2 Corinthians 1:21-2:4 • Matthew 22:1-14
Glory to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The king in today’s Gospel is of course God the Father. He has laid out a royal feast. He’s brought us here today to share in his table, to have fellowship with him at the Mystical Supper.
After the resurrection, in John 21, we meet Christ on the beach – he has a fire going, fresh bread, fish already on the grill, and he invites the apostles, “Come and dine!” Here is the root of every religion’s sacrificial or sacramental life: Man and his God sit down together and share a meal.
Isaiah says, “On this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of rich things, a feast of well-aged wines well refined” (Isaiah 25:6). “They shall be abundantly satisfied with the abundance of thy house. Thou shalt make them to drink of the rivers of thy delight” (Psalm 36:8). “My body is food, my blood is true drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me” (cf. John 6:30-59).
The king sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come. The bridal feast is served! Come enjoy a welcome at my table! The servants went out to call everyone who’d been invited to the wedding, but they would not come.
This is the call of God to the Hebrew people throughout the Old Testament. He sent all the prophets, and they rejected them, mocked them, tortured and killed some of them. Then he sent John the Baptist, who called the covenant people to repentance, and him they respected and admired. But they rejected the Christ he preached.
So, a second call: “He sent forth other servants, saying: Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been prepared, and everything is ready.” That’s the apostles, sent out after the resurrection to preach to the sons of Abraham in Jerusalem and Judea, Samaria and all the earth (Acts 1:8).
What does it mean that all things are ready? Christ has died and gone down to free all the dead from hades; Christ has risen, ascended, and sits enthroned as King at the right hand of the Father; and he has sent the Holy Spirit to the Church. There’s a table of fellowship spread for you here in the Kingdom of God. Come and be satisfied, abide in Christ; come home.
But though the apostles went out after the resurrection of Christ, to call the children of Abraham to the feast for which they were made, the lawless people who had rejected their God in the flesh continued to reject Christ, and kicked the Christians out of their synagogues. “They took his servants and treated them spitefully and slew them. But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city” (Matthew 22:6,7).
Now the Lord is looking ahead: in just forty more years, the Roman army would destroy the city of Jerusalem and the temple of God. (cf. Matthew 24:2).
“Then he said to his servants: The wedding feast is still ready! The feast is prepared, but the invited guests are not coming. Therefore go into the roads and streets, and as many as you find, invite them to the wedding” (Matthew 22:7-9). Here at last is the call to the people of the nations.
This is nothing new. Abraham was promised, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you… and in you shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:22-4). Israel was from the beginning called to a prophetic role to all nations: “I shall give you as a light to the nations, to be my salvation to the ends of the earth… and kings shall come to the brightness of your rising, and the nations will come to your light” (cf. Isaiah 49, 60). “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations; and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14).
“Go therefore into the roads and streets, and as many as you find, invite them to the wedding. So those servants went out into the roads and gathered together all they found, both evil and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests” (Matthew 22:9-10)
The wedding hall was filled with guests, both evil and good.
I often hear the complaint that the Church is full of hypocrites. I hope so! Because if we who call ourselves disciples of the Lord, yet live with unhealed passions and sins – if we, in our little steps of halfhearted repentance, if we can’t be in the Church, accepted within the grace of the One who invited us – then there is no hope at all for anyone. The Church is full of hypocrites and sinners because that’s who the Church is for. Where do you find sick people? In a hospital.
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A quick side trip: In another parable, in Matthew 13, a man planted a wheatfield but by night his enemy planted poisonous weeds. When the wheat sprouted, it was mixed with weeds. And a servant asked, “Will you have us go cut down the weeds?” but the master said, “No, because while you gather up the weeds you will also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest” (Matthew 13:28-29).
And Christ expands on the parable, “As the weeds are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:27-43).
The thing here that has to both sober us and give us hope is Christ’s word: “Let both grow together until the harvest” (Matthew 13:30; cf. Matthew 3:10,12).
Today, here and now, in these days before the dread judgment seat of Christ, the prophet says, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not extinguish. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice” (Isaiah 42:3). Will you have us go cut down the weeds? No! lest while you cut down the weeds you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. And here is a secret of the Kingdom: Some of those weeds, given time, by grace, will turn to wheat.
So today “the wedding hall was filled with guests, both evil and good.” None of us is yet what we will be. God has not invited us because we were good, but because he is good. There is a Judge, and it’s not us.
“For God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the strong; and the lowly things of this world and the despised things, and the things that are not – these God has chosen, to bring to nothing the things that are: so that no one may boast in his presence.” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29).
The wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment.
Now there’s a custom you see in ancient accounts of kings, up into Byzantine times: Kings and wealthy persons sent gifts of rich garments. And when you went to meet the one who had sent you a rich and beautiful garment of silk, trimmed with fur or precious metals, you wore his gift, and in this way you honored him. You’d be a walking advertisement for the king’s generosity and wealth and good taste. It was also a passport into his presence: You were visibly marked as someone the king favors. The robe says you have his confidence and respect.
Everyone who was invited to the feast, all of them, the good and bad, the rich, poor, clean and filthy, over his own nice clothes or his rags, is wearing the garment he was given as a gift. All but one.
Then the king asks him: “Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?” And the man was speechless.
What is the garment? It’s grace. It’s the action of the Holy Spirit. It’s the oil in the parable of the ten virgins, where five of them kept their lamps full of oil, and five of them ran out: their lamps went dark for lack of the grace of God. (Matthew 25:1-13).
You received grace before you ever came to faith – or if you didn’t, then who called you to Christ? Who drew you to the life of God here in the Church? That was the action of grace, that was God at work.
You received grace in your baptism. When you came out of the water, the priest said, “The servant of God is clothed with the garment of righteousness, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
And in blessing the water for baptism, we prayed, “That this water may be for them a laver of regeneration unto the remission of sins, and a garment of incorruption; let us pray to the Lord. That they may preserve the garment of baptism and the earnest of the Holy Spirit, undefiled and blameless in the fearful day of Christ our God; let us pray to the Lord.”
In your baptism you did not receive a one-time standard dose of Grace and a pat on the back. You entered into a new relationship with the living God in Trinity.
Grace is the very life that flows eternally from God, because he is good. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning: Great is thy faithfulness!” (Jeremiah 3:22-23).
The soul who renews in herself the grace of God – through fasting and struggle for purity, through participating in the Mysteries, through daily offering even the simplest prayers, through acts of mercy and patience – that soul continually keeps her lamp refilled with the oil of the Holy Spirit. That soul clothes herself anew every morning with the shining garment that is the gift of grace.
But when the king came in to see his guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. “Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?” And the man was speechless.
On the Day of Judgment, may God have mercy on us if we come before him empty of grace; without any of his holiness; without the wedding garment that was the gift given by God to mark us as his own.
Then the king said to the servants, “Bind him and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth… for many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:13,14).
God knows your name. He knew you before you were conceived in the womb, and called you by name before the foundation of the earth. God predestined you for union with Himself. Know this for a certainty: You have a calling on your life from the living God. There is eternal fire prepared for the devil, but not for you. You were not made for destruction.
“But we know him who said: Vengeance belongs to me, I will repay, says the Lord. And again: The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. So how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” (Hebrews 10:30-31; 2:3)
Many are called, but few are chosen. The nation God made for himself was invited to the feast of the Savior, but they declined. Now the people of all the nations are called to the feast. Saint Theophylact writes: “It is God’s part to call; but to become one of the chosen or not, is our part.”
Imagine dying of thirst right by the side of the river of life; imagine lamps growing dark, when we are offered abundant oil. Imagine all the treasure of heaven open to pour out grace, and a rich garment freely given – and only through neglect, we arrive at the feast without it.
At the end of all things, in Revelation 19, we read: “Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!” May we preserve the garment of baptism and the grace of the Holy Spirit, undefiled and blameless in the fearful day of Christ our God. To the glory of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
