Homily for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 15, 2023. Gospel of St. Matthew 22:1-14. Theme: Dressed for (Eternal) Success!
Today’s Gospel gives us another one of Jesus’ parables and while it has a lot going on within it, the partthat seems to always grab people’s attention is the man who gets kicked out of the party for not being properly dressed. That may seem a bit extreme to us, but it’s another reason why I always say that we miss out on the full message of Scripture if we don’t know the culture out of which it came. With this in mind it’s helpful to know that in Jesus’ time when a king gave a party he often supplied more than the expected food, drink and entertainment. The host would often provide a rack of formal garments at the entrance gate for guests who did not come appropriately dressed.
The wedding garment of this parable has often been interpreted as a symbol for the white gown that was given to adult converts at Baptism. We still have a remnant of this custom today which is why catechumens and infants often wear white when receiving this sacrament. It stands for the purity of the brand new spiritual life that is given through the saving grace of Baptism. It’s meant to remind us that through this sacrament we change out of our natural human condition of sin-woundedness and are re-dressed in the clothing of divine life which we call “sanctifying grace”. Or as St. Paul describes it, we “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 13:14) and are no longer spiritually alienated from God.
But let’s get back to that guest who wasn’t wearing his wedding garment and see what that might mean. First, guests often arrived at a wedding party after having traveled for many days and so their clothes were dirty and stained with sweat. Clothing was hand-woven and handmade so it was extremely expensive and so ordinary everyday people didn’t own much of a wardrobe. This is why the host often supplied party garments and thus there was no polite excuse for anyone to enter without it on. This means that the offensive guest in today’s parable either refused the garment in the first place or he was wearing it but at some point decided to take it off. Either one of these actions would be extremely rude and a gesture of ingratitude to the king.
I think we can see in this a symbol for those who either refuse God’s generous gift of eternal life through Baptism or who did indeed receive Baptism but later decided to not abide by it. For whatever reason, they do not want to live a Christian life and have chosen to lay aside their baptismal gown. They have taken off the Lord Jesus Christ and have only their own clothing to wear, soiled by sin and unfit for the wedding feast of Heaven. I bet many of us know people who would fit into this category. And I would also guess that many of us ourselves fall prey to this temptation now and then. And so we might be tempted to take off our wedding garments, assuring ourselves that we will have both the time and the opportunity to put them on again. The famous German Lutheran minister, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was killed by the Nazis in World War II, coined a term for this way of non-challenging self-focused thinking and acting. He called it “cheap grace”.
Cheap grace means that we want God without His commandments; Christ without the cross; Heaven without repentance for sin; and Christianity without all the rules. In other words, cheap grace means that we want a Christianity of our own making; a religion that is fashioned according to our own likes and desires. Cheap grace is a hybrid-Christianity that doesn’t cost us anything or challenge us in any way. However, today’s parable warns us that our refusal to wear the wedding garment of God in favor of the cheap grace of our own clothing, will not only get us kicked out of the party but cause us to run the risk of being cast into the torment of Hell.
And this is where we come face-to-face with the curious saying with which Jesus ends today’s parable: "many are invited but few are chosen". What the Lord is telling us is that in his great mercy and generosity, God invites all human beings to His wedding feast which is a symbol for living in a right relationship with Him both here and hereafter. But not everyone who RSVPs in a positive manner to this invitation ends up actually staying at the party. For various reasons some of us take off the wedding garment and lose our status as guests. While those who do remain dressed in their baptismal gowns for the celebration become the chosen few.
But Jesus always has Good News for us. And the good news for today is that we can always rediscover the beauty of our Baptismal gown and redress ourselves in the wedding garment of saving grace. We do this by our sincere repentance, turning back to God and striving to live life with Him instead of without Him. We recommit to the promises of our Baptism by rejecting sin and selfishness and professing our trust in God as Father, in Jesus as Savior, and in the Holy Spirit as Lord and Giver of Divine Life. And then we can rejoin the party and enjoy all the festivities that God has in store for us at the wedding feast of Heaven.
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