Is.

25: 6-10
Cycle A Phil. 4: 12-14; 19-20 15 October 2017
Mt. 22: 1-14
 INTRODUCTION:
The Gospel Parable of Mt.
this Sunday is one of the most
shocking stories with exaggerated
reactions that are difficult to
understand.
1
It is about a king who gives a
wedding party for his son
The Story: and sends his servants to
invite the people. Those
invited gave all kinds of
excuses and some lunatics
even beat and killed the
servants.
1

The king reacted in anger and

sent his troops to destroy the
murderers and even burnt
their town. At the end, the
king sent out his servants
everywhere to invite everyone.
1
Finally, when the banquet hall
was filled with people, the king
decided to join the guests in the
hall and finds one who came
without his wedding garments.
The king approached him and
upbraided him and threw him
out of the banquet hall!
2
Preliminary Note:

Flann O'Connor,
the best fiction writer of the
20th century, said once:

"In the land of the deaf,

you have to shout!"
Flannery O Connor
2
He means that in the
secular world, one
has to shock people
with exaggerated
emotions and
character to wake us
up to an awareness.
2
What we should not do is to
literally allegorize the details
so as to make God act like
the king in the Parable.
3
The Details:
A king (God) is
giving a banquet
for his son (Jesus)!
3 Imagine you get one such invitation
from Malacaang for the wedding
of the President's son or daughter
and all the leading figures of society
would be there in attendance.

In the culture of that time

and place, there is no better
invitation than that.
3 One is not likely to refuse such an invitation
from no less than God who intends to offer to
all of us a share in the Divine Life or in the
best food described in Is. 25: 6

"On this mountain, the Lord of Hosts will

prepare for all people, a banquet of rich food,
a banquet of fine wines, of food rich and
juicy, of fine strained wines."
3

We are meant to see here how valuable

such invitation is and how odd it is
that we should choose to reject it.
That exactly was what those invited did.
3
The servants God sends up and down the
centuries are his spokespersons who even
now meet the same fate as the prophets of old
and the holy teachers which in itself is hard to
understand or, what even goes beyond
reason, some have been murdered!
3
That was why God the King was angry. What
is God's anger? It is not that he is going into a
good or bad mood again but as a metaphor
for God's desire to set things right.
3
So, the destruction of the
City refers to the
destruction of the
Jerusalem Temple in
70 AD. It signals the
negativity and the spiritual
destruction that follows
from refusal of the divine
invitation.
3
After the refusal is the general invitation to
everyone! This is the relentless offer of grace
given to the good and bad, not because one is
good.

God invites, invites, and invites.

3
Do we refuse?

Yes, sometimes,
because of sin but
God invites
again and again!
3

Having dragged everyone available,

why that action of the king to the man
without his wedding garment?
Has he fall back to his bad mood again?
3 Grace and the initial
acceptance of grace
comes first but it is not
enough!

We must live according to the

rule of the house. We must
dress ourselves appropriately!
3

The wedding garment stands for developed

moral and spiritual life or renewal of life.
Without that renewal, one is no better than those
who had refused the invitation from the
beginning.
 CONCLUSION:

The Parable intends to

wake us up to these
essential dynamics of
spiritual life or holiness.

+ART