TWENTY-EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – YEAR A
Matthew 22:1-14
Commentary of Fr. Fernando Armellini
A good Sunday to all.
The society of Israel in biblical times was composed of shepherds and farmers who carried a rather hard life; they were simple people who had to work in a land full of stones in the mountains because the great plains of Sharon along the shores of the Mediterranean and that of Esdraelon, were in the hands of the big landowners.
These poor peasants were to free first the field of stones to be able to till it. And they were forced to work long hours under the scorching sun and with very rudimentary tools if they wanted to earn a frugal meal to feed themselves and their families.
These “poor of the earth” also organized some feasts from time to time, but the sumptuous banquets they dreamed of could only be afforded by the rich, who exploited the poor workers.
In the history of Israel, there was a hopeful moment for these “poor of the land,” as they are called in the Bible. After the exile, several groups deported to Babylon returned to Judea, to Israel. Of course, they were not those whom Nebuchadnezzar had exiled but their children and their children’s children. Most of them had made their fortune because Nebuchadnezzar had not deported the elders neither the sick nor the lame. He had only taken the skilled people—the artisans—and these, after a few years, were well established in Babylon.
Who were those who had returned to the land of their fathers? Those who failed to amass wealth in Mesopotamia. And when they returned to the land of their forefathers, they found that others had already occupied it. So, to survive, they had to put themselves in the service of these new owners who began to exploit them and committed all kinds of abuses against them.
It is in this context that, in the 5th century B.C., a prophet appears in Israel, sent by the Lord to announce a word of hope to these poor of the land. And what did this prophet promise? What everyone expected: That something would change in society. That the world they desired and aspired to would be different. The prophet used an image to present the new reality that the Lord would introduce. What image could he choose to present this new world? The one they could best understand: a great banquet. They had never had grand banquets; they could only dream of them.
This is the promise of the prophet to which this Sunday’s First Reading refers. The prophet proclaims that the Lord of the Universe will prepare a banquet for all peoples on this mountain on which the city of Jerusalem stands. And then he describes it: “There will be tasty food, fine wines, succulent food….” Those who heard it were rubbing their eyes and shook their heads because they had never seen such a banquet. But then again, it would not be reserved for the Israelites, but it would be a table set and open to everyone because the new world would involve all humanity.
Four centuries had passed since this prophecy, and nothing different had happened. The world remained the same as before: The same injustices, the same pains, the same tears for the poor of the earth. They wondered: “But will the Lord be true to his words? He promised by the mouth of the prophet.” Nevertheless, the Israelites continued to believe in the faithfulness of the Lord. Israel always said, “Our God is of his word; if he has promised, he will perform.” And one day, among the poor of the land, Jesus of Nazareth appeared and fulfilled the prophecy. And the banquet began. Let us hear:
“Jesus again in reply spoke to them in parables, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.”
In Israel, everyone knew by heart the prophecy we had spoken of, and the rabbis kept the memory of this promise alive by quoting it often. They represented it with the image of two worlds: the present world, full of misery and sorrow, of tears and injustice—a world that no one likes—and the future world or the world to come, which will be full of joy, of eternal feast. They called it “the Great Eden,” which, in Hebrew, means “delight.” That is, “the Garden of Delights.” This would be in the future world, in ‘the other’ world that would be realized.
But Jesus comes and says that this new world is not the future, that the kingdom of God is realized here, in the present, because God has decided to prepare the banquet in this world. It’s here that God wants his sons and daughters to be all happy; in the other world God will take care. The kingdom of God will be built here, and Jesus presents it with this image of the banquet, which he took from the prophet, which is not new.
We know other images of the kingdom of God used by Jesus. He said that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed which begins in the old world, is a small seed, but it is powerful. This seed harbors within it a divine life which develops and produces something unexpected and extraordinary. Jesus also said that it is like a field in which there is a good grain that develops, in which good wheat grows, but also tares are present and will continue to be present.
Today, Jesus presents us with the image he took from the prophet. The kingdom of God is a banquet, a wedding feast. Now, we want to develop this image to understand what is contained in this image that he took from the prophet.
First of all, it’s a banquet, a feast. We sadly wonder for what reason the adhesion to Christ, to his Gospel, was shrouded in a veil of sadness in ‘dolorism’ (the more one suffered, the more one prepared oneself for the other world). The Father sent his Son into the world only because he wants a world of joy to be built for all his sons and daughters. Let us remember what the angels said at the moment of the birth of Jesus; they announced to the shepherds a great joy, and Jesus came into the world precisely to begin this new world. In the old world, there can be no joy. Those who are satiated feast. But how can these people feast and smile while all around them are the hungry, the miserable, the sick, and the homeless? They will be able to experience the pleasures, the madness, the daze, the hedonism, the drunkenness, but joy is not possible in the old world.
This is what Jesus says to all: “If you want to experience joy, you must accept the invitation to enter the banquet of the kingdom of God.”
The second matter we must consider in this image of the banquet is the new world, a world of joy, and who is the organizer of the feast. Who is the organizer? It is certainly not the guests. The parable says that it is a man, a king, clearly alluding to God. He is the one who organizes the feast. But there is something else: the banquet is free, and it is for all. The banquet hall is our world in which we all come as guests, and we find the hall prepared for us. We are all diners; no one owns it. All the evils we find in the ancient world come from someone acting as a master.
God has prepared a beautiful world for his sons and daughters, not a valley of tears. He has made available to them everything they need: the food necessary to have a full life. Someone has forgotten that he is a guest and has thought that he could dispose of whatever he could get as if he was the master, and so he introduced the law of the market: to hoard by selling to the highest bidder and to profit from the exchange, and then to enrich himself accumulating more and more goods. This lie of considering oneself the master of something gives place in the banquet hall, which is our world, to rivalries, competition, grudges, wars.
The banquet organized by the king reminds us of this truth: All is God’s; nothing is ours. We are stewards of goods that are not ours; all possessive adjectives are lies. If one accepts the logic of gratuitousness, everything changes; thus, one surrenders to the needy brother the bread he needs for his life, and from God, we receive the food that each one needs. We are well made; we are programmed for this relationship of love and exchange of goods with our brothers and sisters because all who come to the banquet hall, our world, are sons and daughters of the same Father.
In the logic of the kingdom of God, I don’t give something of mine because I am generous, but I share everything the others need because I have these gifts to give them. They do not belong to me; that which you have in your hand is to be given to people in need; it is from the logic of attention to the needs of others, from the logic of love, where the new world is born.
The third characteristic: At a wedding banquet, one does not isolate oneself to eat alone. The animals are fully satisfied when they can satisfy their cravings alone. Man is not programmed to eat alone but for conviviality, to experience the joy of watching around him that everyone is happy. Therefore, the banquet of the kingdom of God is not the orgy of the greedy of whom the prophet Amos speaks, of those who, lying on beds of ivory, are cast upon their couches, eat the lambs of the flock to their fill, sing to the sound of the harp, drink wine out of great cups and are disinterested in the poor, whom they exploit to enrich themselves. It is not by gorging oneself with goods that one is happy. Joy can only be experienced by those who accept the logic of the new world, which is conviviality, fraternal sharing, attention to others, to their sorrows, their joys, their disappointments, and their hopes.
The fourth characteristic we capture of the Kingdom of God in this banquet image is the reciprocal welcome. Into the banquet hall, which is our world, come all kinds of people from different cultures, from different peoples, nations and languages. At the banquet, people are welcomed for their diversity. From the banquet of the kingdom of God all discord is excluded. Diversity is a richness, not a reason for discord. The welcome is taken in this image from the parable of the banquet. The new world is where each one is received with their qualities and limitations.
Now, you may ask yourself: Do you accept or not this logic? Do you want to continue to build the world according to the sense of the old banquets, or do you accept the invitation to enter the new world? Many would like to continue in the old world where they can feast alone as rich epulone. But those will not be happy. The parable continues now presenting three groups of servants, who are the ones in charge of bringing the guests because the master, who is God, wants everyone to enter into this banquet, that is to say, they accept the new world’s logic. Let us listen:
“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 parable tells us of a sending. The king, who organized the feast, sent two groups of servants, first some and then others. Whom do these two groups represent, and what guests did they go for? They represent the prophets whom the Lord sent first of all to the children of Abraham, to the Israelites, to announce to them the coming of the Messiah, to welcome his proposal of a new world, of the banquet of the kingdom of God made by Jesus. But their answer was negative. Who rejected the invitation? Who do they represent? They are the spiritual leaders of Israel, the scribes, the elders, and the high priests, who did not listen the words of the prophets and invented a relationship with God that was not what the prophets had taught.
The prophets had said that the Lord is not interested in sacrifices, burnt offerings, or incense and wants works of love. This was the preparation for the banquet that Jesus, the Messiah of God, later proposed. They refused the invitation to conversion that John the Baptist had addressed to them. Why did they reject it? Because they liked the banquet that had been organized for them: the religious practice replete with provisions and precepts invented by men which, as Jesus says, were an unbearable burden on the back of the people.
It is clear that this relationship with God that they taught and preached did not communicate joy; it was like a wedding feast without wine, as in the wedding at Cana, where there were only pitchers for purification. This was their religion, made up of prescriptions, sins, and purifications. It gave joy to no one; it was an old banquet. But this religiosity delighted the spiritual leaders. They liked the lawgiver and justifier god who loves and blesses the good, and only the good, and does not grant his favors to sinners who dare to defy him by transgressing his precepts. They would not accept the God presented by Jesus, who feasts and sits with tax collectors and sinners. Finally, the spiritual leaders refused the invitation and were uninterested in the new banquet.
Be careful because the Pharisees of Jesus’ time are dead, but Pharisaism continues to exist. We could be the ones today who refuse the banquet offered by Jesus because we prefer the old religiosity made of observances, rewards, punishments, and merits. This religiosity reassures our consciences: it makes us feel good with God or, rather, in credit with God because we are deserving of rewards for the many good works that we do. This is not the banquet of the kingdom of God; it is still that of the Pharisees. God’s free love for us characterizes the banquet of the kingdom of God and from us to all our brothers and sisters.
Let us now observe what happens to the second group of envoys when they go in search of their guests. These guests are no longer the spiritual leaders of the people but those who are withdrawn into material realities. The parable speaks of fields and businesses. That is to say, reference is made to people who invest in farms of large landowners who own farms that must be valued and visited. Their banquet is the one that satisfies them; they already have a banquet—that of the business, that of the accumulation of money and goods—and they do not want to be disturbed by other life proposals. And the more they withdraw into this material banquet, the less willing they are to accept the invitation to the feast where goods are not accumulated but shared. They want to continue with the banquet in which each one has to manage, where everyone has to get what he needs, and if he doesn’t find it… let him manage!
This second group does not accept the invitation either because they understand very well what life at the banquet of the kingdom of God entails: it demands attention to the other by sharing gratuitous love. And yet they deceive themselves, thinking that they can fulfill with riches and pleasures the need for infinite joy present in their hearts, as in the heart of every person.
Some are not interested in the invitation and simply continue with their religious or material banquets. But some are bothered by the messengers… Those are precisely the ones who reject the second group of messengers, i.e., the ones bent on material realities who easily notice that the logic of the banquet proposed by Jesus denounces the injustice in their banquets. And if the messengers insist a little, they resort to violence to silence and remove them. This is the fate even of the prophets of today when they dare to denounce the present injustice in the economic and political banquets of this world.
And in the face of the refusal of this second group, what does the king do? Let us listen:
“The king was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.”
Before introducing the third group of servants, we read the strange parenthesis of this burning city. Let’s see what it is trying to tell us. Let us notice, in the first place, that this verse does not belong to the parable told by Jesus; it interrupts the narration, and if we try to remove this verse, we realize immediately that the story flows logically. Then, it is difficult to imagine a banquet beginning and, in the middle, there is a war. At the war’s end, the food is still on the tables, and the guests are waiting for the fight to end so that the banquet can continue….
This is a verse introduced by Matthew whose purpose was to shed a light that would help to understand the meaning of a dramatic event that occurred some fifteen years earlier: the ruin of the city of Jerusalem. The early Christians wondered why the holy city had ended like that. They gave their answer in the language of the Old Testament. They spoke of a punishment. But what was meant in the Old Testament when they spoke of ‘punishments’ from God? We know that God does not punish and does not add more evil to what people do to themselves when they go astray with their sins. When in the Old Testament it speaks of God’s punishments, it refers to the consequences of sin; it is a sin that punishes man and sometimes punishes him to the third and the fourth generation because the consequences of sin are always dramatic.
We cannot use this language today because it is archaic; we must necessarily make a transposition and reformulate this image to make it understandable to the man of today. Today, it is blasphemous to speak of God’s punishments because, in our language, that expression no longer has the meaning it had in the Scriptures: there it was talking about the consequences of sin.
The message today could be translated as follows: Whoever rejects the invitation to the banquet of the kingdom of God is responsible for the abuse, violence, wars, and destruction that continues in the world. These are not God’s punishments but the consequences of wanting to continue with the logic of the old world, which is that of competition. And the consequences are always dramatic.
Israel’s sin was to reject the proposal of the world of peace and love made by Jesus and to choose violence instead. And the consequence of this sin was the ruin of the city. The result of sin is presented in this verse with the archaic language of God’s punishment. And after this intermezzo, Jesus’ parable continues with the sending of the third group of servants. Let us listen:
“Then he said to his servants: ‘The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come. wedding feast is prepared, but the guests did not deserve it. 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.”
Whom did the king send for the third group of servants? Not the notable nor the rich, not the pious, not to the devout priests or those who have already said no. The third group is sent, according to the Greek text, “there where the streets converge.” And where do the streets converge? In the squares with markets, they have to go right there where the common people gather, where the poor are, where everything gathers, honest merchants, swindlers, thieves, drug dealers. They must go there and offer all this invitation to enter the banquet hall. That’s why they go to the poor, to the marginalized, to the despised, to the tax collectors, to prostitutes, to all, good and bad; no one is excluded from this invitation.
And who are the members of this third group of servants? They are no longer the prophets; they spoke to the people of Israel. The third group is composed of those who were sent directly by Jesus, that is, the apostles. And all of us are those angels who have placed their lives at the disposal of God’s plan for the world. For our mission to be effective and successful it is necessary, first of all, that we have the experience of the joy of this banquet we have entered; that we have truly accepted the logic of the kingdom of God and we have realized that it gives us joy, makes us happy, and gives full meaning to our lives. If we had had this experience, we would certainly feel the need to go out and invite all the people that we love so they, too, can have this experience in the banquet hall. If we don’t, if we don’t feel this need, it means that we have not had the experience of the joy of the banquet, or that we don’t love the people who are still outside, and we don’t feel this need to invite them.
The need to proclaim to evangelize arises from love. With whom will we have to deal with in the marketplace? We will find everything: bad people and good people. Sometimes, I hear these angels sent to the marketplace to spread the invitation, good people, generous, animated by much zeal, and I hear them present their perplexities and say: “But will it be worth it?” They hesitate to go out because they say the people are not interested in the Gospel, they’re not interested in the feast: “They’ve had their parties. Why should we bother them? They don’t listen to us. And they are also distant people; they even sometimes make fun of us….”
To those who hesitate to go out, I always say: “If these people who are in the marketplace were already in the banquet hall, Jesus of Nazareth would not have sent them out to invite them; if he sends them, it is because those people are outside. So don’t be surprised that the people you find there have not yet accepted the invitation and, therefore, do not understand the beauty of this proposal that Jesus of Nazareth makes”.
And now, let us try to think about whom we will meet there, in that square, to consider the answer we will get. I would say, first of all, we will find hesitant people, people who don’t feel like accepting immediately, changing their banquet, because they already have their feasts, and they want to continue to enjoy their life a little bit more; those people are likely to come in later. All right, let’s be patient; we have made our proposal. Maybe we will also find some people who say, “I understand that that banquet is for the next world, so, in the meantime, I will continue to enjoy the banquet here, and at the end of my life, I will enter the kingdom of God.” We will tell him: “Look, then it will be late; you have lost the opportunity to be happy in this world because the kingdom of God is not for the hereafter; this is where Jesus wants to build it. They may not understand, but we have offered this invitation that we would like them to accept to enter the banquet hall.
Surely, at the banquet, we will also find those who enter immediately but not for the right reason but because they fear ending up in hell if they do not enter… So, there will be people inside who are not because of love but fear. There will also be this kind of response in the marketplace. But there will undoubtedly be those who understand that the kingdom of God is a feast and will enter decisively, without delay, because they do not want to miss a single moment of the joy offered.
Let us keep in mind that those who enter do not immediately become perfect; they do not accept completely all the logic of the banquet; they will also bring some misery and moral weaknesses, frailties. And often, they will still be tied to the logic of trade and exchange so they will try to accumulate a little bit; they will not put everything at the brother’s disposal… Patience. There is the good wheat in the kingdom of God, but there will always be weeds.
The conclusion of the parable is moving. The room is full! The whole family is gathered, full of people lying down, a position symbolizing people free from attachment to possessions, free from moral corruption, of grudges, of vices… The room is full; no one is missing; all sons and daughters will one day be received in this room. They will first accept the invitation addressed to them. Our task, however, is to do it well because, whether it is accepted or not, will also depend a lot on the way we make this proposal. And if we do our task well, people cannot but be attracted to the new world proposal that we make to them.
The curtain of the parable could be closed here. However, it does not end this way. It continues with an episode that seems to come to ruin everything. Let’s listen:
“But when the king came in to meet the guests he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment. He 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.’”
Let’s tell the truth right away: the behavior of this king leaves us speechless. Here, it seems that we are before a double personality; this ruler who before was generous, good to the unfortunate, now, for a minor fault, his nerves break, and he becomes hard, even cruel; we no longer recognize him. Evidently, this part of the story is unrelated to the previous one; it does not fit with what has been told before.
The parable ended with the banquet hall full of diners and the master feasting with everyone. Why be surprised then that some have no wedding garments? People were in the marketplace; it be surprising if someone wore a wedding dress.
We are clearly before a new parable. A new legend that wants to answer a question that has arisen. What is the question that arises: Will it suffice to have said yes to the invitation and to have entered materially in the banquet hall, i.e., to have received the baptism? Or will it be necessary afterwards to translate in the concrete life the choice we made? This is the question to which Matthew answers with a new parable.
And why does the evangelist Matthew need to introduce a second parable? Because he is addressing communities that are in the last decades of the first century A.D. More than 50 years have passed since the Passover and these communities, which were very fervent at the beginning, which had said yes to the Gospel and had entered the banquet hall, had lost their enthusiasm over the decades. Many Christians had returned to their pagan habits incompatible with the gospel, such as attachment to this world’s goods. And Matthew, a pastor of souls, is concerned because they risk the failure of their lives. Even though they have been baptized, they become again like those who refused the invitation. That’s why Matthew introduces this parable of Jesus which tells us about the new garment of the Christian. When one enters the banquet hall, he welcomes the kingdom of God and must change his ‘garment.’
In the Bible, the ‘garment’ represents the moral life of the people, the way those around them see these people; they may be clothed in pride, for example, or of care for others, of generosity. Paul, in the New Testament, repeats over and over again that the one who enters into the banquet hall, enters the Kingdom of God, and therefore, he must put on Christ. And those who meet him, they must recognize in him a disciple of the Lord and the Master himself because they are clothed with the same robe.
We wonder then what is the wedding garment in which Jesus of Nazareth is clothed. As John relates, let us return to what happened at the Last Supper. Sometime during the Last Supper, Jesus took off his garments and kept his loincloth. This was the manner of dress at that time in the Jewish world. They covered themselves with the loincloth, the tunic, and robe. The robe had already been taken off. Jesus remained in the loincloth, the enslaved person’s garment because he began to do the enslaved person’s service, to wash the disciples’ feet.
That loincloth, the garment of the enslaved person is the garment that characterizes Christ as a Servant. And the true disciple of Jesus, called to serve, to be the slave of his brothers must always be ready to say yes to those who ask him for help. The masters are all the needy poor, and the disciple must always be clothed in this wedding garment. At the marriage feast of the Kingdom, the bridegroom is Christ, and the bride, who is the Christian community, must be clothed with the same uniform as the Bridegroom: the uniform of the enslaved person.
And what happens to those who do not accept this wedding garment, that of the servant? Here are some very harsh expressions of the master: “Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.” Let us pay attention to this language, which was proper to the rabbis. As Matthew is speaking to a majority of the Christian community that was Jewish and therefore understood him very well; that was the way the rabbis wanted to shake the consciences. And here, Matthew wants to shake these Christian communities that are in danger of returning to pagan dress. That is why he employs the language of the rabbis. Also, the expressions “wailing and grinding of teeth” and “darkness,” are only found in the gospel of Matthew.
Let us try to translate these rabbinical images. What does Jesus want to say to all those who said yes to him: “Beware, for if you do not accept this habit of being a servant, if you do not accept the logic of the banquet—which is that of sharing, of service to your brother and sister—you are left out of the banquet.” And what happens to those who are left out? They stay in the old-world society, the competitive one, the one of rivalries and, therefore, in a society that is not an Eden but a hell because it is inhuman.
There is no need to prove it. What does our society produce? The Logic of the old world, the logic of competition and rivalry. It is hell where there is wailing and grinding of teeth. So, if we do not accept the logic of the Kingdom, we stay outside. We may win, we may win once or twice, but in the end, we will be crushed by someone stronger. This is what is meant by this very severe expression used by Jesus.
The conclusion is in the last verse of this Gospel passage: “Many invited, but few are chosen.” What Jesus means by this expression is not that many are called but few go to heaven, no. All are invited, but unfortunately, not many take it seriously, that is, they allow themselves to be involved in the logic of the new world.
I think Jesus is speaking to us, the servants of the third group. Let us not be discouraged; let us not expect everyone to be involved in this new logic; some will, but others, even if they adhere a little to the logic of the Gospel, will retain some pagan aspects in their life. Keep this in mind also, you angels of the third group of envoys.
I wish you all a good Sunday and a good weekend.
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