Ps 23
Phil 4:12-14, 19-20
Mt 22:1-14
Psalm 23 is probably the most well-known, beloved, and often prayed of the entire psalter; the prayer book central to Jewish and Catholic worship; the book of poems and songs that pleads with, praises, and thanks God while reminding us what He has done for us and what He will do for us.
Even those who profess no belief or who are hostile atheists are familiar with the 23rd psalm. They may not like it but they are familiar with it, if for no other reason than its frequent use in television and movie funerals. None of the deaths in the old black and white John Wayne or Gary Cooper westerns seemed official until the preacher in the black frock coat and rumpled hat had intoned "The Lord is my shepherd . . . " as the makeshift cross got pounded into the soil.
"The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want . . . "
"Even though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death, I fear no evil"
"You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies"
"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life"
The images of fulfilled yearning comfort the one praying the psalm. The vision of a splendid banquet with rich food and fine wine, the description of a time in which God will wipe away our tears and destroy death, are the same images evoked in the first reading from Isaiah. That prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus.
The images in Isaiah and the table spread before us in the psalm are a startling contrast to the Gospel.
The parable of the wedding banquet is not consoling. When the invited guests failed to heed the invitation, when those who were chosen rejected the invitation, when they mistreated and killed those who brought the invitation to the banquet, the king punished the ingrates and recruited guests from the crossroads. These recruited guests were outsiders and social outcasts: tax collectors, prostitutes, highwaymen, vagrants, and others. These recruited outsiders were and are us.
As one commentator noted, the parable of the wedding banquet explains the difference between the Old Covenant and the New. Whereas the covenant between God and Israel was from the top down, Jesus' invitation to the wedding banquet the New Covenant is freely given from the ground up. The Israelites did not have a choice. They were a people and a nation chosen by God. They were a people with whom He forged his covenant. They were chosen and led through the wilderness into the promised land where they forgot that covenant and allowed all that God had done for them to fade from memory. The guests summoned to the wedding banquet, on the other hand, had an individual choice to accept or reject that invitation, as was made plain in the narrative. Like the ancient Israelites, many rejected the covenant, sometimes with great violence.
Millennia later, we continue to reject the covenant as individuals. We reject it as a nation when we elect those who would exact violence on the unborn, the ill-elderly, and others while exulting in the perverse and immoral. Like the actors in the parable it is our choice to accept or reject the invitation to the wedding banquet. Too often, we do reject it.
One wonders about the poor guy who showed up without being properly attired.
A superficial reading would ask why anyone who was recruited to a banquet from the crossroads would be expected to show up appropriately dressed? It would be like running out of the Four Seasons hotel on Boylston Street and dragging vagrants from Boston Common into a celebration. More than likely they would not be wearing Perry Ellis. But, this is a parable not a novel or a screenplay. The logical and the illogical coexist with equal weight and authority. The parable of the wedding banquet is an outline of salvation history from a Christian perspective. It explains the inclusion of the marginal in God’s Kingdom. It also includes an important warning.
Just as the Israelites were punished for repeatedly violating the covenant an invitation to the wedding banquet is insufficient. We can accept, we must accept, the invitation. But mere acceptance is not enough. An appropriate response to the invitation is demanded--as symbolized by the wedding garment--a response of conversion of life, a response of faith, prayer, and the sacraments. Only then can we be assured that:
"We shall live in the house of the Lord, all the days of our lives."
_______________________________________________
Sacred vessels prepared for the banquet in a monastic church.
The altar prepared for a private Mass
The sacristy at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception with the sacred vessels prepared for the Masses to be celebrated at the side chapels.
+Fr. Jack, SJ, MD
No comments:
Post a Comment