For the last few weeks we have had a clear link between our First Reading (from the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel) and Jesus’s teaching – with a focus on the difference between our view of justice and God’s. This week there is also a link since both concerns feasts – representing God’s favor to His people.
Isaiah’s feast is on a day when the Lord “will destroy death forever” – which the church came to understand as the day of Jesus’ death. The connection is made explicit in the gospel accounts of the crucifixion. Isaiah talks of “destroying the veil that veils all peoples” – the veil that separates people from a full knowledge of God. At the crucifixion “the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom” – the veil in the temple, which symbolized the separation of a distant God, too holy to approach, was destroyed, as Isaiah foretold.
This is a very upbeat account of what to expect on the day of salvation. Jesus however takes his feast in a different direction. First he notes that those who were expected to attend didn’t show up – they were too busy or otherwise engaged – or, worse still, mistreated the messengers (the prophets). This is the same message as we heard last week in the story of the vineyard, where those who were supposed to be the favored ones (Israelites, Catholics, whoever…) turn away from God and loose everything. And once again we are told how God will throw open the kingdom, the feast, to anyone and everyone – they “gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests.”
But then we get the rather odd case of the guy who doesn’t have a “wedding garment”. There has been much debate about what exactly this garment might have been and what it symbolized. To me this seems to miss the main point. The guy might be one of the good or the bad – his lack of proper clothing isn’t connected to whether he “deserved” to be there – nobody did. So why is the king so hard on him – in fact he is treated as harshly as the first set of guests who failed to show up at all. Why? He had just been pulled in from the street, he wasn’t expecting to be going to a wedding. Couldn’t he at least have been given the opportunity to go home and change, if that was such a big deal.
Matthew is making the point that there are two steps or stages in being saved. The first is you have to show up! Now you might not have planned to, you might not be expecting it, but you find yourself there – at the feast – great! Lesson One – show up! Be there!
But when you find yourself at the feast, expected or not, what then? You have to accept that you are there. The problem for the guy without the wedding garment, wasn’t that he didn’t have one – but that he had nothing to say when asked why not. He wasn’t willing to participate in the wedding feast, to recognize what he had been given. So his situation is no different from the first set of guests who also didn’t care to participate.
Lesson One – show up (whether intentionally or not).
Lesson Two – when you find yourself at the feast, be grateful and join in.