Theme: They Would Not Come to the Feast!
Introduction: May your day be blessed, especially as you gather with
fellow believers to praise the Lord Jesus and enjoy all that GOD our loving Abba-Father
has for you!
Sunday is the Day of the Lord according to most
Christians. It is the day set aside to assemble with others and celebrate the goodness
of the LORD GOD. Yet many feel that it is just another obligation that must be fulfilled
or they ignore spending the time each week in church. Our society sees Sunday as
just another day for work or the same type of recreation we do on any other day.
How do you celebrate the LORD’s Day?
Today we hear about a banquet feast that surpasses
all other celebrations. To this feast, people of all nations have been invited.
This feast will be a time to celebrate the splendor of our GOD. Although this is
the image in the Isaiah reading and psalm, the Gospel informs us that some people
who have been invited either refuse to come or do not come in the way in which they
are expected to come.
First Reading: Isaiah 25:6-10
The Lord will prepare a banquet for every nation
Commentary: The reading begins with the image of the messianic banquet,
the banquet which the LORD is preparing for the end of time, an image that Jesus
takes up in the gospel story of the wedding feast. After the first lines the image
changes to the removal of the mourning veil and the destruction of death, every
tear wiped away. In the earlier parts of the Bible, the dead are thought to lead
a wretched existence in Sheol, a life which is no life, a sort of half-existence
without power or substance, when the dead cannot even praise God. Gradually Israel
comes to realise that God’s love is so enveloping and so enduring that God cannot
desert or abandon his faithful even in death. Even death cannot cut off the faithful
from God. This is one of the crucial passages where the permanent, saving strength
of God’s love is expressed. Speaking to the Sadducees (who did not believe in the
resurrection) Jesus will say, ‘God is the God not of the dead but of the living’.
Paul will say, ‘Neither death nor life can separate us from the love of God which
is in Christ Jesus.’
Responsorial Psalm 23
In the Lord’s own house shall I dwell forever
and ever.
The often-quoted twenty-third psalm also presents
us with a celebration where the LORD has spread a table before us and where the
cup overflows. This victory feast of our GOD celebrates that the enemy of GOD has
been placed in subjection and there is no reason to fear or lament, for GOD is in
control and is providing for those who have been united under the shepherd-ship
of GOD.
Commentary: Paul has reached the final greetings of his letter. Even
when he is writing to his beloved community at Philippi, from whom alone he would
accept gifts, Paul is anxious to maintain his independence. In the ancient world,
as in the modern world, a favour demands a return-favour: ‘there is no such thing
as a free dinner’! So, Paul points out that he could manage without the gift they
have given him since all his strength comes from God. But he also wishes them the
blessing of the fulfillment of all their needs from the glory of God in Christ Jesus.
This is an incomparable blessing, whose awesome value is obscured by our careless
use of the term ‘glory’. The glory of God is a term frightening in its richness.
No human being can see God and live, but Moses can for a moment glimpse God’s glory
– after which his face is so seared that he must wear a veil over it. It is a glory
that, by contrast, fills Isaiah with dread at his own sinfulness, which makes Ezekiel
fall to the ground. It is the experience of the limitless power and majesty of God.
Gospel: Matthew 22:1-14
Invite everyone you can to the wedding
Commentary: A wedding is a time of joy and completion after long preparation,
a time of love, and complete satisfaction. In Judaism, at the time of Jesus, the
coming of the Messiah is often compared to a wedding feast. The marriage feast at
Cana must have been some party! At Mary’s request, Jesus produced 200 gallons of
wine. The Letter to the Ephesians teaches that the love in a human wedding is only
a pale shadow of Christ’s love for his bride, the Church. In this story of the royal
wedding, however, two things go drastically wrong. First, the original wedding guests
refuse to come. Not only do they refuse, but they brutally maltreat the innocent
messengers, and the king (who must stand for God) relentlessly burns down their
city. This must be an adjustment to Jesus’ story, applying it to the Sack of Jerusalem,
captured and burnt by the Romans in 70 AD, a few years before Matthew was writing.
Secondly, the man who has no wedding garment is slung out. A wedding garment is
a standard Jewish image for works of generosity expected of every faithful Jew.
For us Christians, too, the story constitutes a double warning.
Reflection: What can a royal wedding party tell us about God's kingdom?
One of the most beautiful images used in the Scriptures to depict what heaven is
like is the wedding celebration and royal feast given by the King for his newlywed
son and bride. Whatever grand feast we can imagine on earth, heaven is the feast
of all feasts because the Lord of heaven and earth invites us to the most important
banquet of all - not simply as bystanders or guests - but as members of Christ's
own body, his bride the church! The last book in the Bible ends with an invitation
to the wedding feast of the Lamb - the Lord Jesus who offered his life as an atoning
sacrifice for our sins and who now reigns as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The
Spirit and the Bride say, Come! (Rev 22:17). The Lord Jesus invites us to be united
with Himself in his heavenly kingdom of peace and righteousness.
Whose interests come first - God or mine?
Why does Jesus' parable of the marriage feast
seem to focus on an angry king who ends up punishing those who refused his invitation
and who mistreated his servants? Jesus' parable contains two stories. The first
has to do with the original guests invited to the marriage feast. The king had sent
out invitations well in advance to his subjects, so they would have plenty of time
to prepare for coming to the feast. How insulting for the invited guests to refuse
when the time for celebrating came! They made light of the King's request because
they put their own interests above his. They not only insulted the King but the
heir to the throne as well. The king's anger is justified because they openly refused
to give the king the honor he was due. Jesus directed this warning to the Jews of
his day, both to convey how much God wanted them to share in the joy of his kingdom
and also to give a warning about the consequences of refusing his Son, their Messiah,
and Savior.
An invitation we cannot refuse!
The second part of the story focuses on those
who had no claim to the king and who would never have considered getting such an
invitation. The "good and the bad" along the highways certainly referred
to the Gentiles (non-Jews) and to sinners. This is certainly an invitation of grace
- undeserved, unmerited favor and kindness! But this invitation also contains a
warning for those who refuse it or who approach the wedding feast unworthily. God's
grace is a free gift, but it is also an awesome responsibility.
Cheap grace or costly grace?
Dieterich Bonhoeffer,
a Lutheran pastor and theologian in Germany who died for his faith under Hitler's
Nazi rule, contrasted "cheap grace" and "costly grace".
"Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on
ourselves... the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance... grace
without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living
and incarnate... Costly grace is the gospel that must be sought again and again,
the gift that must be asked for, and the door at which a man must knock. Such grace
is costly because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs
a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life."
God invites each of us as his friends to his
heavenly banquet so that we may celebrate with him and share in his joy. Are you
ready to feast at the Lord's banquet table? Lord Jesus, may I always know the joy
of living in your presence and grow in the hope of seeing you face-to-face in your
everlasting kingdom.
Daily Quote from the Early Church Fathers: A guest with no wedding garment, by John Chrysostom
(347-407 AD)
"But since you have already come into the
house of the marriage feast, our holy church, as a result of God's generosity, be
careful, my friends, lest when the King enters, he finds fault with some aspect
of your heart's clothing. We must consider what comes next with great fear in our
hearts. But the king came in to look at the guests and saw there a person not clothed
in a wedding garment. 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 enters
the marriage feast, but without wearing a wedding 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.
John says that 'God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son for us'
(John 3:16)." (excerpt from FORTY GOSPEL HOMILIES 38.9)
DEATH TOLLED
“On this mountain, He will destroy the veil
that veils all peoples, the web that is woven over all nations; He will destroy
death forever. The Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces.” —Isaiah 25:7-8
Isaiah prophesied that the Lord would “destroy
death forever” (Is 25:8). Jesus fulfilled this prophecy. By His death on the
cross, He took away death’s victory, robbed “the devil, the prince of death, of
his power” and freed “those who through fear of death had been slaves their whole
life long” (Heb 2:14-15). “Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor 15:54). Thus, Jesus holds “the keys of death and the
nether world” (Rv 1:18). He proclaims and promises: “I am the Resurrection
and the Life: whoever believes in Me, though he should die, will come to life; and
whoever is alive and believes in Me will never die” (Jn 11:25-26).
“Christ must reign until God has put all enemies under His feet, and the last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15:25-26). On Judgment Day, “death and the nether world” will be “hurled into the pool of fire, which is the second death” (Rv 20:14). Jesus “has robbed death of its power and has brought life and immortality into clear light through the gospel” (2 Tm 1:10). Praise Jesus! Alleluia!
Prayer: Jesus, may our celebrations each Sunday of Your Resurrection-victory
permeate our lives and the world. “My God in turn will supply your needs fully,
in a way worthy of His magnificent riches in Christ Jesus.” —Phil 4:19. Praise Jesus, “the Way, and the Truth, and the
Life” (Jn 14:6), Who was obedient unto death. Alleluia!
The personal question for today: Do I have good memories of special festive
meals and/or Sunday celebrations? What do those memories tell me about GOD’s desire
to have me celebrate forever in heaven? What can I do to make the LORD’s Day a blessed
time of re-creation and celebration of GOD’s goodness? How can I share with others
the richness and joy of GOD’s abundant Goodness?