Today's passage is Matthew 22:1-14.
Jesus tells the chief priests a the-kingdom-of-heaven-is-like parable, this one of a wedding feast. The invited guests don't come but instead abuse and kill the messengers. The king sends his army and killls them. He tells his servants to go out and invite anyone they find. When the hall is full, the king questions a man without wedding clothes. He tells his servants to bind the man and throw him out. Many are invited, says Jesus, but few are chosen.
The king addresses the man without wedding clothes as "Friend." How can the king address his guest so kindly and then throw him out "into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth"?
Again I'm caught in my humanistic habit of thought.
How can anyone invite a guest to the wedding feast, call him "Friend," seat him, feed him but then reproach him for breaking the dress code and throw him into hell?
What kind of behavior is that?
I understand the king slaughtering the invited guests who refused to come and abused the messengerst. But throwing someone into hell because he wasn't dressed properly does not make humanistic sense.
When I look at the scene with the eyes of redemptive history, however, it makes more sense.
I am that wedding guest.
I have been invited by the Father to the wedding feast of Jesus and the Church.
I came. But am I wearing the right clothes? How do I know I belong at the feast? How does God know I belong, that I am not just one of the invited but one of the chosen too?
Paul tells me that I have to take off my old self and put on my new self.
I have to put on Jesus and wear him.
How will I know I've done that? How will I know I'm wearing Jesus?
When the king said, "Friend" to the wedding guest who wasn't wearing wedding clothes, I think he said it sadly.
The man had responded positively to the invitation but he didn't understand what the invitation really meant.
That's me. I answered the invitation but I didn't know what it really meant.
I didn't understand the commitment to worship, to prayer, to serious reading of the Bible, to actively looking for my sins, for sincere confession, for repentance of my sinful words and deeds, for learning obedience, for accepting my circumstances as my necessary training and striving to change myself not my circumstances, for enduring my suffering, for seeking to know God, for learning how to love.
When I did learn what the wedding clothes are, I wasn't too sure I could wear them. I've been struggling to wear those wedding clothes like a dwarf putting on a giant's clothes.
They don't fit. I trip and fall when I try to walk. I'm not comfortable wearing them but wear them I must if I'm to stay in the banquet hall. I want some magic to make me grow into the clothes but I can't find any. My sins keep me small.
I pray that as badly as I wear the wedding clothes, as poorly as they fit me, that I can stay at the banquet. I don't want to be thrown out.
Lord, I pray you give me the grace to grow into the wedding clothes you have provided for me. Grow me, Lord. Let me not give up and try to take off your clothes and be so comfortable in my own that I do nothing to honor you.
