St. Dominic Catholic Church

Homilies

10/15/2017 28th Sunday Ordinary Time (A)

One day in 1977, in the summer between my junior and senior years in high school, I came home from my job.

I passed by the mailbox outside our home and brought in the mail.

Surprisingly, there was a letter addressed to me from the McDonald’s corporation.

Suddenly, I remembered that nine months earlier, at the urging of my high school band director, I had sent in a list of music awards I had received and an audition tape to the McDonald’s All-American High School Marching Band.

The 102 students from all 50 states and the District of Columbia would receive an all-expense paid trip to New York for a week to march in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and give concerts in the city, including Carnegie Hall.

Then, after Christmas, they’d fly to LA to march in the Rose Parade and Disneyland, and to give a series of concerts here, too.

So much time had passed I’d completely forgotten the application, but here at last was my rejection letter. 

I took a breath, opened the letter, and began to read.

“Congratulations!” it began, and my heart beat faster.

“You are invited to represent the state of Illinois in the McDonald’s All-American Marching Band.”

 

Immediately I thought, “Gee, I have to work some of those days.  And I’d also miss school during that trip to New York.”

So I wrote a letter expressing my regrets to Ronald McDonald…

No, I didn’t!  That would have been absolutely ridiculous, right!?

Now you understand how ridiculous the story is that Jesus told the chief priests and elders.

No one in his culture would have refused an invite to a prince’s wedding banquet, which would have included days of great food, entertainment and socializing with the most important people in the kingdom.

But the response of those invited is ridiculous.

Some refuse to attend.

Others ignore the invitation to spend time down on the farm or at work.

Others kill the messengers.

So the king, who represents God in the parable, destroys them and their city.

Can you say, “over-reaction”?

Everyone in this parable is acting strangely.

 

The whole parable is meant to shake us up, who can be complacent with everyday life.

Who is the son of the king marrying? …  Us – the human race.

You are invited to a nuptial relationship with Jesus – a mutual sharing of life and love.

It’s like a feast of rich food and choice wines.

It’s a relationship that destroys death’s hold over us, according to the prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah is just one of messengers - the prophets - sent by God to His people.

They not only ignored the messages of the prophets, they murdered them, too.

 

By the time Matthew was composing his Gospel, the Romans had destroyed most of Jerusalem during an uprising, including the Temple.

Jesus is not saying that God is a despot looking for an excuse to smite us.

Rather, the over-reaction of the king is meant to highlight how stupid it is to refuse such an incredible invitation.

It expresses the reality that to refuse a relationship with God, the source of life, leads to spiritual destruction. 

There’s nothing worse for us than refusing the invitation to a relationship with God.

 

And the invitation is for everyone – the bad and the good as Jesus says in the parable.

This is grace.  An invitation to spend eternity in heaven.

An invitation that is not earned, but freely given.

 

Who would refuse this invitation?

Lots of people.  We do it all the time.  We have reasons why we don’t pray, don’t read the Bible, and don’t come to Mass.

This last refusal is especially significant given what St. John Paul II said about Mass.

"The mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ is constantly renewed in the Eucharist, the mystical banquet, in which the Messiah delivers Himself as nourishment to the guests, to unite them to Him in a bond of love and life that is stronger than death.  Every time we celebrate the Eucharist we participate in the Lord's supper which gives us a foretaste of the heavenly glory.”

In that quote you should hear echoes from our first reading and Gospel: banquet, love stronger than death.

And this Mass, right now, is a foretaste of heaven.

The good and the bad – and face it, we’re both – are invited to feast with Jesus, who feeds us with his body and blood, the pledge of future glory.

 

How can I say I want to go to heaven if I find excuses not to come to the clearest foreshadowing of it here on earth?

And yet every week, Catholics ignore the invitation to come to Mass, or they find something better to do.

I know work schedules prevent some people from attending Mass on Sunday.

God and the Church do not demand the impossible.

If you know someone in this situation, encourage them to talk to their boss about the possibility of occasionally modifying the schedule to allow them to come to Mass. 

 

Finally, there’s a last disturbing detail.

The fellow without a wedding garment seems to get a bum deal.

He accepted the invitation, but when he showed up, he was thrown out of the party.

Grace is offered to us and must be accepted.

And real acceptance of grace begins a transformation in us.

“Put on the new self,” St. Paul says in the letter to the Colossians.

 “Put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another.” (Col 3:12-13)

The fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, generosity.

This is what new life in Christ looks like.

Is that how people describe you? Compassionate, kind, joyful, humble, gentle, patient, forgiving and generous?

Then you can say with St. Paul, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.”

And your very life will itself be an invitation to others to come to the feast the Father holds in honor of His son and His bride, the Church.