of God and neighbour.5
In Baptism, we receive the garment. Putting it on and taking care of it requires charity — that profound love of God and neighbor.
Please use the comments to share your own lectio reflections if you’d like. It’s always a blessing to experience lectio within community — even online!
Leiva-Merikakis, Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word, vol. 3, 481.
Leiva-Merikakis, Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word, vol. 3, 522.
See Mitch and Sri, The Gospel of Matthew, 283.
Pope, “I Got a Robe!”