WE ARE INVITED TO THE GREAT FEAST

HOMILY FOR THE 28^TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR A

Rev. Fr. Ezekoka Peter Onyekachi

Every great feast attracts great number of people. And as humans, we are very acquainted with celebrations and banquets. In our own human celebrations and merriments, the person inviting others does normally expect his invitees to honour his/her invitation; otherwise it becomes disappointing. On the part of the invitee, it is also a mark of a gentleman and a show of friendliness and affection to honour an invitation from a friend. If the invitation is dishonoured without any cogent reason, then somehow there is some disaffection and a rupture of trust. No one enjoys disappointments.Today, we are all invited by God himself to come for the great feast which he prepares for us, and He expects us to come in our wedding garments. Far be it from us that we shall reject such a divine invitation.

The message of the First Reading (Is. 25:6-10a) is so clear; and that is the image of the great banquet. This banquet has some features. 1) The banquet suggests a celebration after the victory is won. No reasonable man celebrates when the time has not come yet. 2) In this case, the banquet is situated on a mountain, most probably mount Zion. In the letter to the Hebrews 12, Mount Zion is the city of God where millions of Angels are gathered for festival (v.22). It is a place where the heavenly first born sons gather (v. 23). It is a place where the spirits of the righteous are made perfect (v. 23). It is a place of meeting with Jesus the great mediator of the new covenant. It is a place we encounter the strongest blood which pleads more insistently than the blood of Abel (v. 24). We remember how the blood of Abel cried to the Lord from the ground (Gen 4:10). This implies that it is a very strong blood. However, the blood of Christ is the strongest.

3) It is a feast for all peoples, in line with the tradition that all the nations would gather in Zion. It will be a total newness. 4) The feast reflects the desire of impoverished people for a bountiful meal. It is in this feast that Our Lord supplies whatever we need in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus, as the Second Reading (Phil. 4:12-14;19-20). In it, God wipes every tear from our eyes. Thus, the feast reflects the intent of Rev. 21:1-4. 5. It does not end only in feasting; for in it God will destroy death forever (cf. Rev. 20:4.14). God will ultimately remove every threat hanging over humanity, every sorrow and humiliation. Hence, this feast insists on a lasting joy; that type of joy that is holistic and that does not admit of any pain.

In the Gospel Reading (Matt. 22:1-14), Jesus himself tells a parable of the nature of this great feast. The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast. This is in the context of a normal Jewish custom. When the invitations to a great feast were sent out, the time was not stated until everything was ready. When everything was ready, the servants were sent out with a final summons to inform the guests to come. So, this parable presumes that the king had already sent out invitations, but it was not till everything was prepared that the final summons was issued. The invited guests insultingly refused. This invited guests that refused to come stand for the Jews. They had long ago made a covenant with God to be God’s chosen people, but when the son of God, Jesus came, they rejected him with contempt. The result of this would be that the invitation went out to all and sundry. The people in the highways and the byways stand for the Gentiles and the sinners, who were not initially invited and were not in expectant of any invitation.

The king was angry with those who dishonoured the invitation, and had to send out troops to destroy them and to burn down their cities. They paid deaf ears to the invitation; one went to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized and shamefully killed the servants. It is very easy for a man to be so busy with the things of time that he forgets the things of eternity, to be so occupied with the things which are seen that he forgets the things which are unseen, to hear so easily the noise of the world that he cannot hear the gentle voice of God. We can be so busy making a living that we forget to make life. And when the forgetfulness of the salient things is stretched so much, we are led to commit more atrocities that creates bigger chasm between the unnecessary and the necessary. At a very critical look, this destruction seems out of place when viewed in the context of the invitation to a feast. We must therefore situate this verse on the period of composition of the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew composed his Gospel between 80 and 90 AD. Historically, the destruction of Jerusalem by the armies of Rome occurred in 70 AD. The temple was sacked and burned and the city destroyed. Hence, Matthew tried to look unto history to narrate that destruction actually came on those who refused to recognize Jesus as the son of God when he came.

We are invited to a great wedding feast and not a funeral. Every event has its dress code. The invitation is to joy. To think of Christianity as a gloomy giving up of everything which brings laughter and sunshine and happy fellowship is to mistake its whole nature. We are invited to joy, and any who refuses the invitation refuses joy. The king had to scrutinize his new guests, and had to send out the one who was not on his wedding garment. It is true that the door is open to all, but when they come they must bring a life which seeks to fit the love which has been given to them. Grace is not only a gift. It evokes grave responsibility. One cannot go ahead living the life he was living before he met Christ. There must be a new clothing of purity, holiness and goodness. The door is open to all sinners, but not for the sinner to come and remain a sinner, but for the sinner to come and become a saint. It may be true that this parable has nothing to do with the clothes in which we go to Church, but it has everything to do with the spirit with which we go to God’s house. When one decides to visit a friend, the garment tells much. A reasonable friend knows the garment to put on at different occasions. There are ones for the market place, for the farm, for the Church and for entertainment.

It is sincerely true that church-going is never a fashion parade, but it is even truer that the garments of the mind, soul and heart reflect the garment of the body. Often, we go to Church unprepared to worship, with no petition, no self-examination, and no disposition to worship. In this case, we are not on our wedding garment. We come to church moody or to know the latest news among the members of the church that may constitute item for gossip. In this case still, we are not on our wedding garment. We must put on a new self for worship. If every one of us can be actually prepared for worship, with right intentions, dispositions, prayers and self-examination, then worship would be worship indeed. It will yield great benefits for the Church and the society in which we live. When we are called to enjoy this great feast, we must know that some who rejected the invitation in the past met their doom, and that the invitation requires particular garment, the garment of sincerity, honesty and true profession of the faith in Jesus Christ. That is the condition of being among the chosen ones of the Lord after having been called, for those with the lamb are called and chosen and faithful (Rev. 17:14). My prayer this week for everyone is to be among those who are in their wedding garment when the king comes to scrutinize his guests. Happy Sunday. God bless you.